Upgrade TD-17 Module or Drum Pads?

[tomq94]

I only use my Roland TD-17 KVX for recording plugins such as Addictive Drums 2 and BFD 3 in Ableton Live.


I would like to have the most realistic sounding drums before I record an album.

I would like the snare, hi-hat and ride to be more realistic, sensitive and have a wider velocity range for recording.

Should I buy new Pads or a new Module?

I only want to record software and will never use the kit for anything else.


Any help would be really appreciated!

 

[Doraemon]

You can get a wider velocity range by choosing a different velocity curve in trigger settings. Do you have a budget?

 

[tomq94]

Hey, thanks for the reply. I have tried that but haven't got much better results.

I would be willing to sell my TD-17KVX and upgrade if there was something that could guarantee me better results, Im just confused as to whether that is achieved in the module or the pads.

What would you suggest?

Would something like this help do you think?

Roland TD-27 Upgrade Pack incl. Module Upgrade V2 and Live Sound Edition

The TD-27 expansion pack for your kit: With the TD-27 you can integrate Roland's new digital generation into your drum set! All necessary…

www.drum-tec.com

 

[Doraemon]

Hey, thanks for the reply. I have tried that but haven't got much better results.

That's strange, on my old cheap Surge and now Strike modules, changing the curve significantly changed the dynamics.
MIDI values go from 0-127, so that won't change, just how you get to those numbers.
That upgrade pack is a bit expensive, but maybe OK. Prolly then you'd miss the digital hats, which are also expensive. There's another pack with the hats, but then you could also get the whole kit for 3k. A better VST like Superior Drummer could also elevate things. I imagine there are many other factors to make it sound realistic, some that would depend on the sound engineer, mixing etc. I'm not sure if it's just $$$.

 

[green glass drum]

Here is an option.....sir. Superior.

 

[doggyd69b]

Hey, thanks for the reply. I have tried that but haven't got much better results.

I would be willing to sell my TD-17KVX and upgrade if there was something that could guarantee me better results, Im just confused as to whether that is achieved in the module or the pads.

What would you suggest?

Would something like this help do you think?

Roland TD-27 Upgrade Pack incl. Module Upgrade V2 and Live Sound Edition

The TD-27 expansion pack for your kit: With the TD-27 you can integrate Roland's new digital generation into your drum set! All necessary…

www.drum-tec.com

It's actually cheaper to buy a whole new TD27 than to buy the pads and module separate and yes that will improve your experience significantly because the TD27 comes with 3 digital pads and that pack only comes with two. The 3 pads are the hi hats, the snare, and the ride.
Find A used TD27 at a music store and buy that instead if you don't want to spend the $$ for a complete new one, and sell your old one to offset some of the cost.

I don't believe the TD17 has positional sensing either so there's that.

With the TD 27 you can record your drums (with any backing track that you bring in via the aux in or blue tooth) or just the drums, or you can connect your drums and record multitrack to a daw or just midi or both (if you do both you can blend in your module's samples with your software samples, for example a lot of people try to achieve the Deftones White Pony album sound using Superior Drummer or Steven Slate Drums, and mostly succeed but to my ear they all fail when it comes to the punch of the bass drum.. well, my TD27 has a blended sample that perfectly matches the bass drum of that album so, If I was recording using Superior drummer I would leave everything as is but I will add and blend in that Roland sample and Voila! Perfect Deftones White Pony album sound!). Not sure you can do that with the TD17. Also you have dedicated knobs to just adjust settings on the fly without having to dig into menus so that is a huge bonus. Clearly the much better module is the TD50X but you are only gaining on more adjustabilty that you might never use and the TD50 has the same sounds as the TD27 so there's that.