Electronic Drums

[KuruPrionz]

Many of us find ourselves recording in spaces that are too small for real drums and/or share walls with neighbors. Some of us may not know any drummers or at least any that we want to record with and some of us just want to get funky. 

 

I have a small electronic set that I got piece by piece - Roland HPD-15 Handsonic, added a kick sensor and pedal, Korg Wavedrum Global, a small mixer and a stool. I have real hi hats. I haven't used this set as a set yet, I have used the Handsonic and the Korg individually on some things. 

 

The Korg is the best thing ever, if you play it with your hands you can get amazing expression out of it. No MIDI and programming is a PITA but it sounds fantastic. All the percussion on this track is Wavedrum. 

I've got a few drummer plugins as well - IK Multimedia MODO Drum, NI Drum Lab, NI Studio Drummer and NI West Africa.

It takes me a while to catch on sometimes but it now occurs to me that I can run MODO Drum through NI Komplete Start and assign MIDI knobs on my 25 key Akai MIDI controller to parameters and smoothly change things like snare tones or strike zones. So, that's one of my many new impending experiments. 

 

Who else does electronic drums and what do you do with them?

[Dave Bryce]

I have a Roland HPD-20 Handsonic rig that's fun to use for entering drum and percussion parts.  

 

I've been use to doing that with my fingers on keys for years, so this is really just an extention of that.  The pads are quite sensitive...

 

dB

[KuruPrionz]

Nice! Very compact and versatile. Perfect setup for a small home studio, it can sound gigantic without taking up too much space. 

Are you hooked up to MIDI as well? That opens up a new universe.

Here's my "kit", more or less. There is an actual high hat stand over to the left.

Cymbals are complex little goodies. I haven't recorded with them yet.

 

And I've cobbled up a deep 10" snare from various drums I've found at thrift stores. Too loud if I use sticks but an incredible hand drum for finger playing. 

 

As much as I like my Handsonic, the Wavedrum is my favorite. It responds like a drum (or sometimes, opposite to a drum) in terms of pitch shifting - push on the head with one hand while playing with another. There are layers of strike sensitivity that make a single setting a more complete percussion experience. Reviews I've read indicate that most drummers strike these with sticks and lose a range of tonal variation that is available if you experiment with finger playing. I'm primarily a guitarist so using fingers comes naturally to me. The rim has some interesting tones in some settings as well. I still need to run a MIDI cable from the Handsonic. While the Wavedrum speaks to me for many reasons, the Roland has the library of sounds, both onboard and using plugins. 

 

We can do incredible things with just drum/percussion plugins but I like being able to play an instrument. Maybe if I keep at it I'll get good at doing that! 

[Dave Bryce]

12 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

Nice! Very compact and versatile. Perfect setup for a small home studio, it can sound gigantic without taking up too much space. 

Are you hooked up to MIDI as well?

 

 

Via USB.

 

dB

[KuruPrionz]

Cool, my old Handsonic is DIN MIDI cable only. 

Fortunately, Presonus had the vision to include a MIDI In port on the Quantum TB2 that I use. 

I'll get to it soon. 

 

[KuruPrionz]

Due to temporarily staying elsewhere, I've been working ITB with drum software. Learning all sorts of fun stuff about programming beats. 

I'll be back soon to elaborate, suffice it to say it's completely different than actually playing the beats but the results have been good so far. 

[KuruPrionz]

First, I will note that I got a printout made of my Waveform user's manual, there is a full section on editing MIDI. This is something I've not gotten into yet and it looks powerful, fun and a deep dive into tweaky-deaky world but I'm hoping it can bring a higher level of musicality to my drum parts. 

 

Second, I tried an old trick I might have made up and used on a Metapop remix. It worked nicely on one song and not so well on another. 

This was after converting MIDI tracks to audio. Take a segment of kick and or snare (or whatever you want) loopage, copy and paste it into the next track below th existing audio, cut it in half and stretch it out to the same length. It will be in time, more open and an octave lower. An interesting blend trick, worth a try at least. 

[Mighty Motif Max]

Raising this year-old thread from the depths to add the new mini kit setup I put together last year. Ironically it was not that much more expensive to buy an entire TD-17KVX with the sale at the time than it was to buy the hihat unit, stand, and kick tower separately, so I actually just bought a TD-17KVX kit and parted it out for the mini kit. However, within a few weeks, I switched to using the TD17 kit because, why not? I had it already, and the portability factor was about equivalent once in a rolling case for either unit. But for the record, this is a setup that I can confirm works great for a compact kit!

 

I also would say that the entire point of the SamplePad Pro is importing user samples vs the stock sounds - the stock sounds aren't terrible, but they're not as good as what you can load yourself. I highly suggest sampling individual hits from drum software and rendering those as WAV's in your DAW, then loading them in (16-bit is required). I got a great sound from sampling Addictive Drums 2. For live use I panned kick/toms left and snare/cymbals/percussion right, so the sound engineer can receive a "lows" signal and a "highs" signal to balance.

 

Alesis SamplePad Pro

Alesis Strike tom pad as the snare (dual-zone)

Roland KD-10 kick pad

Roland VH-10 hi-hat

 

There is room for one more pad, so one could, for example, put a single-zone cymbal pad somewhere and use that for a crash. That was my next upgrade before I just switched to the TD17 kit.

 

 

[KuruPrionz]

Looks like a cool rig Max!

I spent 14 months living elsewhere and they finally finished my condo but I had to put everything in two small bedrooms so it's a clutter bomb for now. 

 

I realized that I don't need much, have started in selling as many things as I can. Much more needs gone. 

I do have my basic studio back up and running but no percussion yet and I may just do multiple tracks with the Korg Wavedrum. 

It's far and away my favorite electronic drum, the sensitivity is amazing. 

[Old No7]

Wow, you guys have some SERIOUS drums for being keyboard players!

 

Makes the new-to-me Alesis SR-16 seem rather old school (cause it IS!) and a light weight, but for now, it's meeting my needs.

 

Old No7

[Paul Vnuk Jr.]

As a drummer, I live two lives, I guess you could say. The "normal" drummer in me loathes electronic drums. I need the nuance that only real heads and cymbals can give me. However, recently I reviewed and have been using the first electronic drums that psycho-acoustically get me as close to electronic drums as I have ever gotten, and that is the EFNote kits, especially the cymbals.

 

I am also an electronic percussionist who does tribal ambient music, and in that scenario, I play two Korg Wavedrums––an original from the early 90s and the second-gen from about 2010. More than those, I play an ATV AFrame drum. All three are synth more than sample-based and use mics and sensors to translate actual hits on a drum head into electronic sound.

[bill5]

It's amazing to me how much you can spend on e-drums if you want. I'm eyeing the cheaper sets which should be enough for me, like the Alesis Turbo.

[Paul Vnuk Jr.]

9 hours ago, bill5 said:

It's amazing to me how much you can spend on e-drums if you want. I'm eyeing the cheaper sets which should be enough for me, like the Alesis Turbo.

 

I agree and I say this as a synthesis and high-end recording gear nerd...even budget e-kits are really expensive. Of course when a profession acoustic ride cymbal can fetch $800 I guess it becomes relative at some point.

[bill5]

Well for me my drum needs are basic and I'm no drummer, so it's much more about the VI I use than the drums themselves. I wish I could get past the idea of using loops as "cheating" but I can't, I want all of my recordings to be my performances, so -

[RABid]

People have been using drum machines on hit records since the early 80's. Today's cheap electronic drum kits and drum machines are much better than the drum machines used back then. I was using a Sequential Drum Trax on stage in the 80's for covering Prince and Herbie Hancock. My Roland TR-8s and Elektron boxes are so much more advanced. Roland has the better sounds, but Elektron lets you go much deeper with sequencing. 

 

As for an electronic kit, I started with a Roland SPD-10 kit. Eventually got a TD-8 and started buying individual V-drums off of Ebay. At some point I upgraded to a TD-30x. The original SPD-10 got replaced with a SPD-30 and SPD-SX Pro. Also have 2 Handsonics, a 15 and a 20. Love them all. Been building the kit for over 20 years. It has grown in time.

 

[RABid]

By the way, everything you see in the above picture can be bested by XO, a $130 drum VST by XLN. Software is the way to go for good sounding budget drums, and XO is the best of the budget drum VST's.

[bill5]

Yeah I don't care how good the sounds that come with a kit are because I plan to use my own. MT Power Drum Kit and Steven Slate Lite are excellent freebies IMO but I plan to get EZDrummer eventually 

[Brian McConnon]

I'm mainly using electronics on a practice kit so I can be quiet in the house and still have as close to an acoustic experience as possible. I don't record much, but play live in two bands with acoustic kits that I take out - Gretch and DW. I sometimes use a multipad for electronic sounds, sound FX, or an occasional loop.

 

Here is my practice setup:

A Gretch Catalina Club kit with mesh heads and Roland triggers on the toms, and Alesis SE Pro snare and a Roland KT-10 kick pedal. These all trigger custom multilayer kits I built in an Alesis Strike Multipad. I don't like hitting rubber so I use Zildjian L-80 cymbals with a dual capsule Austrian Audio mic (seen above the kit sideways to pick up L and R) and run everything through a mixer and headphones. Feels great, sounds great and I can play anytime day or night and not disturb family and neighbors.

 

[Paul Vnuk Jr.]

First off...somehow I never knew you played drums, Brian. 😀

 

Second, how do the Zildjian L-80 cymbals sound miked? Didn't Zildjian have its own mic system for these at one time?

[RABid]

On 7/21/2023 at 11:10 PM, Paul Vnuk Jr. said:

Second, how do the Zildjian L-80 cymbals sound miked? Didn't Zildjian have its own mic system for these at one time?

I have the full set of Zildjan. Okay for practice, but they have a dead sound to them. And honestly, I don't really like the feel of them. I think it may be all the holes. If your stick hits the edge of a hole it throws the bounce off. 

[Paul Vnuk Jr.]

4 hours ago, RABid said:

I have the full set of Zildjan. Okay for practice, but they have a dead sound to them. And honestly, I don't really like the feel of them. I think it may be all the holes. If your stick hits the edge of a hole it throws the bounce off. 

 

I have tried them in a rack and a music store and it felt like hitting tin...

[Brian McConnon]

On 7/21/2023 at 8:10 PM, Paul Vnuk Jr. said:

First off...somehow I never knew you played drums, Brian. 😀

 

Second, how do the Zildjian L-80 cymbals sound miked? Didn't Zildjian have its own mic system for these at one time?

 

Man of mystery... 🤔😂

 

The L-80's work great for a practice setup like this. Miked in stereo and with a little EQ, they sound pretty decent when mixed with the kit and whatever I'm practicing along with. They are waaaay closer to playing real cymbals than rubber, but of course don't quite sound and feel like the full monty.