My e-drums shopping and buying experience + reviews of 5 different electronic kits

[dmt]

I see this kind of thing is currently a topic of interest here, so I just wanted to add my reviews after a recent shopping

and buying experience:

 

Roland V-Drums kit: Looks great, great feel (on the

more espensive V-Stage or V-Concert mesh kit), sounds good but

a bit fake if you are going for an acoustic kit sound.

The

top-of-the-line cymbals feel great. The bottom of the

line hard rubber kit (V-Club) is much less satisfying

(I'd go

for the Yamaha just on price) Most reviews say these

are THE drums to get if you want non-acoustic sounds.

Expensive.

 

Clavia Ddrums4 - Wow! These are so close to a real

kit it's scary. The interface (inputs and outputs) is

getting out of date, but the playing subtleties and

sounds - wow. This is the kit to get if you want to

get a kit that is as close as possible to an acoustic

kit (sound and feel). Expensive. Exceeded all my

expectations of what an e-drum kit could be. The kit

I played had realistic heads and was a bit loud (stick

noise-wise) for apartment dwellers.

 

Yamaha DT Express - sounded kind of fake, but ok. The upright (non-inverted beater)

kick pedal with the demo unit was nice (but it cost extra).

The hard pads would kill

your wrists after a while. Great price. This is what

I expected e-drums to be like from my previous

experiences a few years ago.

 

(used) Alesis DM Pro Kit (Alesis DM Pro brain with

special made-for-Alesis Hart Kit). Single-ply mesh

heads are no longer state-of-the art. They are

bouncier than real heads or the new double-ply heads

that more closely mimic real head response. Still,

they

feel GREAT compared to solid rubber though. Upgrading

to new double-plys is only $20 per head. Nice big

heads - 10 or 11 in. I think (but, of course, that

makes the kit somewhat large). The included cymbals

are rudimentary compared to the newest e-cymbals and a bit loud on the stick noise for apartments (new

thicker rubber pads for the cymbals are cheap, $10

each, upgrade). The DM Pro module has no onboard

sequencer, making it out of date. In fact, this

model has been recently discontinued (Alesis'

commitment to this market is a bit of a concern). I

was able to find a more realistic acoustic sounding

"kit" on the DM Pro than I was on the Roland TD 10 module

(though I admittedly didn't go deeply into every "kit"

available on the Rolands). I immediately felt the DM

Pro Kit sounded more acoustic-like compared to the Rolands

(though the top-end Roland kits somehow had a definitely

more professional feel to them). The DM Pro's sounds

are supposed to be infinitely tweak-able, but I've

never done any of that editing. The acoustic sounding

"kits" are a little reverb-heavy, but I believe that can

be fixed. All in all I was smitten with the sound of

this kit until I tried the Ddrums (to which they didn't

even begin to compare).

 

I'm a drummer neophyte , but have been playing one or

another instrument for over 30 years. I've been

wanting some kind of drum kit for a long time, but

acoustic kits were just too loud for my living

situation, and previously the electronic kits I had

tried had just sounded too fake for my roots-y to

classic rock style of music. After my initial shopping, I

brought along my non-musician wife. She basically

agreed with all of my above impressions. In fact, she

was so strong for the Ddrums that she was willing to

blow our budget and go for them! I had to be

reasonable about the price, though. I, as the

beginning drummer, just couldn't justify the Ddrums'

price at this point. I had been really strong for the

used DM pro Kit (the Ddrums were so far out of my

price range that I didn't let them bother me), but my

wife [legitimetly] pointed out that all the non-Ddrum kits

were comparatively "toys"! Well, I went ahead and

bought the DM Pro Kit antway. I'll admit I was a little

bummed out about it at that point. Fortunately, my

friend, who is an excellent drummer (and gigs four

nights a week, every week), came over that first night and proceeded to

tear it up on my DM Pro Kit. He was way jealous, and

I felt waaay better about my purchase. He's a very

heavy-handed drummer and under his banging the plastic

clamps on the DM Pro kit will move a bit. Under a

lighter hand like mine, they stay put fine.

 

By the way, this drummer friend of mine had previously

been most interested in the Yamaha DT Express kit when

he went shopping with me. He's not into spending big

bucks on musical equipment, and the Yamaha kit, while

inferior to the others, totally met his

price/performance ratio criteria. He sure does like

the DM Pro Kit now, though - especially since I paid for

it!

 

Now that I've had the DM Pro Kit for two months, I can

say it does occasionally glitch. Nothing a re-boot

or messing around with a jack plug won't fix so far, and

nothing that's a major problem in terms of practical home and

recording use, but, it might be a little on the

glitchy side for totally comfortable live use.

 

These are just my opinions - Hope this helps someone.

[dmt]

Oh yeah, I said 5 kits because I counted the Roland V-Club (hard rubber pads) and V-Stage (mesh heads and better sound module) as two different kits.

[captain54]

I've had all the kits you've mentioned except the Ddrum...

 

I was able to get most of my money back by selling off a lot of the stuff, but overall it's all ridiculously overpriced...

 

I had a DM Pro with Hart Pads that I used live for a while, and with the PA setup, I had spent enough to buy a real, real, nice acoustic kit...that is when I decided to go back to acoustic for live playing...

 

The Ddrums are probably great, but are they worth the cost?? I guess, if you have somehow figured out a way to make a living with them....otherwise to me they're just an expensive toy...

 

In the end, I just decided to go with a V-Club kit for practice and messing around, and triggering samples from my software samplers and sequencers...

[dmt]

captain54,

 

I agree w/ you that these kits are all frustratingly expensive - esp. when you compare them to an acoustic kit. Not to mention that if you want real drum sounds and feel, the real acoustic kit simply blows them all out of the water. Still, there are the obvious advantages to e-drums and in fact they were the only way for me to go in my tiny studio apartment.

 

I should add that I didn't really strongly consider the solid rubber pad kits principally because I've been battling hand, wrist and forearm problems the last few years (I usually "type" via a voice recognition program). The mesh heads were the only way to go for me.

 

I've read that many people just use their kits to trigger high quality samples (like you do), so in that case, the on-board sounds wouldn't be very important. I haven't gotten that far yet. I basically just turn on my DM Pro to "ProRock Kit 6" and drum away. It sounds pretty good.

 

Like you, I couldn't justify the expense of the most expensive kits either. I'm glad I got my kit at used prices!

[captain54]

Originally posted by dmt:

captain54,

 

I've read that many people just use their kits to trigger high quality samples (like you do), so in that case, the on-board sounds wouldn't be very important.

The DM Pro has probably the best bang for the buck compared to any module out there...I wish I still had mine...the Roland td-10 with the expansion board is probably 3x more money and it's not all that much better than the DM Pro as far as actual comparisons of sounds....drum module cymbals suck either way you look at it so I'm not even going there...

 

The problem with the DM Pro is (and I got this from Peter Hart himself), is that because it's so relatively inexpensive, you have to do a hell of a lot of the tweaking yourself in order to get it to respond correctly to e-drum pads...it was originally designed to be a high quality sound module, and the trigger inputs were kind of put there as a throw-in...

 

that being said, you could trigger DMpro samples, record them, (toms, kicks, snares, with the FX off), and get some damn good drum recordings...

[deanmass]

I played a Hart rig, a Yamaha DTX 2 and a Roland V-Club kit last week. I thought the Roland kit was hands down the best, but I am not a true drummer, more of a back-up drummer. When I buy, I am getting the Roland set. If I could only get them to toss in a HandSonic...sigh....

[Allan Speers]

Dmt,

 

This thread has become pretty interesting to me. I have sold my V-Session kit (sob!) to buy saome Avid gear. The project I needed this for will make me enough profit that I can once again purchase e-drums in about a month. So....

 

I really liked the V-session, and would probably just buy another, but I'm keeping my options open.

 

I understand that the newest Ddrums pads are actually inferior to the older ones (only one sensor!) and there are even TWO versions of the new ones. Do you know which version you played?

 

Has anyone tried Pintech?

[mcochran]

Hey, just my 2 cents worth.. I've had real drum kits, as well as electronic.. on the electronic side I've had 2 v-session kits (at different times), one I bought all at once, the second I bought after a stint with acoustics, and I pieced that set together piece by piece from ebay (much cheaper that way) . I also had a kit made up of pd-9 pads. I got rid of all of them after playing on a friends drum tech kit.. I was immediately in love with the response and feel of these pads.. none of the sponginess of the mesh pads, and just the right amount of rebound. They are softer than the roland rubber pads.. and I found that they trigger far more accurately than the mesh head rolands. My current set is made up of these.. but I still had to have a roland kd-120 kick.. I love that thing.

 

As far as v-cymbals go, I absoluty LOATHED the roland cy series.. they mistriggered all the time.. I truly hated those, but figured it was just one of those things you deal with when employing digital cymbals. That is until I happened upon visu-lite cymbals.. NIRVANA. They are seriously sensitive and trigger flawlessly.. and are 1/3 the price of roland v-cymbals. The only drawback there is the stick noise, but I either play loudly with other musicians or thru headphones, so it's not an issue for me.

 

I've had a td-10, a td-5, a td-7, and a td-6. The td-6 is the best sounding module, but lacks all the extra features of the td-10.. but then I never really needed all those anyways. As far as other manufacture's modules, I have no idea..

 

Just my experience... ;-)

[joedrumma]

I'm using the ddrum4 with ddrum triggers on my acoustic kit. I get a great, totally realistic sound through the PA w/o mics at every gig. The newer pads referred to are the mesh ones - ddrum came out with those to compete with the Roland pads. I have the old pads, which are a little too loud for my tatse. The old pads have positional sensing, which the new ones don't. It's not a feature that would be missed, since few of their sounds use it. It does make for some interesting midi effects though, as each pad sends out 8 different midi notes. I also have a DM5 and a DM Pro and I've been able to get some pretty whacky effects this way. For my live gigs, I don't get positional sensing with the triggers and I don't miss it.

 

A couple of folks said they are expensive, but the ddrum 'brain' can be bought new for under $1000. Add the triggers for about $250 and you're ready to rock. A great ddrum feature - you can delete some/all sounds from the brain and replace them with totally new sounds that you download for free from the clavia website. Very cool.

[DRi]

i use a V drum kit on loan to trigger samples. i cant actually get my head around how TERRIBLE the roland on-board samples are.

 

so typically "roland" its pathetic.

 

unfortunately here in australia is a little more difficult to get your hands on other brands of electronic kits.

 

but like i said, hooking up my MPC sampler to trigger that is a blast. i sample old funk and jazz records for single hit sounds and playing out a variety of funk rhythms makes for great breaks.

 

i do still think that digital drums are in their infancy.... both in terms of tech and the market. im definately impressed by the double ply mesh heads. this is really progressive technology and a life-saver for both home-studios and, like me, sampler/sequencer acts who need more variety then accoustik kit of drum machine could provide.

 

thanks for the review dmt...

[techristian]

I'm suprised that with all of the reviews no one tried out PINTECH !

 

Dan

 

http://teachmedrums.com

[zele]

Look into a used Fat Kat and Kurzweil rack --about $1000