electronic drum kit

[crox]

I am well aware that we will struggle to create an authentic sound with an electronic kit but...We need to invest in a kit, so any ideas? Budget is sub £2k and I know nothing about these, so advice?!

[dynamo_ozz]

I am well aware that we will struggle to create an authentic sound with an electronic kit but...We need to invest in a kit, so any ideas? Budget is sub £2k and I know nothing about these, so advice?!

 

Two decent sounding e-drum kits: Roland and Yamaha DTX. My advice would be to go to a shop and play it a little bit. You wouldn't be able to afford the latest Roland for £2k but the older versions might do the job.

 

Have a look at Wembley Drum Centre if you are London based.

[crox]

We have already sent our drummer out to look. In some ways, as it will be more for practice rather than live application, and that once it is setup, that's it, we are prepared to look at something a but cheaper as we don't need 10 channels out

[ghance]

U might need 10 ch out, but yr engineer might.. Ooo the times I've been seen spitting at the drummer from FOH cos the L/R snd sounds like a bontempi organ on bosa nova overdrive

[mrcog]

I'd definatly look into something with more than just an L/R output... I'm not sure whether any of the brains let you have a compromise and let you have maybe 5 outputs for a little bit cheaper than the full number of outputs? However it would make getting the balance right in a live mix much much easier!

 

James

[dbuckley]

... sounds like a bontempi organ on bosa nova overdrive

Those were the days :)

[RoyF18]

I've worked with various electronic drumkits, some sounding better than others. Sticking in my mind just now is a theatre job I did recently and the drummer had a Roland kit; every time he started playing it just sounded as though the keyboard player had pressed the 'demo' button. F**king horrible. Maybe a lack of skill on my part, but I couldn't get his L+R signal to sound natural. Would've given anything for 10 channels of normal kit, anything!

[dbuckley]

The trick with electronic drums is to get the sounds right "in the brain" and then you don't need EQ (or gates or comps) at the desk, which will invariably make the kit sound worse.

 

If the brain doesn't do it for you then get a sampler, find a set of samples that you like the sound of, and link the sampler to the electronic drumkit with a MIDI cable.

 

David, who doesn't play drums (even on TV), but has two pad kits, two brains, and a sampler. Perhaps I should learn to play drums one day...

[gareth]

Roland every time. Your budget will easily get you a TD9 kit with mesh-headed pads (the mesh heads are very important - they're so much nicer and more natural to play on than the awful rubber things that cheaper kits come with). The sounds are pretty good, and you can set the level of each sound relative to the others within the 'brain' so that you can get a halfway-decent mix on the stereo outputs.

 

If you can throw another few hundred quid at it, you could go for the TD12, which has improved sounds, more 'tweakability', and four audio outputs so that you can split bits of the kit off to different channels on the desk if you want to.

[TallMike]

I've just bought the TD9KX with the mesh heads - it's great!

[tomrbland]

+1 for Rolland, I am a drummer and at the moment I am playing on a TD-8 brain with home made mesh heads. The TD-8 brain is ace, I'll find some recordings of it if you're interested (PM me). It has 4 outputs and they are going quite cheap on ebay as they don't make them any more. I would recommend the TD-9 but it only has 2 outputs which I find annoying.

[timtheenchanteruk]

cant remember which brain we have, but it does have multiple outputs, 5 of them IIRC, snare, kick, hi-hat, cymbals and toms, it is quite old, but not bad.

 

never got it to sound quite right though, seems to be missing the "overheads" sound, might just be me, I'm more theatre experience than band recording.

[steve.pie]

+1 for Roland. I gig regularly with a TD10 expanded, using all 8 outs into a Behrin*er 8 way DI ... thus getting a fairly large kit down to 8 channels at FOH, but still giving the engineer enough channels to add gates/comps/fx as reqd.

 

1. kick

2 snare

3.hats

4. toms L

5. toms R (note ; for channels 4 & 5, all 4 toms pre-panned in module to use 2 channels of out)

6. cymbals L

7. cymbals R (note; for channels 6 & 7, 1 x ride + 2 x crash pre-panned in module)

8. stuff (2xextra pads doing cowbell/claps/timbale/fart noises etc)

[Mr Illusive]

U might need 10 ch out, but yr engineer might.. Ooo the times I've been seen spitting at the drummer from FOH cos the L/R snd sounds like a bontempi organ on bosa nova overdrive

 

 

I'd definatly look into something with more than just an L/R output... I'm not sure whether any of the brains let you have a compromise and let you have maybe 5 outputs for a little bit cheaper than the full number of outputs? However it would make getting the balance right in a live mix much much easier!

 

James

 

I know its obvious that more channels is better for control during the engineering mixdown part of the track, but itsn't it possible to record the midi during a take and then replay the part(s) back independently via mute/solo bouncing each element down to separate audio tracks afterwards? That would be your way around limited audio outs I'm guessing.

[mervaka]

are you talking about a studio context? we're all talking about a live context :blink:

 

EDIT: I think?