Kick Drum Freaks!

[twostone]

I played an e-kit for about a dozen years or so and NEVER had any issues. I played through some very large PAs with it and used it in the studio, and there was never anything but compliments and praise from sound men, recording engineers, and audience members, and clients...and other musicians too. I used DDrum, but this was back when DDrum was owned by Clavia in Sweden which was loooong before Clavia chose to focus on the Nord/Lead keyboards and sold the DDrum electronics unit to Armadillo...and then Armadillo chose to make the DDrum name an acoustic drumline and totally let the DDrum electronics go to hell. The Roland stuff is complete {censored}. And I don't mean that in the good sense as in "it's the {censored}." I mean it's a big pile of tremendously overpriced, overhyped dung. It has computer generated sounds instead of real drum samples. It has way too many audio effects which drummers shouldn't be allowed to touch. It's a veritable toy that should be on the shelves at K-Mart, Wal-Mart, and Sam's Club instead of a professional level music store. The DDrum 3 gear made back in the early to mid-90s would smoke anything out there today except perhaps for the new offerings from 2Box which have yet to hit the USA. Neil Peart still uses electronics in his live setup but I don't think he's used it for recording on RUSH's last couple albums. He did not play a single song on his electric kit on their Time Machine tour (2010 and 2011 dates), but that could change when they tour in 2012. He did, however, incorporate his electronic kit into a segment of his drum solo. As for his actual electronic kit, he has a modified DW/Roland setup. DW made him some custom shells to match the shells of his acoustic kit. DW has done this for him at least since their comback in 2001/2002 with Vapor Trails, and they may have done it for him back in 1995/1996 on their Test for Echo release/tour. The electronics within the shells are Roland. The cymbal pads are Roland. I don't think he's using any Roland module. His samples (I believe) are stored on some sort of Akai sampler. Back in the 80s, his first electronics were Simmons and then he switched to DDrum pads. When Clavia started leaning more heavily towards keyboards and waivering on e-drum support, he switched to Roland.

 

 

Got a decent laptop with plenty of CPU and RAM horse power and usb/midi cable ? if so you buy VSTi drum module like Ezdrummer which make all kinds of different Ez-packs like this Nashville which I use and own my self and love it and can bypass the synthetic Roland samples.

Maybe some day Muse will release the Musebox to the public then you can store a VSTi drum library in it and ditch the laptop.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zpa4hpK_aRc&feature=related

[Zeromus-X]

1) Admittedly, the kick drum sound was over-all pretty good... pretty much through any speaker... but especially the snare and cymbals sounds left a lot to be desired... maybe more tweaking was needed... but it just didn't seem like there's an equitable synthed replacement for the snare & cymbals yet. 2) Set-up of the e-drums seemed to take A LOT LONGER . 3) We commonly play fairly small private affairs, and commonly don't mic the drums or run any wedge monitors... and if we do, it's a couple mics on the drums and a couple of wedges up-front and one for the drummer... doing vocal duty only. With the e-drums... there was gobs more stuff to plug-in than we're commonly used to and the seeming requirement for much more substancial drum monitors than we'd generally consider with acoustic drums. 4) The e-drum kit with it's fixed rack consumed "more than we're used to" chunk of real estate as compared to how far an acoustic trap kit can be pruned down to and still get the job done on a postage-stamp sized stage... being a common stage size for us. I dunno... I suppose working with an e-drum kit for awhile, maybe some stuff could be figured out to realize some streamlining... or maybe in different applications it's just the ticket... I dunno...

 

 

I wouldn't drag race with a stock F150, and I wouldn't play a gig with an e-kit off the shelf. The negatives you posted appear to be problems based on the user, not problems based on the instrument. That said, trying to force an e-kit into a situation where an acoustic kit would be better obviously will never work.

 

Setting up the e-drums requires time to hook up all the drums themselves, which can take longer than acoustics if you don't have to mic everything. However, loading in and out tends to go a lot faster IMO -- my entire e-drum kit fits in one flight case, 46" x 15" x 16". That's stands, pads, cymbals, throne, module, cables, and my stick bag. I can wheel my rig into the venue in the time it'd take an acoustic drummer to carry in his bass drum (provided there are no stairs -- at which point it does require two people to lift the case).

 

I find that having all the drums in the stage monitor mix makes for a much more pleasant sound than having a couple acoustic drums in there (if at all). When I do front line shows (bass, guitar), I know I damn well prefer hearing the sound come out of my wedge at a reasonable level instead of standing next to a crash cymbal all night.

 

As far as space is concerned, if the drummer's using a huge rack, that's again the fault of the drummer. I ditched my rack and use two cymbal stands -- one triple-holder with a ride and two toms, one triple-holder with a crash, tom, and splash, as well as a snare stand and hi-hat stand. I can set up on my 5.5' diameter (circle) drum riser, and since there's no open low-end mics on the stage, we can put the subs right under the drums to save space in small venues.

 

It's all in how you deal with it.

[W. M. Hellinger]

The negatives you posted appear to be problems based on the user, not problems based on the instrument. It's all in how you deal with it.

 

I fully agree. I strongly suspect my posting typifies that which can go horribly wrong being naive about the whole affair. It was as much my fault (being the bass playing gearhead of the band) as anything.

 

In my own defense: I did strongly suggest over and over that we do a full dress rehearsal with the e-kit before we hit a paying stage

[fdew]

In my own defense: I did strongly suggest over and over that we do a full dress rehearsal with the e-kit before we hit a paying stage

[W. M. Hellinger]

Our worship team knows that I have just one rule that can not be broken. No new equipment on Sunday morning. "You just bought a Les Paul. Great. I look forward to seeing it AT THE NEXT PRACTICE." No exceptions, Not even for us on the tech team.

Ah yes, you've rekindled my memory concerning the response for why it was a seeming hurtle to get the e-kit to practice for a shake-down cruise... and how the pre-gig discussion went:

Can't bring it to practice because: "It's fairly involved to transport, set-up, tear-down, would take up a lot of room in the practice space, involves quite a bit of wiring stuff up and dialing things in, need some decent monitors, not real happy with the sound from especially the cymbals & snare (but the kick-drum is awesome), and there's some glitches maybe in the programming or presets I haven't quite figured out yet."

"But you're figuring on using it at the gig?" "YEA! The kick drum sound is AWESOME". "The gig's a backyard birthday party for a 70yo. farm gal... I didn't even figure on micing the kick... or any of the drums... probably be more suitable to play with your brushes most of the night." "Yea, but the kick drum sound is AWESOME... you wanna hear it on my I-phone?"

[gspointer]

I like the E-kit for a few reasons, the 2 main ones are speed to set up, and the small space. I just fold the ends in, and leave it all hooked up except the kick pad, and hat pedal.