E-drums: could they be a common thing for small bands gigs?

[Orvillain]

Then it apparently sucks to be you. Advocating the use of edrums as some kind of ideal solution is completely nonviable for all the reasons enumerated by others in this thread.

And this is the thing.... my very first post in this thread:

Post in thread 'E-drums: could they be a common thing for small bands gigs?'

Jul 7, 2025

Most of the gigs I've played in my career have been small to medium sized rock clubs and pubs in the UK, with 3-5 band line ups, with shared drums and cabs, and people usually would just bring their breakables.

Now here's how I see it with drums:

- Drummer sits at kit. First thing they wanna do is adjust the hihat clutch. On an acoustic kit, this is a very intuitive and tactile thing. On an electronic kit, this completely fucks any playability that has already been dialed in for the kit.

- Drummers usually want to move stuff around, change the heights of things, switch out cymbals...

• Orvillain

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• 

For all of the faux-offense Mr. Pro Engineer is giving us, he actually hasn't really tackled much of what anyone has said. Not on any meaningful level.

 

[sashimi]

.... and when he ignores you .... or better yet, tells you to f-off?

And if you are mixing a gig with one that doesn't? What do you do?

I’m guessing this is when you start the lecture on the superiority of e drums? Do you keep a set in the trunk just for these situations? How many drummers have you converted to e drummers at sound check?

 

[paisleywookiee]

Agree to disagree.

That's too bad, but we all see things differently I guess. I quite like the majority of people here, and even when I get flat out angry with people sometimes, I usually come around to at least seeing their perspective, differences in personality, etc. But to each their own.

 

[Jarick]

I saw Garbage yesterday and Butch Vig was play a Roland V-Drum set. Sounded just fine to me and worked well for their music. Might have been the first time I've seen a drummer on a full electronic kit in a bigger name band.

 

[paisleywookiee]

I saw Garbage yesterday and Butch Vig was play a Roland V-Drum set. Sounded just fine to me and worked well for their music. Might have been the first time I've seen a drummer on a full electronic kit in a bigger name band.

Butch Vig also likely has the budget to get a damn good kit too. The cost to quality ratio is much more steep with eKits, than acoustic, IMO.

 

[Jarick]

Butch Vig also likely has the budget to get a damn good kit too. The cost to quality ratio is much more steep with eKits, than acoustic, IMO.

He had the high end V-Drums that looked like real drums, with the rubber cymbals and some extra pads. If you weren't a drummer you wouldn't notice. Even back in the 90's he wore noise blocking headphones and had loops going on and all that.

 

[paisleywookiee]

He had the high end V-Drums that looked like real drums, with the rubber cymbals and some extra pads. If you weren't a drummer you wouldn't notice. Even back in the 90's he wore noise blocking headphones and had loops going on and all that.

Yeah, would love to get my drummer’s mitts on those. But damn, expensive AF.

 

[DrewJD82]

I saw Garbage yesterday and Butch Vig was play a Roland V-Drum set. Sounded just fine to me and worked well for their music. Might have been the first time I've seen a drummer on a full electronic kit in a bigger name band.

The reason they work well for Garbage’s music is because they’re not in any way trying to recreate an acoustic kit and are laying into the electronic aspect of them, in which case is absolutely perfect for their music.





In their case, it’d be silly to use anything but an e-kit unless they wanted to do the ‘our live show is more rocked out’ thing.

Man, I had the biggest crush on Shirley Manson back in the day.

 

[Jarick]

The reason they work well for Garbage’s music is because they’re not in any way trying to recreate an acoustic kit and are laying into the electronic aspect of them, in which case is absolutely perfect for their music.





In their case, it’d be silly to use anything but an e-kit unless they wanted to do the ‘our live show is more rocked out’ thing.

Man, I had the biggest crush on Shirley Manson back in the day.

Oh yeah 100%. They're pretty electronic to begin with and I remember Butch was mixing electronic and acoustic back when they were first coming out.

There was a couple times I wondered if Butch was miming to a real track because he didn't play a couple notes on the ride cymbal that I heard. Maybe that was a loop but it was the same tone as the real thing. But I'm not going to sweat a 69 year old Butch Vig for some reinforcements and everything else he played looked bang on to the track.

I think we all had crushes on Shirley back in the day...I saw them in 1996 or so as a 13-14 year old...my friends and I definitely pushed our way to the front row if you know what I'm saying.

It seems like aging was pretty hard on her mentally, she must have struggled with being defined so much by her beauty and probably had to prove herself way more as a musician and artist. But she seems to be in a pretty good place now and yeah it's impressive to see a nearly 60 year old battling heat stroke and going 100% for the crowd, and the crowd was behind her pretty strong.

Anyways...

 

[paisleywookiee]

Garbage was really into everything high tech. They were one of the first fans of digital modeling.