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

[Sascha Franck]

Sampled drums simply do not do this.

Nobody ever denied any of that.

 

[Orvillain]

Dude, seriously - you're talking BS. Gating toms is done to eliminate excess ringing and bleed. So it's obviously done to remove some, shall we say "sympathetic" effects.

I am not talking about ringing. I am not talking about bleed. I am talking about what happens to a drum when you hit it in successive patterns.

Nobody ever denied any of that.

You don't even understand what is being said.

 

[OneEng]

This should theoretically disqualify you from an informed discussion. Practically, you will go on, though.

This and many other equally unbelievable statements made. Getting a good mix live .... at least anywhere I have mixed (and it sounds like you are mixing MUCH bigger venues than I normally do) has much more to do with getting everything else mixed around the drums that any nuance that the drums produce. I don't think it matters much to the audience what the kick "thump" exactly sounds like, only that it hits them in the chest (It's an exaggeration, but still).

The idea that someone could tell the difference between real drums and SD3 with triggers in a live environment is well beyond belief.

You guys never state WHY someone should be disqualified from the discussion, why would that be in this case?

IMO- if you know how to listen for details you’re going to hear the shit you don’t want in a mix whether it’s live or in a studio, the only difference being you have more choices to ignore the shit you don’t want to hear in a live setting due to plenty of other distractions/noises occurring, but that doesn’t negate the person listening for them from hearing them.

Because it is such an obviously incorrect statement for a live environment. It is especially true for the kinds of music played by most weekend warrior bands.

I don't. Because all of you folks were all over metal and heavier rock stuff.

[sarcasm]I don't know, I hear lots of nuances in my ringing ears every time I see a metal concert [/sarcasm]

... Not all metal is about banging shit as hard as you can.

Wow! It really is true that "you learn something every day" .

Ok, let's hear some examples (we obviously need room mic recordings, no console cuts).
Seriously, I've been to quite some larger events more or less recently (mixed bunch, GnR, Pink, ACDC, Foo Fighters, Robbie Williams, Lenny Kravitz, etc., you name it), all kinda big acts. And if anything, drum nuances got lost on all of them (possibly the least with the Foos).

Sure, ghost notes might be a bit overexaggerated, but once it comes to anything cymbal-ish, details get lost, pretty much all cymbals sound at least same-ish, hats might get completely lost (unless smashed hard), etc.

And well, even if these are all somewhat audible, the sympathetic ringing of whatever things is likely gated out.

In a smaller venue, I can almost always hear the difference between eDrums (even SD3) and real acoustic drums because the cymbals and snare on the acoustic drums are almost always SO far out of the mix (like a factor of 10) that it gives it away.

If you were to dial in a mix with SD3 such that the cymbals and snare were cranked up about 15db louder than they should be, it might be difficult to tell the difference!

The Foo Fighters drummer is amazing. I have had more than one drummer complain about playing "Everlong" too late into the night because it is such a physically demanding song for the drummer. Love their music.

 

[Sascha Franck]

You don't even understand what is being said.

Blablabla, Mr. KnowItAll. Look into a mirror and teach yourself about comprehensive vs. selective reading.
I'm outta here, enjoy.

 

[Orvillain]

Blablabla, Mr. KnowItAll. Look into a mirror and teach yourself about comprehensive vs. selective reading.
I'm outta here, enjoy.

Good. Fuck off.

 

[Orvillain]

Getting a good mix live

It isn't what the thread is about.

The thread is about electronic drumkits versus real drumkits, and whether electronic drumkits could be common for small bands.

You assertion is it makes it easier to get a good live sounding mix.

My assertion is that they do not sound as good as real drumkits - I've even provided evidence and reasoning to demonstrate why. But you guys just keep bleating on about the difficulty of making an acoustic kit work, when thousands and thousands of engineers all around the world seem to make it work just fine.

My entire point is, you want the drums to impress people. They impress people by being alive, and interactive, and chaotic. Which you don't get from drum samples.

And you and Sascha continually fuck up the understanding of what I'm saying, and then have the fucking gall to insult me and accuse me of not knowing what I'm talking about. You're both a pair of absolute fucking weapons.

 

[Richard_G]

I guess @OneEng's ideal concert would be a band pretending to play live while he - the almighty FOH engineer - could be the DJ playing the band's studio recording through the PA - preferably at a prom. No stage volume. No bleed into the vocal mics. No loud drums. No loud guitars.

But also no musicians performing together live. No interaction with the audience. No life.

(PS: I often side with the FOH engineer in discussions between a band and the FOH engineer. But a lot in this thread is just ridiculous.)

 

[OneEng]

A real cymbal is a nonlinear, continuous resonant system. That means:

• It rings after being struck, often for several seconds, sometimes up to a minute.
• While ringing, it continues to vibrate in complex modal patterns (not just a single frequency).
• When you strike it again while it's already vibrating, you’re not starting from zero. You're adding energy to an already-active system.

This interaction can cause:

• Phase shifts and constructive/destructive interference between modes.
• Excitation of different modal partials depending on where and how you hit it.
• A very natural and chaotic sense of variation that evolves over time.

Sampled drums simply do not do this. They are nothing more than a voice getting triggered, and then faded out when the next voice is triggered.

This is one HUGE reason why real acoustic drumkits are superior to electronic drumkits.

... and in a live venue with most weekend warrior bands, not a soul can hear a thing you are talking about.

Dude, seriously - you're talking BS. Gating toms is done to eliminate excess ringing and bleed. So it's obviously done to remove some, shall we say "sympathetic" effects.

LOL. That is really funny. I hadn't thought of that.

When I had a drummer with acoustic drums, the BIGGEST single improvement I ever made was getting subs for the PA (long ago ). But the SECOND biggest improvement I made to the drums was gating them. The improvement to the FOH sound was IMMEDIATE and OBVEOUS. Gating the drums cleaned up the drums greatly and made the entire mix sound better.

The fact that gating drums is STANDARD for live acts (of any size) is a giveaway that all those overtones and nuances that ring out are not ONLY not important to most music, but that the harm done to the mix by having all those mic's open and amplifying all that ringing is BAD for the mix.

I used to LITTERALY put a pillow in the kick drum to keep the ringing down. Later, the drummer paid for custom made dampers to do the same thing .... which didn't look as silly as the pillow .

I have a friend that used to loosen the front drum head so the beater slap would be more pronounced. The acoustic sound was pure crap but it sounded great out front.

Drums are the MOST processed and least natural sounding instrument on stage by the time the audience hears it through the PA.

 

[Orvillain]

... and in a live venue with most weekend warrior bands, not a soul can hear a thing you are talking about.

I don't agree. Because these things are inherent to the system.

You can compare the output of drum software to recordings of an acoustic drumkit, and the difference is immediately noticeable.

The fact that gating drums is STANDARD for live acts (of any size) is a giveaway that all those overtones and nuances that ring out are not ONLY not important to most music, but that the harm done to the mix by having all those mic's open and amplifying all that ringing is BAD for the mix.

No one is talking about doing any of this. But it is a simple fact of physics that the impact of these physical processes happens at the transient and continues to happen throughout the decay of the cymbal or drum.

And again - it is a major reason why real drumkits sound better than sampled drumkits; in a studio OR a live context.

 

[DrewJD82]

Man, if Dave Friedman hates guitarists using modelers live he'd have a fucking field day with this thread.

 

[OneEng]

It isn't what the thread is about.

The thread is about electronic drumkits versus real drumkits, and whether electronic drumkits could be common for small bands.

You assertion is it makes it easier to get a good live sounding mix.

My assertion is that they do not sound as good as real drumkits - I've even provided evidence and reasoning to demonstrate why. But you guys just keep bleating on about the difficulty of making an acoustic kit work, when thousands and thousands of engineers all around the world seem to make it work just fine.

My entire point is, you want the drums to impress people. They impress people by being alive, and interactive, and chaotic. Which you don't get from drum samples.

And you and Sascha continually fuck up the understanding of what I'm saying, and then have the fucking gall to insult me and accuse me of not knowing what I'm talking about. You're both a pair of absolute fucking weapons.

Since "small bands gigs" are generally not in stadiums or large venues, my assertion is that it is easier to get a good sounding mix. Yes.

My assertion is that a good sounding mix, even with sub standard sounding drums, sounds way better than the best acoustic drum kit money can buy with the best drummer on the face of the Earth and a bad mix.

It is my belief that most people are impressed by the impact of the drums, not the quality of the tone. It is much easier to get good impact from eDrums than acoustic drums for a small band venue..... but as mentioned earlier, one of the big contributors to getting good drum sounds (from any kind of drum kit I would argue) is a good PA with good subs.

I do get what you are saying. I just disagree that people can hear the differences you are talking about live. I believe they CAN hear the fact that the cymbals and snare are louder than the vocals .... or that the kick isn't punchy, or that the sound is just not "good" when what they are hearing is lots of mic bleed making the mix sound mushy.

There is a reason that acoustic drums in a mega church have a drum shield around them. This is also the reason that eDrums are so popular with Churches. Let's face it, Church music in a mega church can afford ANY equipment they want .... and they chose these setups.

 

[paisleywookiee]

Man, if Dave Friedman hates guitarists using modelers live he'd have a fucking field day with this thread.

Well, obviously Dave would be amazingly wrong, because of a gifted audio engineer from Ann Arbor.

 

[DrewJD82]

I used to LITTERALY put a pillow in the kick drum to keep the ringing down. Later, the drummer paid for custom made dampers to do the same thing .... which didn't look as silly as the pillow .

This is the stuff I've been waiting for as it goes a long way in telling you the experience level of a drummer. I have not seen a pillow inside a kick drum since 1998 when I was in high school and it was another high schooler's beginner kit. If a drummer showed up to an audition with duct tape on his heads and pillows in the kick(s) they'd better play damn well because I know they haven't done anything in regard to legitimately controlling the sound of their drums.

Drum mufflers/batter dampers are common enough these days Walmart sells them. These cost all of $20-$40, they aren't exactly made just for wealthy drummers. A container of Moon gel is like $8.

 

[Richard_G]

@OneEng; You seem to worry mostly about how a so called "FOH engineer" can make a shitty cover band consisting of mediocre musicians (including said "FOH engineer") playing mediocre versions of too often played cover songs can get away with the least effort sounding at least half decent on a ferry with too much liquor being served. In such a setting, I agree using today's e-drums instead of acoustic drums and your other takes perhaps could make some sense.

But when you want to experience real musicians playing live interacting with each other and with the audience, other factors than convenience for the "FOH engineer" come into play.

 

[DrewJD82]

My assertion is that a good sounding mix, even with sub standard sounding drums, sounds way better than the best acoustic drum kit money can buy with the best drummer on the face of the Earth and a bad mix.

It is my belief that most people are impressed by the impact of the drums, not the quality of the tone. It is much easier to get good impact from eDrums than acoustic drums for a small band venue..... but as mentioned earlier, one of the big contributors to getting good drum sounds (from any kind of drum kit I would argue) is a good PA with good subs.

Man, you need to stop playing with drummers that can't take care of their shit.

If all your experiences are playing with shitty drummers and subpar kits, I'm 100% not surprised about this thread.

If you had any concept of proper drum maintenance/tuning the above quoted piece would never come out of your mouth, end of story.

 

[Orvillain]

Since "small bands gigs" are generally not in stadiums or large venues, my assertion is that it is easier to get a good sounding mix. Yes.

Okay. Maybe there's something to work with here. Let's say I don't even disagree. What I have been trying to say is, even if it is true, it is at the expense of severely affecting the musicianship and realism and authenticity of the band - which is very important in music.

Someone else mentioned cymbal swells before I think. But cymbal swells on an e-kit do not work very well. It is always a compromise and you really have to change your technique to stand even a hope in hell of making it sound good. Most of the time whenever I've recorded demos with drummers who do cymbal swells, if we're on an e-kit, they won't even bother playing those sections.

For certain styles of music, an e-kit severely compromises the quality of the output; no matter how good the mix is.

My assertion is that a good sounding mix, even with sub standard sounding drums, sounds way better than the best acoustic drum kit money can buy with the best drummer on the face of the Earth and a bad mix.

Again, let's say I don't disagree. It also comes at a cost. For similar reasons. Take your Alesis video from earlier. There truly are some absolutely shit sounds in that brain. A rock band is going to be (here's that word again!) severely held back by some of those. Whereas most rock bands can get by with a cheapish Pearl Export kit; as long as it is tuned well and has good skins on it.

When you use an e-kit, you are limited (generally speaking) to the sounds that some creator out there in the world has provided to you.

For me as a drummer, I'd rather have the Pearl Export and dial it in to my tastes, my sounds, my style. Rather than take some off the shelf Alesis crap sounding kit that I cannot tweak - although in fairness, the Strata series I worked on does sound massively better, and has my sounds in it in the first place!!

It is my belief that most people are impressed by the impact of the drums, not the quality of the tone.

Much how your audience can tell when you're singing out of tune, they can tell when your guitar is out of tune, or if the bassist is playing with fingers instead of a pick and the tone is lacking because of it. They can also tell when a drumkit is not tuned correctly, is dampened too much, is processed too much, and all the other things.

People are impressed by different things. Sometimes it is technique. Sometimes it is tone. Sometimes it is the combination. I don't think you can say most people are impressed only by the impact of the drums.

It is much easier to get good impact from eDrums than acoustic drums for a small band venue.....

Depends how you define impact. But again, even if it is true, it comes at a huge cost.

but as mentioned earlier, one of the big contributors to getting good drum sounds (from any kind of drum kit I would argue) is a good PA with good subs.

This is the other thing - go see a band in a small venue. 200 capacity. Some of these venues have really good PA's. Some of them have shit PA's. A real drumkit in the shit PA venue has way more of a chance of connecting with the audience than the e-kit does. By sheer virtue of the fact that in those kinds of venues, you can hear and feel the drums in the room without the PA even being turned on.

I do get what you are saying. I just disagree that people can hear the differences you are talking about live.

Then you don't get what I am saying. The differences I am talking about are at the physical level. Inherent to the system. Stretch a membrane across a bit of wood and hold it down with a hoop and whack it 8 times in quick succession.... it sounds different to playing back 8 samples of the same drum. Because the samples don't interact with one another.

Even if you "can't hear it" it doesn't matter - it is by definition, affecting the sound. Most people find it desirable.

The only analogy I could make is amp sim with speaker impedance curves, versus amp sim without speaker impedance curves. Even if they don't know what an SIC is, most people would agree that an amp sim with SIC control (and interaction betweem preamp and poweramp sections of the amp model) sound better.

Another analogy - using an e-kit for live music over an acoustic drumkit to solve FOH problems that are better addressed other ways, is the same as arguing that guitarists should be using Amplitube 1 from 2002 instead of their full-stack, because they might snag a nail on the standby switch.

I believe they CAN hear the fact that the cymbals and snare are louder than the vocals .... or that the kick isn't punchy, or that the sound is just not "good" when what they are hearing is lots of mic bleed making the mix sound mushy.

You keep bringing bleed up, but no-one here has ever defended bleed. No one has ever defended any of these things. But an e-kit doesn't inherently solve them. In the cases where an e-kit does solve them, you have the trade offs that we've talked about throught the thread.

Everything that I have said throughout this thread is accurate and evidence based, and once more, reflected in the sales figures.

There is a reason that acoustic drums in a mega church have a drum shield around them. This is also the reason that eDrums are so popular with Churches. Let's face it, Church music in a mega church can afford ANY equipment they want .... and they chose these setups.

I'll get banned if I tell you what I think about churches!!

 

[paisleywookiee]

There is a reason that acoustic drums in a mega church have a drum shield around them. This is also the reason that eDrums are so popular with Churches. Let's face it, Church music in a mega church can afford ANY equipment they want .... and they chose these setups.

Churches choose eKits because churches are a wildly different use-case than even most theaters, bars, and other venues.

 

[KingsXJJ]

I bet drummers don’t fucking argue about guitar gear like this.

 

[Sascha Franck]

So, for the last time and for clarification, these are the very things I said would play very little (if any) roles in a live context (or rather: would not get transported through the PA properly anyway):

imagine there’s some sympathetic resonances and behaviours that happen between drums, stands, heads etc that are totally dependent on the tuning and position in the room, as well as things like the temperature/humidity etc that affect how things are ringing out together

Does anyone really think that the drums of whatever rock act would sound so different between two gigs on the same stage because it rained before one show? Sure, they *will* sound different. But will anyone in the audience be able to spot it? No.
Same goes for the "resonances and behaviours that happen between drums, stands, heads etc". Yes, these are almost key elements once it comes to recordings. And no, for the largest part they're obviously not present in sampled/modeled e-kit patches.
But again: In a live context (which is what we're talking about here), none of these really matter because most often they're not transported through the sound system. Sure, a real drum set being what it is, you can't dial out the various "inbetween" resonances of, say, repeatedly hit cymbals. They're part of the deal (and fortunately so). Yet, all these are not even remotely the "make it or break it" factors in this very real vs. electronic live drums discussion...

It’s also way more intuitive to just move an instrument or close a soundboard or change a mic stand or open a door etc

And neither are these. Again something potentially crucial on recordings.

The reasons e-kits sound bad live IMO are almost by 100%:

- Bad "feeling" kits resulting in the drummer not being able to play as he/she would on a real kit. Part of that would also be:

- Inaccurate physical representations of the real deal. Mesh heads still can't deal with some techniques, cymbals feel vastly different and don't allow for the same technical performances, either.

- Choice of sampled kits. I have played a whole plethora of e-kit shows in the last decades - and even with the tech specs and options getting better and better, I have not even once heard a sampled kit that would sound like the real deal (and yes, I'm pretty much comparing apples to apples as in only refering to IEM gigs). Which is actually kinda astounding as I have a whole lot of sampled kits in plugin formats actually sounding better. But no, once an e-kit comes in, most drummers apparently feel forced to "improve" whatever it might be. So much that the loaded patches can't even sound like a natural kit anymore.
There's EQ and compression on pretty much anything, add the ocassional gate and obviously reverb. Also add to this that, once possible, at least some drummers seem to feel the need to switch kits inmidst gigs - which is fine for some sparsely used special samples, but just sucks for the entire kit (for the same reasons it's usually utter nonsense to use 974 amp models during a gig, even if it's a cover act).

 

[spawnofthesith]

Acoustic drums soind great in tiny venues I hear it happen several times a month