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

[metropolis_4]

I’m sorry if I offended you in some way, but you’re so far removed from what i originally wrote that I’m not going to waste effort responding.

TLDR - Acoustic drums are loud and an increasing number of venues take issue with that. The drummers that can adapt to electronic kits, whether through full or partial adoption, should. Drummers who cannot or will not adapt should get REALLY good at controlling dynamics and hopefully not be too shocked if their gigs start to dry up over the next decade.

Acoustic drums will always have their place, that place just might not be on stage.

Maybe coming into a thread calling me and a bunch of people I have a lot of respect for “dumb bitches” and saying you hate us wasn’t a great way to start?

 

[Orvillain]

Maybe coming into a thread calling me and a bunch of people I have a lot of respect for “dumb bitches” and saying you hate us wasn’t a great way to start?

Nah, G. I loved it.

 

[DLC86]

Acoustic drums are loud and an increasing number of venues take issue with that. The drummers that can adapt to electronic kits, whether through full or partial adoption, should. Drummers who cannot or will not adapt should get REALLY good at controlling dynamics and hopefully not be too shocked if their gigs start to dry up over the next decade.

There are several ways to reduce drums volume without going the e-drums route (plexiglass panels, absorbers, low volume heads and cymbals, mutes...) and personally I'd vastly prefer one of those over e-drums, if it's strictly necessary.

 

[HotRats]

I played a 3 gigs with an alesis drum kit on stage, one of those that look like a real drum set (more or less). One gig was in a theater, one in a pub, a third one open air.

We shared the stage so we (meaning our drummer) had no choice and had to play what was provided.

The drummer & owner of the kit had two bose (or bose like) tower speakers behind him for his personal monitoring.

Those towers mitigated what I hated most of those experiences: not hearing the drum sound coming from behind me the way I'm used to.
I'm so used to hear the hi hat and the snare coming from a precise location that it drove me nuts.

First time the e-kit owner used wired and hyper processed sounds with his band and didn't sound good to me.

I asked to provide our drummer a natural sounding kit and we sounded much better.

The second time - in the pub - the owner used a natural sounding kit (lesson learned, I guess ) and I have to admit that the foh sound was nice. A bit unnatural but nice.

In closed room the absence of the typical loud sound of an acoustic kit helped the overall mix.

In my opinion, unless volume is a real issue, for small gigs they don't much make sense. They make monitoring a pain in the ass, stage sharing a bigger pain in the ass and they don't sound all that natural.

For bigger gigs they don't make sense at all.

 

[OneEng]

Not me. I love it. I think it is one of the fundamental reasons to even go to a live show. Live drums with modernized dead-animal-flesh stretched across some bones, is the ultimate expression of our inner animal nature, and brings us closer to Godhood.

... or grab a Roland TDwhatever and sound like cowboy farts.

Yea, I think we have definitively determined that you and I have different motivations. To me, and lots of audience members too, loud drums droning out the vocals and cymbals making your ears ring is much worse than cowboy farts.

Having recorded a bunch of real drums in the past, I’m also dumbfounded about what we consider a natural drum sound on recordings. No drum recording, or kit through a PA, has ever sounded like what I hear in a room.

This exactly. So you take a perfectly good kick drum .... cut a hole in it, get a $400 drum mic on a little boom stand and stick it into the hole and position it about 2" off center of the beater, fill the drum with a bunch of damping, detune the front head so the beater slap is heard better, run it into a channel on the mixer, put a gate and a multi-band compressor on it and eq the crap out of it and wha-la .... it sounds great! Now just do something similar to the rest of the kit .... oh, and put up a big shield to keep all that noise out of the vocal mics.

What exactly is natural about all that?

I'd love more than anything if e-drums really took off with rock and metal bands. We went from bands being so loud you could barely hear the music (Deftones in 2005, JFC...) to live mixes being completely dominated by bass and low mid frequencies since touring bands largely don't have stage cabs anymore(All djent and mid-tier metal bands touring the globe). Not to mention vocals being buried, likely due to cymbal bleed. But I've been playing e-drums through Metal Machine for years and I get complements on our live sound all the time. And if you're playing a place with a decent PA (i.e has at least one subwoofer), the whole PA can be cranked up louder for added impact.

I don't care how different the feel is with e-drums. I only care how the sound is to the audience.

... and there it is. Yep. If you actually care about how the band sounds out in the audience, eDrums make sense. BTW .... Vocals? What are those?

For live stuff, what about an acoustic kit, and instead of mics, triggers to SP3 and that to the board? Something we've been thinking about, as we prepare to maybe play live again.

I actually did this for a while before getting a drummer with vDrums. It was a little better; however, the stage noise was still a big problem. Mounting the triggers was certainly easier than running and mounting mics though.

The other thing that would make sense in drum-land is more options for quieter acoustic drums. Basically the 30w 1x12 drum kit.

LOL. The problem is that it is hard to keep those gorilla arms turned down!

Currently in a band that rehearses totally silent with an electronic kit, SD3, and Helix/Tonex on guitars and bass.

The short answer is yes, bands should be migrating this direction but drummers are a bunch of dumb bitches.

The more nuanced answer is that the technology to replace an acoustic kit with an electric one isn’t fully there yet. Drummers are still bitches tho. My Telecaster doesn’t sound or play like my Martin, but you don’t see me refusing to use the Tele at the expense of the sound and stage volume of the rest of the band.

We will eventually get there out of necessity, as those local gigs with full stage volume are drying up and will continue to do so. Forward thinking drummers already know this and are starting to adapt. Others will be left behind, where they belong.

I hate drummers.

Well, I have had 2 different drummers over the last 12 years of gigging that has been completely vDrums .... so not all of them resist that much . Also, I have had drummers that would make the change, but can't afford it.

I’m sorry if I offended you in some way, but you’re so far removed from what i originally wrote that I’m not going to waste effort responding.

TLDR - Acoustic drums are loud and an increasing number of venues take issue with that. The drummers that can adapt to electronic kits, whether through full or partial adoption, should. Drummers who cannot or will not adapt should get REALLY good at controlling dynamics and hopefully not be too shocked if their gigs start to dry up over the next decade.

Acoustic drums will always have their place, that place just might not be on stage.

I mixed for a friend of mine's band in Ann Arbor a couple of weeks ago. There was a big SPL meter in the middle of the room and the owner was RELIGIOUS about keeping the volume below 95db in the middle of the room. Just the cymbals and snare without microphones was nearly that loud.

Your concern is very real and eDrums are a fantastic solution. In fact, I told my friend (that runs the band) that his drummer should start using his vDrums in that venue because of this problem..... and now they are for all future gigs there.

There are several ways to reduce drums volume without going the e-drums route (plexiglass panels, absorbers, low volume heads and cymbals, mutes...) and personally I'd vastly prefer one of those over e-drums, if it's strictly necessary.

All of those things do work.... but drum shields take up room that lots of venues don't have. Still, recognizing the problem and doing something to help fix it is more than 80% of bar bands do.

 

[DrewJD82]

The point is that an electronic kit can be both quieter or louder than an acoustic kit. Just like a tele to a Martin.

Ah, there ya go, "Hey drummer, use these "drums" instead, half of them are not realistic to a real kit in any way but that doesn't bother ME so it's a moot point and these can get louder or quieter than an acoustic kit, so you better adapt, dumb bitch"

Gotta watch out with that line of thinking, you'll have every world class drummer AND the local guys beating down your door to join your band.

 

[paisleywookiee]

eDrums are not far removed from a guitar player using a MIDI pickup to trigger…..guitar samples.

 

[Orvillain]

Yea, I think we have definitively determined that you and I have different motivations. To me, and lots of audience members too, loud drums droning out the vocals and cymbals making your ears ring is much worse than cowboy farts.

Post some music. You never have.

 

[paisleywookiee]

I mixed for a friend of mine's band in Ann Arbor a couple of weeks ago. There was a big SPL meter in the middle of the room and the owner was RELIGIOUS about keeping the volume below 95db in the middle of the room. Just the cymbals and snare without microphones was nearly that loud.

95dB is nothing. That's insane.

 

[DLC86]

Post some music. You never have.

I think I haven't either on this forum... so here you go

Btw, drums are a mix of real drums and triggers mixed in just on kick, snare and toms... and there's a president too

 

[HotRats]

Having recorded a bunch of real drums in the past, I’m also dumbfounded about what we consider a natural drum sound on recordings. No drum recording, or kit through a PA, has ever sounded like what I hear in a room.

I disagree.
You can easily record or amplify a drum kit in a very natural way.

I've done that many times with jazz combos.

 

[spawnofthesith]

95dB is nothing. That's insane.

Yeah I would avoid that venue that is legit deranged. Chompers at a concert are bad enough when the music is at... concert volume. I'd hate to be at a show where I could hear someone eating chips next to me over the music

 

[paisleywookiee]

I think I haven't either on this forum... so here you go

Btw, drums are a mix of real drums and triggers mixed in on kick, snare and toms... and there's a president too

Cool! I dig it.

 

[paisleywookiee]

Yeah I would avoid that venue that is legit deranged. Chompers at a concert are bad enough when the music is at... concert volume. I'd hate to be at a show where I could hear someone eating chips next to me over the music

This is my Apple Watch, while I was using the hand dryer at the gym today. Seriously.

 

[TSJMajesty]

All I know is my last band uses a high-end Roland kit. The drummer is a machine; can play anything, and play it well. The band leader was first and foremost a drummer, so even back when I first met him, and he was using some cheap POS kit, he put sheets btw the head and shell, and got a fantastic sound out of his drums. He KNOWS how to tune drums well, mic acoustic drums well, and tune the E kit to also sound awesome.

He runs the sound for the band from the stage, and now rotates btw keys and bass (whichever of those players he can't find atm) himself.

I have a great ear, and the last time I heard them play, I noticed immediately, like, from the opening notes of their set, how powerful, yet CLEAR everything sounded! (They run everything direct, using modelers.) It was one of THE best live sound in a mid-sized club (~400) I'd ever heard.

And back when I was in that band with the same drummer, he never once had any complaints about the tactile feedback of the kit, or what he could/couldn't do, compared to his acoustic kit.

They're an 80's cover band, and they are TIGHT! But Rob has told me you do need to spend money to get a kit that feels right. I believe his exact words were, "There's a big difference btw a $2000 kit and an $8000 one." So there's that.

My own opinion is, if you truly place having the best sound for the audience, in the smaller rooms, as your main criteria, e-drums are the best choice towards achieving that.

 

[EOengineer]

Quite honestly, fuck those venues. They're not worth the shit on my shoes. I'd rather steal a diesel generator and take 20 people out into a field, and rock their fucking arses off until we're all tripping and seeing Silent Hill monsters for the next two weeks.

Man I’m with you, I love big amps and loud drums, but two of our most frequently played venues cut out live bands this year and only do acoustic singer songwriter stuff and DJs now because of the volume issues.

I don’t see this as an issue that impacts touring bands in clubs so much as your local working band. That rate at which it’s happening locally concerns me.

Maybe coming into a thread calling me and a bunch of people I have a lot of respect for “dumb bitches” and saying you hate us wasn’t a great way to start?

It was sarcasm man, my apologies. I’d recommend putting me on ignore for your own sake. It’s probably not gonna get better.

Ah, there ya go, "Hey drummer, use these "drums" instead, half of them are not realistic to a real kit in any way but that doesn't bother ME so it's a moot point and these can get louder or quieter than an acoustic kit, so you better adapt, dumb bitch"

I guess I’ll have to edit that post for folks who have their sarcasm detectors calibrated a bit differently than mine.

@Orvillain and I must have been smoking the same stuff.

Gotta watch out with that line of thinking, you'll have every world class drummer AND the local guys beating down your door to join your band.

Just to be clear, I’m not imposing a requirement to use an electronic kit. I would argue that the industry is naturally moving towards imposing volume constraints though, and that drums are the most frequent offender there. Electronic drums are one of several possible solutions. There’s obviously continued innovation needed in that space.

 

[paisleywookiee]

What we need is a Cone of Silence for the drummer.

 

[EOengineer]

What we need is a Cone of Silence for the drummer.

That can be filled with water.

 

[TSJMajesty]

Oh, and as for the convenience thing, they leave the kit all connected, and 3-4 guys carry it right out to the trailer intact.

 

[ragingplatypi]

The problem is that it is hard to keep those gorilla arms turned down!

Hahaha! I’m definitely using that excuse next time I’m told to turn my guitar down.

“I can’t help it! It’s my gorilla arms! They can’t chug any quieter!”