Electric drum kit recs?

[spawnofthesith]

In some cosmic irony, after poo pooing e kits a bit in a thread here recently, it seems that we may be having to unfortunately adjust our current rehearsal scenario. Plenty of hourly rehearsal spots around here, but an option we are considering is grabbing an e kit and starting to practice in my apartment all headphones style. I don't love the concept, but since we already use IEMs anyways it's not that bad of a jump I guess.

None of us know much of anything at all about whats what with e kits though. Any recommendations? Preference would be to trying to stick the cheaper side....

 

[Jarick]

What's your budget?

 

[spawnofthesith]

What's your budget?

Undetermined, kind of depends if we pitched as a band or if I’m just buying something since it will be at my place and shit can get weird with “shared band gear”


But let me put it this way, I was just scoping out a used Alesis nitro mesh kit lol…


It doesn’t have to be something stage ready as this would just be strictly for practices but I also don’t want instant garbage

 

[scole]

I have an Alesis Crimson which is a slight step up from the Nitros. Mesh heads and I think slightly larger diameter, and the kick can take a double pedal if that’s relevant to your music. One negative could be that the hi hat is either full open or full closed- there’s no in between.

Alesis gets knocked for their e-Kits but I feel it’s not fair to compare them to Roland which cost a lot more. YMMV.

 

[Jarick]

Well depending on how picky your drummer is, a cheap kit may or may not work. Seems like any kit under $2k is going to have some serious compromises for sound and/or feel, and if you get under $1k it gets substantially worse.

Strictly looking at new kits, cheapest I would go would be the Roland TD-07KVX at $1100. It has a halfway decent looking hi-hat, cymbals look okay, drums look okay, it's compact. It's probably going to sound like 1990, but if you hook up to a computer and run something like EZ Drummer or Superior Drummer, it will sound pretty good.

The kit I have is a Yamaha DTX562K and it looks like those are available used for under a grand. I think the pads and cymbals feel pretty good especially for a sub-$3k kit. The pads are a little bouncy but I like it a lot more than the cheap mesh (like the Rolands under $2k) or the super cheap rubber practice pads.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Time to get a modeler




FTR; I think it would be cool af to try rehearsing this way. It would certainly all depend on how the drummer feels about that e-kit though. If you convince him; it'd be worth a shot over renting a practice room.

 

[spawnofthesith]

Time to get a modeler




FTR; I think it would be cool af to try rehearsing this way. It would certainly all depend on how the drummer feels about that e-kit though. If you convince him; it'd be worth a shot over renting a practice room.

Oh hell naw I can go silent with my JVM plus I've been looking for more reasons to finally scoop up a captor X


He's on board with the idea, just don't know how he would continue to feel about it once actually playing it could go either way lol

 

[JiveTurkey]

Oh hell naw I can go silent with my JVM plus I've been looking for more reasons to finally scoop up a captor X


He's on board with the idea, just don't know how he would continue to feel about it once actually playing it could go either way lol

Oooh yeah! Captor X will be a great way to go!

 

[la szum]

Doesn't sound very Jam Bandy to me.

 

[la szum]

I see a lot of e-kits on CL... for cheap. I'd look for something used, because the nice stuff is
always going to be $2k or more new, if not double that. I bet something used sub $1k will
pop up somewhere.

 

[spawnofthesith]

Yeah I'm tempted to just grab something cheap myself, partially because I'm not totally convinced this is actually gonna work out to anyones liking long term.... dont want to sink a ton of cash either individually or as a group and still just be like, meh,,,


If it seems workable with something cheap, he could either keep using that, or if he feels the need desire buy something higher end his own damn self lol

 

[la szum]

Yup. Used, used, used.

There are at least 3 or 4 e-kits on my local CL at all times.

 

[AutomationBias]

On a related note, is it reasonable to learn to play on an e-kit? I've always wanted to learn to play drums, but an acoustic kit would be much too loud for this house.

 

[Jarick]

On a related note, is it reasonable to learn to play on an e-kit? I've always wanted to learn to play drums, but an acoustic kit would be much too loud for this house.

Absolutely. Learning to play on e drums is better than nothing. Hell I started out with a $10 practice pad, a pillow, dog dishes, and a frisbee.

Playing acoustic drums is definitely different than electronic drums but you can still have fun and get way better and learn a lot of skills.

 

[scole]

Yes, and no. I’m coming to drums from guitar and originally I wanted to try to learn itUsing YouTube videos and other web content since there’s so much. That becomes the first problem- there’s so much info and it’s all over the map.

The second issue is that you won’t get that feedback to help you avoid bad habits or learning things “the wrong way.” A cheap e-kit won’t do you any favors with learning or being able to recognize the volume balance that real drummers must master. The foundation in rock music is the kick, followed by snare, and then hihats. This will all sound the same on a (cheap) e-kit due to strike sensitivity etc.

Not too long after getting my e-kit, I started lessons with an instructor and not long after that, I picked up an acoustic drum kit (with low noise additives) because I just couldn’t master concepts like this on the e-Kit.

You definitely can work on a lot of things with an e-kit, though.

 

[-BOOGIEMAN-]

Yup. Used, used, used.

There are at least 3 or 4 e-kits on my local CL at all times.

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Damn!!! That would work great for my needs…only need to learn how to play
Seriously, I could see picking something like that up and learn some basics off YouTube…I’ll add that to the list after I pick up a bass and see if I would want a kit and learn or get something like GarageBand…

 

[TJontheRoad]

You do get what you pay for with e-kits. Things like crappy feel, poor construction/durability, lackluster sounds/samples, false triggers, crosstalk, small heads and cymbals are pretty common on the cheap kits. This is even more an issue so if the drummer is a hard hitter. Getting started with a mid-range kit is a much better investment that will last longer.

FWIW, I use a Roland TD17KV for recording.

 

[Jarick]

There’s almost an art to playing acoustic drums. I think of it as pulling sound out them. You can’t just hit them, you have to hit them in the right spot at the right angle with the right rebound so you don’t choke the drums. Same with crash cymbals you are best to hit them with a little sweeping motion and with the shoulder of the stick on the bow of the cymbal.

Then there’s tuning…very difficult to get right. Took me years to get good at that. And that’s also really dependent on a quality kit. You need true and even bearing edges, sturdy and round hoops, smooth lugs.

But at the end of the day especially for us adults who aren’t playing professionally, a good electric kit with quality samples works just fine.

 

[deathbyguitar]

If you want long term durability, Roland and Yamaha are a safe bet. I'm sure an Alesis will do fine, especially if you're able to get one dirt cheap. Also, hooking it up to a program like EZ Drummer/Superior Drummer/GGD/whatever will give you a huge boost in sound quality.

Both of my bands have been practicing with e-drums for years now. We just hook it to the mixer and connect everyone to an 8-channel headphone amp. This also makes demoing new song ideas a breeze because my Behringer XR12 has a built-in recorder.

 

[SeeD]

Yeah a cheap E-Kit with mesh heads and Toontrack SD 3 via PC/Mac, it will sound good
In the future I will look at one of these
https://www.thomannmusic.no/millenium_mps_850_e_drum_set.htm