electronic drums?

[hotrodperlmutter]

anyone have experience with good starter kits? my drummer is always bitching about not being able to practice in his apartment with his makeshift kit he's using now, and his good kit is at my house to stay.

i want to see if we can't get into a good starter rack for him to just practice our stuff on, so he doesn't feel like he's learning again each time we play (which is once a week, sadly).

any idears? i found a roland hd-1 v-drums kit for $500 on CL, but i figured i'd ask here before i pulled the trigger on some shit i'm totally clueless about.

cheers.

[Bacchus]

I'm not a drummer, so I'm not a lot of use in this thread, except to say that a drummer I played with when we moved to Belfast had the same idea. He hated the electronic kit, never played, and sort of doesn't really play anymore.

I think he's still trying to sell the kit, five years later or whatever it is.

Having said that, I know Mike's band have had great success using an electronic kit.

[lank81]

Definitely a good price. My drummer got the one a step up from this (995$ new) and he loves it. It has a ton of different sounds, practice tempos, and it can be used to record. Definitely a worthwhile investment in his eyes and cool to me. I think Roland makes some great electronic drums.

[hotrodperlmutter]

well, yeah, we're not really trying to use it for our songs, mainly just to keep said drummer in teh groove.

of course, a 'sit down, stand up' cover would benefit swimmingly.

[stewart]

tell him to go for it, they definitely come in handy. our drummer's been using his at home for quiet practice, they don't make much noise at all.

[Bill Oakley]

I bought my son the Alesis DM5 Pro ($500 or $600 I can't remember) and he loves it but he's only 9. I'm not a drummer but I've played it a few times and I like it. I just want to get my mad double bass skills down.

[Mike]

Having said that, I know Mike's band have had great success using an electronic kit.

You have to invest to get a decent one. My drummer in Sell Crazy is a Contractor and has spare coin often. He's done like £3,000 down his TD-20 and mesh-head pads and all that. It does sound mint though.

He not only uses it for practise but we've done recording with it on the recent EP and bonus tracks for the record we're gradually putting together and I think it sounds great.

Rehearsal with the band and live however he still uses his TAMA kit.

[Bill Oakley]

I agree. If you are going to use them to gig, you'll have to spend some dough on a good set for them to sound great. For practice in the apartment though? I probably wouldn't shell out big $. Probably only going to be playing at low volumes or with headphones most of the time. Right?

[Mike]

Absolutely, but the heads are really important. Nothing feels like real drum heads, but the mesh heads are much much more fun to play than the horrible rubber things you get stock on a lot of these things. You can roll off them like with a regular kit; I'm not a great drummer but I can hold a beat and do rudimentary rolls and time signatures - and I could tell the difference.

[Bill Oakley]

My son's DM5 uses real drum heads. That was the main reason I bought that one. Just for the ease of replacing the heads and they felt better than the rubber ones.

[Dogma Hollow]

Absolutely, but the heads are really important. Nothing feels like real drum heads, but the mesh heads are much much more fun to play than the horrible rubber things you get stock on a lot of these things. You can roll off them like with a regular kit; I'm not a great drummer but I can hold a beat and do rudimentary rolls and time signatures - and I could tell the difference.

This. Mesh heads FTW. I had a kit with a Roland TD-3 brain for about a year. You can put together a small kit from parts on eBay for under $1000 if you look hard enough.

[stewart]

For practice in the apartment though? I probably wouldn't shell out big $.

$500

that doesn't seem like a lot of money for something that can be used for quiet practice and can be upgraded bit by bit (if necessary), can be used for all sorts of other stuff most people wouldn't even touch on if the mood strikes (click tracks, sample triggering etc).

and if it means the guy can actually get his shit together and play like a proper drummer at rehearsal, i'd say it's good value- if it were my drummer i'd fucking give him the $500 myself if he was holding the band back.

[Mike]

This is what a TD-20 sounds like by the way with like.. no mixing. John just set up and went.

[youtube][/youtube]

He's quite a tasty drummer.

[rodvonbon]

I've got 3 electronic drum sets and just this past week I bought another set of 5 pads from the first kit Roland produced in '87.
Mine run the gambit from the very expensive TD-20 that I use for recording by myself and cost somewhere around 5 grand. I've added extra cymbals and 2 more drum pads to it also.
Then I've got a TD-10 kit that I'm going to use the old Roland pads on for a total New Wave drum set. I picked up the TD-10 6 piece kit complete with cymbals and rack for $800 on craigslist and the 5 vintage pads were $130.
Lastly I've got a TD-6 brain with a Hart Prodigy kit. It's basicly a 5 piece Remo practice set with mesh heads and triggers. That whole set up cost around $800 with the TD-6 brain, drums and a couple of cymbals.
If he is just looking for practice, I would think the Remo kit isn't too bad at 200 bucks.

My dream is to start a band that can play two sets of the same songs. The first set would be 2 guitars, bass, natural sounding E-drums and vocals. The second set would be the exact same songs, in the exact same order, but played in a different style with 1 guitar, synth, bass, very electronic sounding E-drums and vocals. Book both bands on the same night, play back to back and, with the exception of pluging the keyboard into one of the guitar amps, not have to switch over any gear to get a completly different sound from the same tunes.

[stewart]

one of my friends has an old simmons kit. it's really cool. weighs an absolute TON though.

[rodvonbon]

I've been watching THIS TAMA TECHSTAR made in the 80's for the past few days. It's been relisted with a lower buy it now ($250), but I just can't see myself having any use for it since it doesn't do midi.
It does look cool though!

[hotrodperlmutter]

whoa shit. thanks dudes. i totally forgot about this thread (thanks to my browser clearing all threads on my laptop when i login from home).

i appreciate it. we're probably just going to snag one of those alesis kits to see if it even gets his goat.

again, cheers. you motherfuckers are priceless assets to my financial ruin.