Electric drumkits

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='OldGit' post='292646' date='Sep 26 2008, 12:19 PM']Live I think only two people in the room are going to notice - you and the drummer .. three if you count the sound person ...
99% of the audience certainly won't.[/quote]

99% of the audience wouldn't notice if the bass player was miming to a prerecorded track, either. Why don't we all do that, then? It saves buying expensive amps, in-ear monitors and new strings...

[The Funk]

[quote name='dave_bass5' post='292580' date='Sep 26 2008, 11:39 AM']That reminds me, we also thought the sound of the kit lacked dynamics. Could be the drummer not being used to the kit (he sounded great on an acoustic kit and certainly can play well) but there was something too "drum machine" about the snare, it just didnt seem have the dynamics of a real snare live, even though it sounded very good.[/quote]

Even the best V-drum snares with the full mesh heads don't have much variation in sound. An electric kit with an acoustic snare / cymbals / hi-hat would be cool. But live everything sounds crap anyway: good equipment and sh*t equipment, 'cos the sound engineers are always pants.

[dave_bass5]

[quote name='OldGit' post='292646' date='Sep 26 2008, 12:19 PM']Live I think only two people in the room are going to notice - you and the drummer .. three if you count the sound person ...
99% of the audience certainly won't.[/quote]

I have to disagree. I know we dont care about what they think normally but both my guitarist and singer also noticed the difference.
The stage sound was very empty, you could almost hear a fart ripping on stage at some points, nothing like how it normally sounds with an acoustic drum kit.
I agree about the audience. In fact we all thought that for the disco/dance songs an electronic bass drum sounded much better and it did seem to help give us a better groove.

[OldGit]

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='292652' date='Sep 26 2008, 12:24 PM']99% of the audience wouldn't notice if the bass player was miming to a prerecorded track, either. Why don't we all do that, then? It saves buying expensive amps, in-ear monitors and new strings... [/quote]


Ha ha yeah I know

Actually I think programmed synth bass and real drums can sound good and programmed synth drums and real bass but not synth bass and synth drums (say on pop crap) together. I think things need the slight varience in timing that humans add.

A real drummer playing a V kit is a different thing to a producer playing drums on a keyboard (or however they do it in a studio these days) as you can put feel and stuff into it (on the good kits anyway) and, of course, a real drummer still has the nuances of timing and stroke variation we all know and love that make real drumming so great.

With your big PA gigs the Drums are mostly processed through mics and EQ and speakers anyway so they are not really "acoustic" for most of the audience ..

[OldGit]

[quote name='dave_bass5' post='292662' date='Sep 26 2008, 12:30 PM']I have to disagree. I know we dont care about what they think normally but both my guitarist and singer also noticed the difference.
The stage sound was very empty, you could almost hear a fart ripping on stage at some points, nothing like how it normally sounds with an acoustic drum kit.
I agree about the audience. In fact we all thought that for the disco/dance songs an electronic bass drum sounded much better and it did seem to help give us a better groove.[/quote]


oh alright Dave, ... I agree.
The rest of our band noticed something was different that night, mostly the space on stage, ease of setup and drummer not moaning about his back and all the gear he has to carry

.. so that's 6 people ...................

And .. the next day we all had better hearing after not being 2 feet from a (real) crash cymbal for 3 hours, another positive thing ...

You know after all of this I may suggest we play the next few gigs with the V drums .. specially as our man at the front has tinnitus right now and is struggling a bit to protect his ears ...

[Raggy]

All I know is that when our drummer cracks his snare, our teeth rattle, the band love it!!.

No matter what monitoring we use we cant recreate that with his V kit.

Edited September 26, 2008 by Raggy

[beerdragon]

There's no doubt he can play, when mentioning if our drumming fancied having an electric kit. his respnce was, i'll have one and burn it! he's old school i suppose.

[dave_bass5]

[quote name='OldGit' post='292670' date='Sep 26 2008, 12:47 PM']ease of setup and drummer not moaning about his back and all the gear he has to carry [/quote]

That was our initial impression of using a Roland kit as well.
Funny that, as it took him, on average 30-40mins to set it all up, had loads of wires to plug in and lots of boxes to carry.
Way more set up time and trips to the car than our regular drummer with an acoustic kit.

Edited September 26, 2008 by dave_bass5

[crez5150]

That's just poor organization on your drummers part.... When our drummer uses his, he's set up and plugged in within 10 mins...

[dave_bass5]

[quote name='crez5150' post='292687' date='Sep 26 2008, 01:03 PM']That's just poor organization on your drummers part.... When our drummer uses his, he's set up and plugged in within 10 mins...[/quote]

Oh i agree. and he stood around talking a lot as well.
I was just pointing out my experience.

[crez5150]

Bloody drummers...... Think I'd put up with drum machine sounds actually!

[OldGit]

[quote name='crez5150' post='292699' date='Sep 26 2008, 01:10 PM']Bloody drummers...... Think I'd put up with drum machine sounds actually![/quote]
... and you only have to punch the instructions in once .....

[dave_bass5]

[quote name='OldGit' post='292703' date='Sep 26 2008, 01:16 PM']... and you only have to punch the instructions in once .....[/quote]

Yeah but drum machines wont get a round in at the bar......actually, come to think of it neither will some drummers ;-)

[BigRedX]

It's all down to the kit and drummer, and how much time the drummer is prepared to spend tweaking the presets to suit the sound of the band and his/her playing technique. It's been a while since I've last played in a band with an electronic kit, but just before the most recent versions of the V-Drum came out the best sounding kit IMO was the Clavia D-Drum, which was based on what is ancient technology, but thanks to way the sounds have been designed and the responsiveness of the pads it sounded much better than newer kits based on supposedly superior tech.

As regards monitoring you need to treat the kit the same way as any other electric/electronic instrument - that means the drummer needs some dedicated amplification for on-stage monitoring purposes.

[dave_bass5]

yeah, i think monitoring is a big issue for the drummer if he is using an electronic kit.
I got the impression that ours was hitting harder (and therefore not getting the full dynamics) because he was having trouble hearing himself.

[crez5150]

IEM all the way mate

[dave_bass5]

[quote name='crez5150' post='292742' date='Sep 26 2008, 02:06 PM']IEM all the way mate[/quote]

Yes, i take your point but this then involves a much greater outlay than just a new kit.
Thats the main reason why we went back to acoustic.

[elom]

Our drummer has an electric kit and it doesn't have the same presence as an acoustic on stage [i]but...[/i]

We can squeeze into smaller venues which otherwise couldn't accommodate a 5 piece band and having that overall control on the volume is a huge bonus (especially for reassuring a landlord concerned about the neighbours).

It has helped us get gigs that we wouldn't have got with an acoustic kit so for that reason it gets my vote.

The big bonus for our drummer is ease of transport, set up time and the fact that he can easily practice at home.

[foal30]

the snares response time is different.
also the lack of air being shifted is an ambiance thing to get used to.
for recording make sure the unit has the right line outs.
I guess this is an isolation issue.

I like shifting them for gigs mind.

[noelk27]

I was just thinking to myself, if the internet had been around in 1951, is this the discussion that would have been taking place on the Musicians Union website. Bass player versus Fender Bass player - snobbery and prejudice. But when we all take a step back, and look around, how many of us play double bass as our main instrument? Took a decade though for the revolution to really kick in, when amplifier technology caught up.

[woolleydick]

[quote name='noelk27' post='293357' date='Sep 27 2008, 01:02 PM']I was just thinking to myself, if the internet had been around in 1951, is this the discussion that would have been taking place on the Musicians Union website. Bass player versus Fender Bass player - snobbery and prejudice. But when we all take a step back, and look around, how many of us play double bass as our main instrument? Took a decade though for the revolution to really kick in, when amplifier technology caught up.[/quote]

Nice comparison - our previous drummer had Roland V-Drums, he said they helped him explore his female side - I wonder what a discussion in 1951 would have made of that!

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='noelk27' post='293357' date='Sep 27 2008, 12:02 PM']I was just thinking to myself, if the internet had been around in 1951, is this the discussion that would have been taking place on the Musicians Union website. Bass player versus Fender Bass player - snobbery and prejudice. But when we all take a step back, and look around, how many of us play double bass as our main instrument? Took a decade though for the revolution to really kick in, when amplifier technology caught up.[/quote]

No.. I think the point is, when you play a double bass or a Fender Bass what you hear is as a result of wood, metal, vibrations, magnetics, whatever. All analogue, all physically happening.

When you play an electric drum kit, what you're hearing is is a proccessor interpreting that and triggering a sound that was originally played by someone else.

That's a canny big difference.

[phil_the_bassist]

[quote name='wateroftyne' post='294313' date='Sep 29 2008, 08:39 AM']That's a canny big difference.[/quote]

He's making a good point, IMO...it [i]might[/i] be the way that drums'll go in the next decade. You can picture it now...you'll have the guys who play Acoustic Drums to be a rare beast, with all the lugging/transport/space/soundlevel issues to deal with whereas the 'leccy kit users will just turn up with a big backpack and bundle of leads (as the technology get to be that portable) and they'll clip it all toegther in 3mins, plug straight into the FOH/monitors and be able to tweak their kits for funk, soul, rock, blues, jazz in an instant, and people'll remember "when they first started out, you had a drummer that took 45mins to set-up, blast all hell outta your ears for the duration of the set and take 45mins to de-kit..." in that nostalgic way.

[dave_bass5]

Personally i think they had their chance over the past 20+ years and while they have their place i cant see them taking off for the average gigging drummer. The 80's was the electronic drum era and while they have got better they are still not cheap and in my 30 years of playing ive only personally ever encountered one drummer using them.
certainly for a band like mine that only use a small PA and two cars its just not as simple as getting it and plugging it in, as i said above, our PA and monitors would also need upgrading and then the transport etc.

Just my feelings though.

Edited September 29, 2008 by dave_bass5

[thedontcarebear]

Electric drumkits never sound better then a real acoustic kit.