Electric drumkits

[OldGit]

When our basher first got his V kit he had a long long tekkie conversation with the salesman about amplification, and then another equally long but unbiased conversation with our favorite PA wrangler.

The answer was a FO big powered Mackie monitor, incidentally.

The surprising bit for me was that the PA man said he always thought of an acoustic drum kit as putting out about 1000 watts of noise when played with gusto.
That's really why vocal PA systems like our struggle with reproducing the sound of the V kit at anything like normal acoustic kit levels .

[peted]

I used to have the odd rehearsal round the guitarist's house and the drummer would use his electric kit. I found it amazing to be able to bring along my little 75 Watt practice amp and not even have to turn it up past my usual 'bedroom volume'.

It was a bit of a practice revelation for me and I loved it to bits. I still prefer the sound of an acoustic kit, but the electric kit was an order of magnitude more practical for rehearsals.

My old originals band have also just recorded using the MIDI output from an electric kit and paired the MIDI track with the Drummer From Hell software and it sounds PHENOMINAL!

So my 2p is:
Rehearsal: Electric Kit (amplified)
Recording: Electric Kit (MIDI out + software patches)
Live: Acoustic Kit

[dave_bass5]

[quote name='peted' post='294383' date='Sep 29 2008, 10:35 AM']So my 2p is:
Rehearsal: Electric Kit (amplified)
Recording: Electric Kit (MIDI out + software patches)
Live: Acoustic Kit[/quote]

yeah, ill go with that. In the studio i would be more than happy to have a V drum kit.

[BOD2]

Interesting discussion. I played in a band for 5 years with a V-drum kit so here's a little more on my experience of it...

Initially we only had a vocal PA so the drums went through their own two Makie SRM450s. That made the stage sound and FOH sound perfectly loud enough, but there were no problems with crash cymbals exploding in your ears on stage.

As the band got bigger the PA got bigger, so we just put the V-drums straight into the PA. The drummer usef in-ear monitoring and everyone else had floor mionitors with as much of the drums as they wanted. This gave good controlled volume on stage and as much FOH as we ever wanted.

In the band mix the V-drum sounds were good. The only criticisms we ever heard were from drummers with acoustic kits who were negative towards V-drums in the first place. When we listened to those drummers play live ourselves it has to be said all we could hear was the snare drum - the toms were lost completely or sounded like cardboard boxes being hit. So we considered that, in the environments we were playing in (i.e. less than ideal) the V-drums sounded better and it was much easier and quicker to get a good balanced sound.

Rehearsal was much easier as we could all turn down and retain the balance of the drum sound.

We fitted the kit frame with locakable castors and left all the pads on the kit for transport - only the cymbals were removed. The whole frame was rolled into the van in one go. To setup, it was rolled out, cymbals fitted and it was ready to go. 10 minutes could see it done.

Yes, I accept that an acoustic kit will always have more dynamics and better sounds in ideal conditions. But in a mix in real life conditions I always felt the V-drums were a big bonus.

[OldGit]

[quote name='BOD2' post='294400' date='Sep 29 2008, 11:04 AM']Interesting discussion. I played in a band for 5 years with a V-drum kit so here's a little more on my experience of it...

Initially we only had a vocal PA so the drums went through their own two Makie SRM450s. That made the stage sound and FOH sound perfectly loud enough, but there were no problems with crash cymbals exploding in your ears on stage.

As the band got bigger the PA got bigger, so we just put the V-drums straight into the PA. The drummer usef in-ear monitoring and everyone else had floor mionitors with as much of the drums as they wanted. This gave good controlled volume on stage and as much FOH as we ever wanted.

In the band mix the V-drum sounds were good. The only criticisms we ever heard were from drummers with acoustic kits who were negative towards V-drums in the first place. When we listened to those drummers play live ourselves it has to be said all we could hear was the snare drum - the toms were lost completely or sounded like cardboard boxes being hit. So we considered that, in the environments we were playing in (i.e. less than ideal) the V-drums sounded better and it was much easier and quicker to get a good balanced sound.

Rehearsal was much easier as we could all turn down and retain the balance of the drum sound.

We fitted the kit frame with locakable castors and left all the pads on the kit for transport - only the cymbals were removed. The whole frame was rolled into the van in one go. To setup, it was rolled out, cymbals fitted and it was ready to go. 10 minutes could see it done.

Yes, I accept that an acoustic kit will always have more dynamics and better sounds in ideal conditions. But in a mix in real life conditions I always felt the V-drums were a big bonus.[/quote]


Thanks. That's very useful.

[dave_bass5]

Good points.
when we rehearsed i found myself saying something i never have before, that i couldn't hear the drums and could we turn them up. And yes, going home without a ringing in my ears was fantastic.

Before we rehearsed with this guy we had a think about any benefits to using the V drum and we agreed that a lot (if not most) of dance music used these sort of sounds rather than an acoustic sounding kit so we figured if it gets them dancing in the clubs maybe it will work at weddings etc. There is always a busy dance floor when the Disco is on between sets.

It was really more down to our PA/monitors not being up to the job (although out front the sound was pretty good, and now we have a powered sub i imaging it would be even better) that we felt it wasn't working, along with any specific issues that ive mentioned in my posts with this particular drummer.

[alexclaber]

The main reasons the bass guitar replaced the double bass were that it was easier to transport and much louder. Once you add decent amplification then electronic drum kits have neither advantage over acoustic kits.

Alex

[BOD2]

I should maybe add that we were a general covers band that leant more towards rock. We didn't do "disco" covers so the sounds we were looking for from the drums were traditional rock sounds and not electronic drums sounds at all.

I think the drummer used 2, maybe 3 of the V-drum preset kits, with only minor tweaks to those kits sounds, and to my ears these kits sounded good. Not at all artificial. It does help of your amplification is up to the job, of course, so it's important that the V-drums are played through a good PA or monitor setup.

If your band only has a vocal PA then the V-drums start to make less sense, as you'll need some fairly powerful amps for the V-drums themselves to be heard. But if you already have the PA and especially if you mic up the drums, then they certainly make setting up and getting a good FOH sound a lot quicker and easier - and with fewer open mics on the stage the headroom of your PA will be better.

[BOD2]

[quote name='alexclaber' post='294412' date='Sep 29 2008, 11:23 AM']The main reasons the bass guitar replaced the double bass were that it was easier to transport and much louder. Once you add decent amplification then electronic drum kits have neither advantage over acoustic kits.

Alex[/quote]


Yes, that's a good point if you don't already use a good powerful PA.

[dave_bass5]

[quote name='BOD2' post='294415' date='Sep 29 2008, 11:28 AM']I should maybe add that we were a general covers band that leant more towards rock. We didn't do "disco" covers so the sounds we were looking for from the drums were traditional rock sounds and not electronic drums sounds at all.[/quote]

Same here.
I was talking more about a good, solid bass drum sound. While we do mic our bass drum up we felt an electronic one might have a bit more punch to it. And it did.
we generally just throw a bass drum mic in the drum and EQ it quickly. Its sounds fine out front most of the time anyway but the V drum had more "solid, dance ability" to it.
Almost like our acoustic bass drum will sound now that we have the sub.

[Ba55me15ter]

Connect your v-drums to a laptop with a decent low-latency sound interface and a copy of Superior 2.0 to really see what 'leccy drums can do! I use a cheapo Yamaha DTXpress like this in my studio - it's so much fun.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roLX4ZW2Ldk"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roLX4ZW2Ldk[/url]

[Krysbass]

The drummer in my last band used a Yamaha electronic kit and its biggest advantage was that getting the volume levels right was a doddle whereas my 500watt bass rig only just makes itself heard over our current heavy-handed drummer and acoustic kit .

IMHO the acoustic kit looks and sounds better, but it takes longer to set up/dismantle, needs a reasonably large hatchback to transport it and takes up more floor space at gigs or in the rehearsal room. Through lack of space and not being able to turn the volume down enough, our acoustic drummer says he can’t practice at home between rehearsals/gigs – not good!

BUT... our band with the electronic drums folded because electronic drum heads apparently don’t have as much “give” as acoustic ones, so the drummer got some sort of repetitive strain injury and had to give up playing! – Worth a thought perhaps?

[ped]

Go into a pub and watch a mediocre band playing mediocre songs with a mediocre drum kit badly miced up (if at all) and THAT sound is why I much prefer electrics.