Electronic Drums? Opinions Please.

[thebrig]

My band is currently looking for a drummer and we've had four applicants so far, they all seem quite suitable and one in particular is really into the music we play, and is able to rehearse during the day because we are all retired or semi-retired.

 

But, he says he plays an electronic kit, I know the higher-end kits can sound quite good, but on the odd occasions I've seen bands play live with an electronic kit, something just seems to be lacking sound wise, and they just don't look right.

 

Is it just me?

 

I would be interested to hear of your experiences of drummers using electronic kits.

[Al Krow]

I'm sure people were saying the exact same thing when folk first started playing the electric bass!

[BigRedX]

IME there are two factors that affect the effectiveness of electronic kits with a more "traditional" band setting.

 

Firstly there is the skill of the drummer in setting up the sounds and their responsiveness to the individual's playing technique. This is the area where I think most drummer with electronic kits fall down. How the sounds respond to the drummer depends on both the sound and how it has been adjusted to match that particular drummer's technique. The best sounding electronic kit I have heard from a "semi-pro" band should on paper have no been brilliant because of the old technology used for generating the sounds, but because the drummer had matched the responsiveness of the sounds exactly to how they played it sound fantastic.

 

Secondly there is a tendency for bands and audiences to listen with their eyes. I used to be a fairly high-tech band which over the years had a number of drummers each with different electronic kits. The one that most people though was the best was the one whose kit was essentially a traditional drum kit but with the shells heavily damped and bugs for triggering the sounds attached to the heads. Interestingly he was playing the same drum parts triggering exactly the same sounds as his predecessors who used more obviously electronic kits. Also he was by far the more "metronomic" when it came to  how closely his hits matched a quantised 16th note grid (as we discovered in the studio). So looks do count for a lot. These days there are commercially available kits that look to the average audience member just like acoustic drums.

 

I'd say get your prospective drummer in for an audition and decide when you've heard and seen them.

 

[Angel]

I would tell him from the start that you have reservations about an electronic kit, that way if he doesn't quite cut it in the auditions, either playing or sound, you have your get-out clause pre-prepared!

[Happy Jack]

The Junkyard Dogs have used a leccy kit at small / low volume gigs for years, initially a Roland TD-1 and then latterly an Alesis Crimson. They're both very much entry level kits with virtually no bells & whistles at all, and no attempt to look like the real thing. A leccy kit takes up significantly less space at a gig (especially while being set up and broken down) plus Paul the Drums is a bit of a shed-builder ... he don't do 'quiet'.

 

Paul whinged incessantly at first, and especially about the Roland, because the feel wasn't right. He is a lot happier with the mesh heads on the Alesis, plus (despite being a total luddite) he now routinely re-configures drum sounds on the fly, sometimes in the middle of a song. 

 

@Silvia Bluejay and I record every single gig we play. Listening later I really struggle to hear which gigs were live kit and which were leccy. That may be down to my hearing, but that's at least as good as the non-muso punters in the audience - if I can't hear the difference then they can't either.

 

As to the look, I got a small banner made up with the Dogs' logo which attaches to the frame rail of the leccy kit. Effectively it's an over-sized kickdrum head showing the band's name and that's what the non-muso punters see, not the wiring.

 

 

[Happy Jack]

Here's the leccy kit in action at a low-volume semi-acoustic gig on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
 

 

[Happy Jack]

Here's the same song, same band, same drummer, but now a live gig in a fairly large Club on a Saturday night.

 

 

[thebrig]

19 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

I'd say get your prospective drummer in for an audition and decide when you've heard and seen them.

 

We are definitely going to get him in for an audition, we are not going to dismiss him because he plays an electronic kit.

In the past, we've had drummers come along and talked for hours about their "top of the range gear" but were totally imcompetant drummers.

[ordep]

we always use acoustic drums on all of our gigs. But this one particular gig, due the acoustics and size of the room, we cannot use or usual set. Our drummer have to use his Alesis Sample pad pro plus hi hats and it sounded decent. Safe to say I didnt miss the acoustic kit that night.

 

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/FQ5KJvbpm8dN7q8j/?mibextid=KsPBc6

[gjones]

20 minutes ago, thebrig said:

In the past, we've had drummers come along and talked for hours about their "top of the range gear" but were totally imcompetant drummers.

 

I think I know that guy 🤣

[Bassfinger]

Our drummist uses an electronic kit and it sounds great, you really wouldn't know any different.

 

A lot of venues with sound level limits insist on an electronic kit anyway these days.

[thebrig]

22 minutes ago, Bassfinger said:

Our drummist uses an electronic kit and it sounds great, you really wouldn't know any different.

 

A lot of venues with sound level limits insist on an electronic kit anyway these days.

Yes, I agree that they would certainly have advantages in small or quiet venues.

[asingardenof]

1 hour ago, Bassfinger said:

A lot of venues with sound level limits insist on an electronic kit anyway these days.

One we were considering playing at said they'd provide their own e-kit!

[Boodang]

I play drums in a couple of bands. So, for jazz it's an acoustic kit but for everything else (covers, blues and a power rock thing!), I use an electronic kit (Yamaha DTX6K3-X).... and it's awesome!

Pros & cons obviously but overall it's great. No sound on stage other than monitors is the biggest thing to get used to and yes, it does look like you're playing 'my first drum kit'! But.... I'm getting a consistent sound out of the PA, I've got a choice of kit samples to choose from to best suit the song/band/venue, and I'm not going deaf as I can control the volume far easier (which is also a great plus for small venues where you can go full smashy power mode and be as quite as a church mouse!).

One of the things I found over the year and half I've been using the ekit is that you have to get into editing and eq'ing the kit to make the most of it live. I have various presets of each kit depending on the venue and PA I'm going through. So a full PA system with bins does not have a problem reproducing a standard Yamaha 'absolute' kit but for smaller systems I've eq'd the kit so the emphasis is more on the mid punch and click of the bass drum, less resonance on the toms, plus keeping the decay on cymbals a bit shorter I find helps clean up the things. Also, I use sample stacking a lot, so my BD is a 22" and 18" combined, and I've done similar for the toms. My HH has a setting on the half open where I've introduced a bit of tambourine so it cuts through more. Lots of thing you can do with an ekit that are obviously impossible with an acoustic.

 

We put everything through a Behringer XR18 and IEMs, so much appreciating the lack of onstage volume. Takes a bit of getting used to but overall a plus for me. 

 

 

[taunton-hobbit]

I think DAD uses electronics ?

 

 

[Dad3353]

9 minutes ago, taunton-hobbit said:

I think DAD uses electronics ?

 

Indeed, initially as an 'at home' way of keeping my hand in, but quickly moving on to 'giggable' kits. I now play a Millenium 850, bought in an as-new (still boxed..!) condition for 350€; it has excellent sounds, 'native', but I've coupled it to a laptop running Superior Drummer 3, and it's as good as it gets. The one downside, for me, is not being able to simulate jazz brush swishing with any conviction; other than that, I now play my acoustic (Camco...) to keep my hand in, but rehearse and gig with the e-kit. No complaints here, nor from the band, nor the audience, so... 

[uk_lefty]

A lot has already been said but one thing that made a big difference with my drummer is having a sub fairly central, either under the front of the stage if possible or at the back of the stage. This makes the bass drum sound feel like (well, it is) coming from the middle and where the bass drum is rather than off to one side. 

 

His kit is a very posh Roland that looks like the real thing. In the first few gigs we had issues with cables slipping out or him not realising a certain setting was on or off. With all that sorted though it's so much better than the acoustic kit. I honestly can't tell the difference when we play live. Oh, he uses normal cymbals because he hates the electronic ones (these weren't cheap but they just don't sound right) and he has spent so much on the kit to get the really, really fancy cymbals is just a stretch too far.