elec drum kits

present_tense

Roland TD3K


Hey. Ive got a torque drum kit, but the accoustics in our basement are shit since we stipped our walls. I was thinking of renting some recording gear in a few weeks to record a raw record of my stuff. Anywho, im gonna be renting an electronic drum kit and just pluggin it right into the digital recorder.. Any advice or opinions on these things sound? ill most likely be going with a Roland TD3K... Any comment at all would be great, thanks.

Nullifidian

Yea I've played a set of roland drums. Not sure if it was that exact model but it certainly looks similar. Though I didn't actually use them to record anything but I am told they aren't too bad once you find the right sound. And a good few of my lecturers in uni swear by these things and its all they use now.

I certainly had alot of fun with these things playing through all the different patches but I thought the actual drum sounds were pretty unnatural and very synth sounding. Now I only played around on these things for about an hour so after some messing around I'm sure you could get some good stuff out of them.

Again I'm not sure of the model I played so it might of been a cheap one.

present_tense

thanks dude, that helps!

totaledhead

I have a yamaha dt-express 2 and its one of the best kits ive ever played on. Roughly 45 pre-made kits and 30 kits to edit and make yourself. Also if your a u2 fan Larry Mullen used that kit whilst recordin one of their albums.

~P@M~

evenflow

This brings up a question I've had. I've got a home studio with acoustic drums, and have yet to record them with good sound. It always sounds like the old school 93 era boot legs. I've toyed with the idea of getting an electric set to record with, but I've always been leary of that synthisizer machine gun sound. Are the mid priced (the Roland V-drums for around $1,000 for example) electric drum sets good enough to record with and sound natural, or am I just doomed untill I cough up enough money to rent out a real studio?

BTW I didn't mean to hi-jack your thread.

enharmonic

A few "secrets" to recording electronic drums

1. Record them dry and flat: that means, do not print reverb or any crazy eq "effects"...save it for the mix. You will be happier in the long run if you can put those drum sounds in a room to fit the song, rather than being stuck with some shitty room sound effect on the drums.

2. Cymbals are everything! Hi hats and crashes sound really bad on those kits. If you can use live breakables, you will be a lot happier with the outcome.

3. You can print audio, or MIDI. Unless you are hot shit with MIDI, print audio. There will be too much temptation to beat doctor or otherwise "quantize" the MIDI tracks...thereby instantly sucking the life out of the performance. Real drums move a bit...human beings swing or work in the pocket...even the best MIDI can't do this yet...but it can sure lock your shit up to the beat with life draining accuracy.

4. experiment with presets. A lot fo thought went in to designing the good kits...if you are just renting the Roland unit, don't burn up too much time designing your own kit unless you really know the unit. There are presets that will do really well...better than a lot of what you would be able to do at home with an acoustic kit.

5. Don't compress until the mix. These samples are already optimised to provide the best sound per hit...save all dynamics and such for the mix.

Hope this helps.

present_tense

awesome reply!! That helps a boat load, thanks much

enharmonic

One last thing...a bit of encouragement.

If you only knew how many songs on the radio today have their drums replaced with samples, your head would spin. Use real cymbals and hats, mic them up like you normally would, and the rest should be relatively easy. Samples just can't replace the transient response of cymblas yet...maybe in another 5 years or so...they're getting very close.

You could always play the track with the roland kit, and then buy software that you can use to replace your sounds. Check this out....slays the roland sounds...

http://www.fxpansion.com/product-bfd-main.php

dreadhead

i think those jits are really kool to muck around on and that, it would be excellent to have as a practice kit of u needed to be quiet. however the feel and sound just do not match that raw bang bang for me. im quite the purists at heart and could never bring myself to play and electric kit on a regular basis.

present_tense

thanks for all the replies people!! Im definately gonna give them a try and record some stuff!

pogsmogs

that was damn cool advice. I'm thinking of getting either the roland 3 kit or one of those new yamaha kits that are a little bit cheaper. The sounds seem the same to me, both really good. Anyone know which is better and if its worth the extra couple of hundreds bucks for the roland? The roland has two cymbal sounds per pad, so for that reason i guess its better.