I know it’s the wrong forum. Most of us are not drummers, but at the same time I don’t want to go into a random drummer place in the internet and ask for advice there. I hope you can understand.
Basically I have the typical question of: At what price point is it feasable to buy e-drums? Has anyone experience with e-drums?
While I have fun playing in a practice room with my drummer friend there’s the problem that he basically can not practice at home at all and with christmas coming up I am thinking about getting him a christmas present that benefits me too. I also think I could manage a setup in which we both have monitor headphones and can actually practice in our flats.
I currently have my eyes on the Millenium MPS-150X. Anything below that (Like the HD-50) seems sketchy to me. The MPS-150X at least looks more or less like a drumset and I could imagine has a close enough feel to the real thing that it is viable practice. Above that is too expensive for me - but at the same time I don’t want to spend almost 300€ for something that won’t be used. Of course I watched some youtube reviews and such, but a lot of them are from people who aren’t drummers but bought the set to “practice basic stuff”.
If some of you played with a drummer who had e-drums I’m also interested in opinions.
I’ve played with a couple of guys who used e-drums and they liked them okay. The sound tech’s loved them because they had way more control over the volume.
I used to be a drummer and have thought about e-drums, but they still take up a lot of space… this guy seems to be doing very well with a little gizmo:
Sorry, not overly helpful, but for me the space factor is almost more important than the price factor…
In that case I’d definitely recommend starting with some cheap used kit at the lowest possible price point you can find, because this idea is going to be a hit or miss, depending on the construction of the building and the tolerance level of the neighbours. Pedals can be heard downstairs, and plastic cymbals are noisy as well.
My kit had mesh head snare and toms (fairly quiet), noise eaters under the pedals, tennis balls under the rack legs, and the whole thing was on a drum mat. The neighbours still told me to f off.
It’s not used yet, but with mesh heads which are supposed to be quieter, the MPS-150X is the cheapest I could find according to retail price.
Also my experience with Thomann house-brands is good most of the time.
I also had a look for a used e-drums set, but what I found for those were more expensive drumsets. Basically the 300€, although retail, was the cheapest I could currently find with mesh heads.
Thanks very much for your input. This is really helpful. Especially since I would judge him to be one of the louder drummers.
Yeah, for me that would probably the thing I chose. But I am pretty sure that my drummer friend wants to move when he’s playing you know?
Also I think space is not the biggest factor anymore since he only lives with his daughter in a 3 room apartment. There’s also bullshit like a treadmill that no one uses in his living room. A drumset would fit there instead of it
Yes, I totally understand. That lille gizmo is basically like learning a new instrument
It is amazing how good our brain is in filtering out objects we are not interested in even though they were placed right within our field of view and area of movement with the explicit goal to entice us to notice and use them
Yeah that kit looks reasonable, but as I mentioned the problematic part is most likely going to be the cymbals and the pedals. Hopefully you would be able to return it within 30 days if it doesn’t work out with the neighbours. Not sure what Thomann’s policy is in these cases.
Ah, one more question. This time about the setup/gear possibilities.
I know that the 150X has an USB and a MIDI-Out. But this is probably more for recording, using a DAW and putting new samples into the module.
As far as I understand the typical output are headphones you connect directly to the e-drumset.
With thinking about a practice setup for multiple instruments, like guitar and bass added to the drums - would it be possible to use my Interface and just route the headphone output to my interface inserts input and then add other instruments like usual?
Not sure I fully understand the setup you have in mind (is it one person playing to a pre-recorded backing track, or two people jamming at the same time), but anyway… Wouldn’t you want to connect the L/MONO output instead?
If you want big drum pads for cheap go with alesis or even Simmons. But if you want reliability and performance stick with Roland. Get ones with mesh pads.
The problem with cheap sets is that they are cheaply built and break easily. My friend and I bought my drum set at about the same time. He bought an Alesis pro gorgeously huge pads. I bought a Roland TD17KVX. I know sound is objective, I do like the Roland sounds while some people think that they are too synthetic.
My friend’s Alesis pro had 4 pad replacement already. First was the hihat, then the ride cymbals then back to the hihat same problem then another cymbal. I put my Roland set on my covered patio semi-outdoor and while it gets dusty from time to time my set is still going strong.
Most affordable e drum set are made be the same manufacturer so you’d have the same problem. The good news is Roland’s mesh patent had expired and more and more companies are producing better quality mesh pads and kits.
You can still find great deal on older Roland for very affordable price and can count in the reliability. Just food for thoughts.
Edit: @John_E let me know if you have specific questions, I’ve tried a few kit before I chose mine but in the nut shell a decent set of edrum would start at around $1000 new.
The obvious features to look for is
The sound engine
Latency: Roland is the king of low latency.
Pads and cymbals feel and performance
Dry strikes should level
Connectivity: Bluetooth and expansion plug-ins integration.
Durability.
at the moment Roland has the best technology in electronic drums when it comes to hardware. Their digital ride cymbals and snare are just next level, of course it’s only available on the high end kits but just 2 years ago it was only available on their flagship models now it has triggered down to their next tier.
As of now I have packed up my kit into a cabinet and getting ready for my next step a e drum conversion. I have the components but I need a solid block of time to do conversion and setup.
If you actually intend to play drums in a band at some point in the future, then
if noise is not an issue, then get an acoustic kit
if noise is an issue, then get a high-end e-drum kit with mesh heads, real pedals and real hi-hat stand, so that the feel (not just the sound) is going to be as close as possible to a real acoustic kit
If you just want to mess around at home, learn a few rhythms, record your own drum track to play bass with, etc, then just get any cheap kit. It’s going to be perfectly fine.
