Home recording: V-drums any good? [OT]

I have recently caught the home recording bug. Coming from a guitar background, a main problem for me has been in programming drum sequences, either via MIDI or using samples. Basically, because I don't play drums, I am shooting in the dark.

Then I thought

My friend has a Roaldn V drum kit - the one where the drums have skins, so they feel a bit more real. It doesn't have quite the same feel as a real drumkit, but its certainly good. The drum sounds are good, and you could also use it to trigger a sampler via MIDI, if you wanted some different sounds. If i had the money (and the space!) i would get one this minute, i think they're great..

Mike

V drums sound great!But they are very expensive. There are many recorded examples,but seeing as how I have followed a similar route(because you can't sound like a great drummer with MIDI programming,no matter how clever it is)- Good drummers sound great on V drums and bad drummers......sound like ....you guessed,these are real musical instruments after all.I know we all joke about drummers,but listen to all the best rock music;who have you got?Bonham,Bruford,Wackerman,Moon etc.

One bit of advice if you're going to do it is check out the sites for building the pads-many drummers buy a brain(surely a joke in there somewhere)i.e. a Roland TD-7,then make the pads with mouse mats,plywood and a 49p piezo transducer from Maplin.(YU 87)Check out DIY Edrums(a Yahoo group)for some great ideas and advice.

I have always thought this might be possible - anything with piezo compatible inputs. As amatter of fact, we used to use maplin bugs coupled up to an old Yamaha 50 quid hand held drum thingy. DD5 IIRC. An alesis D4 seems like a wise choice for such an invention along with tupperware tubs and piezos. Am I barking up the wrong tree here ?

The soldering is a very insignificant part of such a project, honestly. And I think I may have found a suitable low budget set of pads to mount the bugs to.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem& item=2546599717&categ... 75

Nothing like the response of the Mesh head pads on V drums, but for 100 quid with stands...

Yes, we do.

Definitely a useful musical instrument. No doubt about it. Ours has been played by a couple of world-class drummers who have expressed surprise at how good it is.

One thing to consider: it needs to be placed on a solid floor, since the bass drum pedal imparts quite a bit of energy into the floor. If you have downstairs neighbours, they won't enjoy it.

Steve http://www.fivetrees.com

I've also been thinking about the Yamaha e-drums.Yamaha are usually good value instruments. I've always wanted to learn drums but practicing on an acoustic kit in a terrace house would be too much for the neighbours...maybe e-drums would do it. Is the DTXpress kit silent enough for practice in a back bedroom? I read that the kick pedal can be noisy?

I'll check this out! People have also suggested buying mesh drum pads from one place, add some stands from another place, then spend what you've saved on a good control unit.

Come to think of it. As a beginner, I only need kick + snare + hihat to get me going!

Hi Bruce,

If you have the money and the inclination then I'd definitely go for it. You are absolutely right that kick, snare and hi-hat give you most of what you want. If you really want more then there's no reason you couldn't use the same pads to overdub a few fills or crashes.

I have an electronic kit ... the old PD7, KD7 type stuff and I've used it to record and to play live. Its great for practicing but does still give a few shock waves through the floor as Steve has pointed out. Its also great for recording for obvious reasons.

When I recorded I used the built in effects (ie. reverb) and a stereo line-in to my PC. There are a few things to be careful of ... any imbalance between the different sounds is less obvious until mix-down ... and so is the right level of reverb. Normally you'd add reverb afterwards, but with only two channels on my PC soundcard I'd end up with too much verb on some voices and not enough on others.

Plus, as someone else has already pointed out, you could record the midi output and then use it to trigger samples from where-ever.

Go for it!

Cheers, Steve W

Rather than buying a full entry-level kit, it might be better if I go for a good quality mesh snare + kick drum beater. Then add a hi-hat (I have seen Roland pads go for £20 on e-bay).

Yes. It's no noisier than playing with sticks on, say, the back of a typical sofa.

Well, you supply your own pedal... as Steve says, they (pedals in general) impart a fair amount of energy into the floor, so if there are people downstairs they may not thank you for it. I live on the ground floor, so it's not a problem for me.

For the sorts of prices you can pick up a DTXpress for (sub £500 s/h), they're fantastic things.

- rfb