Recording drums with electronic drum kit?

[crow01]

Hello TB people,

I would like to know if anybody has experience recording with an electronic drum kit.

I am looking at a Yamaha DTxplorer (approx $700). A search I did, it has good reviews. But I haven't seen anything about recording with this.

What kind of output does it have? Just 1 midi out?

Any experience or tips on recording with (not only this model) but any electronic drum kit?

[bThumper38]

I can't remember which model it was but i used my brothers yamaha E-kit for recording my album and it came out sounding killer. my engineer that's doing the mixdown wasn't too stoked at first but he was sold on it after a bit of mixing. B.

[flight120]

It should have stereo 1/4" outputs, headphone out and midi. I've never used the Yamaha stuff, but I have a Roland kit and it's amazing. Don't have to worry about miking anything, just adjust levels in the drum brain.

Tommy

[Jehos]

You've got two options.

a) You can run the stereo outputs into your interface and record a stereo track that has all the drums. You do the mixing on the "brain" of the kit and what you put to tape is what you've got.

b) You use the kit as a midi trigger and record to a software instrument track. You may or may not have more control over the sound once it's recorded as a midi track in your DAW.

Easiest thing to do is (a), but you don't get a lot of control once the tracking is done--all of your drums are mixed to a stereo track at that point. That may or may not work for you.

[seamonkey]

If it ever ships - this will be the absolute best edrum kit
http://www.2box.se/Pages/drumit_five.html

[adammazza]

I record with an electronic kit all the time (my primary instrument is drums).

I use a Roland TD-9 custom kit and several sample libraries, BFD2, Superior Drummer 2, and Steven Slate 3.0 Platinum. They all sound better then and of the actual drum modules out because they use actual samples.

I have a sample of Superior 2 up at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sqKa...e=channel_page

If you go this route you need a decent audio interface to avoid latency issues. The 2box that was previously mentioned can use these sample libraries.

Going down this route is pretty costly, if you are looking for a cheaper solution check out the new Roland TD4 kit, it has been getting pretty good reviews. Yamaha also makes kits on par with Roland for less money imo.

Adam

[derrico1]

Originally Posted by Jehos

You've got two options.

If you're aiming for obsessive quality, you probably want to keep your options open.

If your module allows, send separate outs for each voice. If your output options are more limited, at least split off kick and snare (the voices you'll most likely need to tweak for your mix). After that, it's nice to separate hi-hats from your other cymbals,

At the same time, you should record a MIDI track, as it will allow you to supplement or replace your module's sounds after the fact.