Auditioning Drummers - E-kits

[Dincrest]

In the last band I played in (an Evanescence-style band I was in from 2012- 2015), our drummer used a Roland electronic drum kit. And people used to tell him all the time that they were anti electronic drums UNTIL they heard him play. He changed peoples' minds about electronic drums. So, in a sense, it's more about the player than the instrument. That being said, electronic drums worked for this band, but probably wouldn't work for other bands.

The pros-
-portability; took less time to set up than acoustic drums;
-we could run samples via his kit for a few songs; various sound options;
-if we wanted to play impromptu at a house party we could simply turn the volume down on the drums and everything and be no louder than a stereo (you'd get a kickin' live electric show at your house party without the noise complaints! Win-win! Band motto was "tour the world and play your house party.").
-And there was one podunk festival show we played where all the bands sounded bad because the drums weren't mic'd... except our band because we were able to connect his drums to the PA.

The cons-
-If the technology failed we were toast. There were days when we'd set up the drums, plug everything in, and nada.
-Sometimes we'd get sound engineers who didn't know how to handle electronic drums and our drummer would have to show them how to connect his drums to the house PA. Granted, once he did and they heard that everything sounded more even, they were happy.

Electronic drums also don't look quite as impressively "cool" as acoustic drums. We've had photographers tell us that they couldn't make photos of him behind an electric kit look as cool as they could of drummers behind more impressive acoustic kits.

The ideal setup for us would have been electronic drums with properly mic'd acoustic cymbals. Yeah, newer electronic kits have metal cymbals for a more realistic feel, but those triggers don't sound as good. Too brittle. The triggers on his "rubber" cymbals were fuller sounding, but not organic.

Personally, I prefer the organic resonance of "real" acoustic drums. And it's pretty amazing how with electric guitars and basses getting louder with amplification, acoustic drums still keep up or exceed that level of volume. That's remarkable to me.

But I'm glad I played with this band, because it gave me a feel for electronic drumkits and had me thinking differently in some ways.

 

[pklima]

As this thread is still going, I'll throw one more thing in: sure, to the drummer they don't feel like the real thing. But if you're trying to play rock and control at very low volume, the other option is to use brushes or hot rods, and as far as stick bounce, an e-kit probably feels much closer to "normal". Something I learned setting up a minimalist kit (kick, snare, hat) at my house for practice, and getting various types of sticks.

 

[TheArchitect]

As this thread is still going, I'll throw one more thing in: sure, to the drummer they don't feel like the real thing. But if you're trying to play rock and control at very low volume, the other option is to use brushes or hot rods, and as far as stick bounce, an e-kit probably feels much closer to "normal". Something I learned setting up a minimalist kit (kick, snare, hat) at my house for practice, and getting various types of sticks.

The better pads feel fine. The problems are in triggering, dynamics and reproductions. The better kits solve the first two pretty well. The last is a question of monitoring. IF you have wedges blasting behind you to feel and sound like a kit you are defeating the purpose. You really need quality in ears to get in the ball park on the 3rd item..