Live with an electronic drumkit . . .

[Medford Bassman]

played with a drummer for about 3 years with an e-kit. Roland V-Drums.

If you're going to use them, spend the $$ on a good kit.
They were a dream for volume control. Stage was never loud and mixing them was quite easy for FOH.

I also liked he had like 200 different kits on the ""brain". Extremely useful in a variety cover band.

The last 3 drummers I've worked with? Absolutely hate and would NEVER consider them.

Definitely in the minority.

 

[Randall]

Our drummer uses a combo of the new pearl kit (can be used acoustic or electronic) and the brain from his roland kit. Big money but it sounds great.

 

[kraigo]

As a drummer, if the gig is too volume sensitive for acoustic drumset, I'll go to hand percussion instead. I wouldn't count myself as a "hater" but I don't think they save me effort after all the amplification is factored in.

The real pay off is after the drummer puts in the time in pre-production and has the exact right sound dialed in for the exact right time. It can make for a great performance. I don't really have the desire to do that, though. Most don't, in my experience. I don't really get inspired by the factory sounds. I do get excited about playing my drums tweaked the way I like them to sound.

KO

 

[ksandvik]

Most electronic drums have tweaking to the N:th degree available for anyone who dares to go outside the presets.

Just another observation. If you have followed the trend with pop music the last 10 years and you want the same sound on-stage, you need a really strong compressed kick and snare sound with very sterile hihats. You could eq and mike a drum kit to approach this sound but it's kind of sad to destroy a good drum kit ambience just to get there. While with an electronic drum kit it's a no-brainer.

 

[SpecialBlender]

For practice we use a fairly cheap set of Yamaha electrics, guitar playing Line6 XTlive direct into board and monitor everything back through a small PA. Works great, no ringing ears at the end of the night as volume is well controlled. Our drummer is a heavy hitter and likes that he doesn't have to change how hard he plays. The only thing the he struggles with is the hi-hat sound. He's bringing his own to next practice.

 

[KingRazor]

I'm a drummer. I hate them. After all these years, I still think they sound bad, and they look bad.

There's an alternative to drummers with volume knobs - drummers who know - and enjoy - low volume playing. It exists out there. Really.

LIES! There is no such thing!

I kid, of course. It's just that I rarely encounter such a rare creature as a drummer that can play quietly.

 

[xander8280]

I've been playing with a drummer who uses an electronic kit on a weekly basis for several years. Using the electronic kit is necessary because we're playing in front of a congregation and we're in a room with cinderblock walls, so an acoustic kit is out of question. The sound would bounce all over the room and blow everyone out. He plays a heavily modded Roland V-Drum kit that has at least $7,000 put into it so it works very nicely and sounds as close to an actual acoustic kit as I think is possible with technology we have at this point in time.

I have had a very positive experience playing with him, never any technical difficulties and mixes extremely well with the rest of the band. I highly recommend the Roland V-Drum series and have nothing but good things to say about them.

My drummer uses two of these sets. Awesome sounding, one set is on the right side and lots of toms set, and a few special effects. He has a half circle and it let's him have a good 12 piece set and no tuning needed after moving. He uses some real(acoustic?)cymbals. It's great for boosting him at intros or setting his volume for practice. It folds up nice and is good. But he's gone through several highhat pedals for the Roland kit.
Only problem I see is that the toms when hit fast sound too similar everytime theyre hit. It would be cool if they alternated the tone per hit. It has a trigger electronic digital tone when played really fast. The snare is awesome, very real. Maybe it's just him having it "tuned"? So tight instead of dampening it a bit.

 

[Zoomie]

I have never been a huge fan of any of the E kits. Still, I played with a guy for a while that sounded fantastic. He had spent north of 8K to be satisfied with them. No falses, no 'ghost notes.' Surprisingly, he got some decent attack dynamics out of the things.

Interestingly, he was one of the few drummers that I have ever played with that didn't require a buffet sneeze guard for smaller gigs when play one of his accoustic sets.

Buffet sneeze guard for reference: