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Your Thoughts On Digital Drums!

Will You Play With Digital Drums?

  • Yes

    Votes: 275 71.6%

  • No Way!

    Votes: 30 7.8%

  • If The Music Calls For It

    Votes: 49 12.8%

  • Partial Digital Kit is OK (add digital pads to acoustic set)

    Votes: 42 10.9%

  • Carrots

    Votes: 17 4.4%
  • Total voters
    384
#141
CoffeeLove said:
Our new drummer loves his expensive Roland kit. Have played with it, and others in the past, but not feeling the love. He is open to playing acoustic or digital, so not a problem. However, thought my bandmates would be in the same camp as far as disliking the digital kit, but they seem to be indifferent at the moment.

We play about 4 songs that fit the digital kit (Bust A Move, Rappers Delight, etc...) but the rest of the tunes are more classic, or had acoustic drums as part of the original recordings.

Thoughts
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I love playing with drummers on a good digital kit that isn't set up to sound like synth drums . They can hit as hard as they want and we can keep the volume down, not to mention ease of recording. I wish more drummers used them.
 
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#143
CoffeeLove said:
Our new drummer loves his expensive Roland kit. Have played with it, and others in the past, but not feeling the love. He is open to playing acoustic or digital, so not a problem. However, thought my bandmates would be in the same camp as far as disliking the digital kit, but they seem to be indifferent at the moment.

We play about 4 songs that fit the digital kit (Bust A Move, Rappers Delight, etc...) but the rest of the tunes are more classic, or had acoustic drums as part of the original recordings.

Thoughts
Click to expand...
I thought they would sound bad until I played in a band who used them

Sounded great as well as adding the occasional electronic “swoop” sound in good taste .

No qualms using them but I prefer standard acoustic .

If the drummer sounds good .. it is good !
 
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#144
S.F.Sorrow said:
Digital this, digital that. What's next? The double bass player in a symphony orchestra showing up with a Palantino and a modelling amp?

Joking aside, I can see how digital drums must be convenient for a hard working cover band. But for anyone writing their own material and aiming for artistic intergrity I would find digital drums very inappropriate for most genres.

They can be great fun for quiet practise though!
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Paulabass said:
What if they are writing for digital drums? Using acoustic drums in that situation would be losing artistic integrity.
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Not only might some styles call for electronic drums, it is really common to replace (or blend) drum samples in the studio these days. Bass drum especially is often replaced in post production and you'd never know. The player played on an acoustic set but a pre-recorded sample was used for consistency.
 
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#148
seilerbird said:
Why do people claim that digital drums don't sound like acoustic drums? Digital drums are all samples of real drums. If you run an acoustic set through a PA they sounds absolutely identical.
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I could not agree less. I mix 250 bands a year. I've NEVER heard a digital snare that even made it to 50% of the sound of an acoustic snare. The kick drums are pretty good thru HUGE p.a.s. Not even the same ball park, but a good sound.
 
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#150
Lots of replies here so Im not sure Im adding anything new, but my last band we used electronic drums. The #1 reason I liked them was for volume control. We actually used that in our "marketing" since we played bars and small clubs. The drummer had a really good set and they did sound pretty good. The only thing I noticed that I didnt like was the hi hat...seemed like it was either "really closed sounding" or "really open sounding" if that makes sense. Now, the drummer was also the lead singer, so it may have just been that he was busy and playing them a certain way, i dont know, overall they did sound really good IMO.
 
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#152
Here's Omar Hakin playing the best digital drums kits Roland can make, and recorded just for a Roland product demo. Jump forward to 2:00 when he switches to an acoustic kit patch. Pretty good huh? Great even, but it doesn't sound like an acoustic kit.
 
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#153
9Thumbs said:
How stupid would an electronic kit look next to an upright bass? Might as well use a drum machine and let the keys handle the bass. I guess I'm just old fashioned, but my Mama brought me up better than that
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This has happened to me in a call band on a Real Book gig. Show went great, drummers girlfriend was over the moon with told-you-sos, and that was the last time I thought about it until this thread
 
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#155
Paulabass said:
I could not agree less. I mix 250 bands a year. I've NEVER heard a digital snare that even made it to 50% of the sound of an acoustic snare. The kick drums are pretty good thru HUGE p.a.s. Not even the same ball park, but a good sound.
Click to expand...
So you are claiming that if I played you a recording of an unknown piece of music you could tell if it was a digital drums sound or an acoustic drum sound?
 
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#156
^ Instantly. With the exception- A lot of modern recordings of acoustic kits has one or more drums replaced with samples, so on record, we are almost always hearing a hybrid. Listen to Omar Hakim a few posts up. That's as good as it gets. Great, but still digital.
 
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