r/edrums

I had the opportunity to spend last weekend with a Roland VAD-503 kit (with TD-27 sound module, CY-14C-T hats, CY-18DR ride, PD140-DS snare)... a kit 20 years newer and about $2K more expensive than my Clavia ddrum4se kit that I use at home. I've been thinking about upgrading my kit now that my kids are both using it to learn/practice, so part of me was hoping that the tech would have advanced to the point that the Roland was like sitting down at an acoustic kit, while my wallet was dreading the same thing.

Overall, I was far from blown away. The Roland was better in many ways, but sure didn't seem 20 years and $2K better.

Drum pads/triggering: no difference in latency (and to be fair, I didn't expect any, since the 2-4 ms latency is one of ddrum's strengths), and the larger snare (14" instead of 12") and floor tom (14" instead of 10") were nice but not life-changing, and there wasn't much difference in feel between the mesh heads on either kit. Edge: Roland

Cymbal pads/triggering: the Roland cymbals felt much better, and the multi-zone support made it easier to trigger the sound I was looking for, for the most part. I really had to hammer the crash to get it to open up, but I expect that could be adjusted in the settings that I didn't have time to dig into. I'm not the most technical player, but found that the sound correspondence to my pedal movement feels better on my ddrum kit than the Roland. Edge: Roland

Dynamics: I didn't find the Roland kit to be as responsive to subtle dynamics as the ddrum. Ghost notes on the snare were similar, but the toms on my ddrum are more expressive (I was using the 13" and 16" maple sounds on the Roland kit, if I recall). I can play quietly on the ddrum floor tom and it sounds quiet... noticeably less attack, like you'd hear with a real drum. The Roland sounded like a harder hit with the volume turned down... it didn't have the tonal character of a lighter touch. This may also be something that could be adjusted for in the settings, but as it was, I was disappointed. Edge: ddrum

Sounds/Brain: the Roland has about a bazillion times as much memory and processing power as the Clavia, so no surprise that it has far more sounds available and a much more advanced ability to modify those sounds. I bought the ddrum because I wanted something that sounded like real drums and then do my processing in a mixer. That's where it gets tricky... I have 6 outputs from the ddrum, so can easily route kick on one channel, snare on another, stereo toms on two and stereo cymbals on the remaining two. I know Roland has other brains with more outputs, but it was a pain trying to get everyone's individual monitor mixes and a FOH mix from only a stereo pair and 2 more direct outs. Not sure exactly how they had everything routed, but as far as monitors went, kick and snare were on one channel and everything else was on another, so very limited flexibility when playing live without using a digital interface. I preferred the snare and cymbal sounds on the Roland, but liked the toms on the ddrum more and was able to get a kick I was happy with on either one. I'd call this one a tie except for two factors: the Roland has more lifelike snare behaviour (not sure if it's due to the positional sensing in the pad or better samples or both) and every once in a while my ddrum will run out of processing power and cut off a cymbal because it just can't keep up with the limited memory. Edge: Roland

Mechanics/setup: I'm a bit torn on this one... the Roland shells do look better on stage, but for my purposes having something that takes up more space and is tougher to transport isn't a win. The ddrum tom mounts will sometimes loosen up over time, and I didn't get the feeling that would happen on the Roland, so for me it was a tie. If you care more about portability the ddrum would be much better; if you care about looking like a real kit then of course it would be the Roland. I don't move mine much and don't care if it looks like a drumset or not, so it's a question of whether the smaller footprint of the ddrums compensates for the toms potentially loosening/swivelling on their stand, so it's really a wash in the end. Edge: tie

I think the biggest disappointment for me was the lack of nuance in the toms but much more so in the cymbals. I was hoping that we'd be at the point now where things like a swell that I use often on acoustic cymbals would be natural to translate to the advanced Roland cymbal pads. The cymbal experience was better on the Roland than the ddrum, but nowhere near what I had hoped it would be. I'm not sure if using the edrums just to trigger and then running a VST on a laptop would change that, but it was disheartening.

Conclusion: I won't be in a rush to sell my ddrum4se and get a Roland (at least this one). I would like to have better-feeling cymbal pads, but since I'm not gigging or recording professionally I'm not sure that the high cost of getting the Roland USB cymbals (and snare) and corresponding brain would be the right move... it's a definite improvement, but still wasn't really satisfying, for a lot of extra money. The quest continues...

Whatcha guys think? Rocking a used kit I got off eBay (I believe it was a TD-9 upgraded with a TD-12 module and some Alesis pads)

I’ve been using it to trigger SD3.0 and EZDrummer and have been loving it for 6 years. Recently ditched the CY-8s it came with for some CY-14Cs and I found a way to get my old ControlPad integrated (though I’m not sure on what all I want it triggering yet, haha). Featuring an old cymbal pad from my DTXplorer I had as a kid.

Recorded this today after my brother suggested I should try and play some Porcupine Tree. This is definitely one of the easiest ones by Gavin Harrison.

Always happy to answer any questions about kit, setup, recording etc. Cheers!

This company just showed up on my FB feed. I’m wondering if there’s a chance anyone has any experience with them.

https://stixandtonez.com/?srsltid=AfmBOopd2npAIpph0Q7nVuYYMeBFQOl-sC1Q--fi983rekb9gsTTjZob

Basically they sell converted acoustic kits.

Around AU$ 2,100 gets you a low end, full size, brand name kit (multiple bands on offer) snare, two racks, floor, bass, 2 crash, a ride, hats and all hardware.

The kit comes with a Lemon module.

To me, that seems like a potentially really good deal.

I’m just wondering what I’m missing. Is it all too good to be true?

Hey all, just wanted to share my kit that I’ve gradually upgraded to the past few years.

It’s a Roland TD27, with the digital snare, hi hats and ride

I’ve wrapped some old cheap drums I had and also painted the hoops and hardware gold. Made my own rim protectors from rubber hose.

The toms are using Ddrum redshot triggers which I’ve had on all of my A2E conversions and they’re perfect once dialled in.

Pearl Eliminator double pedal, KD-10 kick, Roc’n’Soc hydraulic throne, Taye two legged hi hat stand (I had a two legged DW 5000 and it felt literally the same as this, so I sold the 5000. I also have a Millennium Pro two legged for my live kit, which also felt exactly like the 5000, for a third of the cost).

I use a Macbook M1 to trigger Ezdrummer3 and it is perfect, no latency or anything. I route the laptop sound into the module, so I can still have my headphones plugged into the module which is good, allowing me to play tracks through my phone’s bluetooth connection to the module, or through USB of the laptop.

Dom Howard framed drum stick and Muse poster to finish the setup 🥁 🤘🏻

YARG subreddit removes my post, so I'm putting here for any who may be interested

Made this for myself back in April and it's been a nice QoL improvement for getting charts into YARG. I've been using it to pull drum charts and worked most of the bugs out of it. Thought others might find it useful, so I gave it to claude and told it to make it more generalized for other folks to get some use from.

It searches charts by artist/song across a few spots. It attempts to auto detect your YARG charts directory , and it was tested on Linux so idk. Just change the file path in the GUI. It'll auto process encrypted files if you have Onyx Music Game Toolkit installed. Also, I put a song/artist recommendation engine in it, and it hasn't been the best.

If someone has already created this, then i wasted my time and sorry to waste yours too xD If not, I hope some of you guys find it useful. Let me know what needs fixing or what should be added.

[http://github.com/shawkin6cbu/LemmeGetThatSong\](http://github.com/shawkin6cbu/LemmeGetThatSong)

... that song, s-song, song, song

DONT DOWNLOADED PIRATED SONGS, ONLY DOWNLOAD SONGS THAT THE MODS OF THIS SUB APPROVE OF :)

Is anyone interested in this drum platform
(Hull - UK)

I built it from MDF with tennisballs fixed to the bottom through holes and carpet on top
Dampens the vibrations into the floor from the pedals

I was using it while I lived in a flat but I don’t have any use for it anymore

Free to a good home, it’s useless for anything else :D