No such thing as a good sounding electronic drum set

MIKA-the-better-one · 2010-06-11T01:38:32+00:00

No such thing as a good sounding electric kit

Bob-Dubery

Aubs1 wrote I think there is a difference between debate, agreement/ disagreement, and attention-seeking.........

That's dangerous territory. It implies knowing what Mika's motives are - and we don't know that.

It happens. People will take a position just so that they can be the center of attraction. However it may be that they think the conversation (be it on the forum or round the supper table) needs livening up. I have, on occasion, chucked some idea out into the open because I'm not sure myself that I truly subscribe to it and I want to see if it stands up when left to fend for itself. Provocative speech is not necessarily about seeking attention for oneself.

This may be a case of one individual's meat being another's poison. I LIKE a good argument. There are people I like to spend time with because they have strong opinions, not necessarily the same as my own, and are wont to give them voice. It's one of the spices of life for me. YMMV.

Wizard

Back to original topic.
This is just about fear of change?
Current status quo is electric guitar & acoustic drums.

Bob-Dubery

Wizard wrote Back to original topic.
This is just about fear of change?
Current status quo is electric guitar & acoustic drums.

Hmmm.... I'm not so sure about any of that. To me it looks like electronic drums have had their day. You saw and heard them a lot in the 80s* (an era I regard as one of great evil as regards production values). Then they went away.

Or seemed too. I found the comments about the use of a traditional drum kit with triggers fitted quite interesting. That suggests that the technology has got more subtle, less overt and possibly more pervasive.

* though people began experimenting earlier than that. Circa 1974 Carl Palmer was already using some kind of triggers in his drums to set off synthesizers.

DaFiz

If you're an expert or perfectionist you might have that opinion, but I recently played in a band where the drummer played his electronic (Roland) kit through his own amplification (Yamaha powered speakers)
and I was most impressed... ?

Bob-Dubery

DaFiz wrote If you're an expert or perfectionist you might have that opinion, but I recently played in a band where the drummer played his electronic (Roland) kit through his own amplification (Yamaha powered speakers)
and I was most impressed... ?

A drummer with an amplifier? ? You can see why people are getting alarmed. This is against the natural order of things. Drummers are supposed to CARRY amplifiers, not own and operate them. What's the world coming to? ?

Sean

X-rated Bob wrote
DaFiz wrote If you're an expert or perfectionist you might have that opinion, but I recently played in a band where the drummer played his electronic (Roland) kit through his own amplification (Yamaha powered speakers)
and I was most impressed... ?
A drummer with an amplifier? ?

hahaha

arjunmenon

MIKA the better one wrote ah... If you have a look I simply made a joke about this whole topic... whoich further seemed to spark a discussion, of a number of people trying to convince me of the validity of electric drums.....
If you are so easly annoyed by such posts may I suugest you check out another post of play your ibanez.
I find that there will go a few weeks of absolute uselss discussions... on everything from "what is the best time of the day to restring" to "why I use a dunlop jazz pick" these get terribly boring and stale.

Mika, to assume that Fritz plays an Ibanez is wrong (He happens to be an ace blues harp player). Secondly, i find it rather rude of you to have added the "why don't you go play your Ibanez" bit at the end of that sentence.
It's like me asking you to go tune your Fender.
You mentioned that your intent here was humour, but i don't see any (except for the "what is the best time of day to restring"..that was genuinely funny ? )

MIKA the better one wrote why do you post then?.... I think the gentlemen who posted looking for an electric kit would be super offended by this.... you read it all, and then made a fairly pointless comment which did not better the conversation....

You've made a mistake there Mika. You started this thread immediately after an ad for electronic dum kits popped up in the classified section.
And this post too was in the classified section until Alan moved it to other instruments.
Do you think your posts (all encompassing and biased i might add) were of any help to the person interested in electronic kits.

I'm not a drummer and i have definitely not played or heard an electronic kit. I'm not here to make up someone's mind for them.
However, if i have a valid point, i will try to influence the other person.

You mentioned that playing an electronic kit would make a drummer develop bad technique. IMO, technique is something that is very personal.
Dennis Chambers, Steve Smith, Steve Gadd, Virgil Donati, Terry Bozzio, Dave Weckl, Vinnie Colaiuta, Carter Beauford, Chad Smith, Mike Mangini, Buddy Rich, Mike Portnoy, Tony Williams, Bill Bruford, Chad Wackerman, Simon Phillips...all of them drum very differently to each other. Who am i to say whose technique is the better one?

AlanRatcliffe

X-rated Bob wrote Hmmm.... I'm not so sure about any of that. To me it looks like electronic drums have had their day. You saw and heard them a lot in the 80s* (an era I regard as one of great evil as regards production values). Then they went away.

In the '80s the Simmons kits were popular for a while, but they were horrible to play on (actually just chipboard with a rubber layer and a piezo sensor) and were responsible for a lot of repetitive stress injuries. Pretty limited in the sounds and dynamics they could produce too.

The newer kits are MIDI and feel like playing on an acoustic kit (the better ones are basically acoustic kits with triggers and minimal shells). The MIDI means that you also have access to any sampler or software like EZ Drummer or BFD (I use EZD - any complaints with my drum sounds?).

The ONLY problem with these kits is that MIDI has a range of 128 velocity steps, which limits expressiveness a little - but there are ways around that. Roland sidestep this limitation by using their own velocity scale within the sound modules, only scaling down to the MIDI limit when driving other sound sources. EZ Drummer has a "Humanise" function which adds a subtle randomness to velocity, tone and timing (hit two notes identically and they will still be subtly different - just like on an acoustic kit), replacing a lot of the human feel.

We're seeing the electronic drum kits come down in price while even entry level acoustic drum sets have always been expensive. Acoustic sets are going up in price thanks to their complexity and the need for a lot of wood and labour to build. Soon (within the next year or two I think) we will see the two prices swap over and the electronic will become cheaper. That's when you'll start seeing electronic kits everywhere and acoustic kits will only be used on the high end of the range. If you factor in prices of heads and sticks, electronic are already cheaper, but most people don't look at it like that.

Anyway, with volume and transport restrictions/costs these days, electronics just make more sense (main reason they have been widely adopted by churches? They have much stricter requirements for volume control!). Plus they make getting better quality live sound and monitoring a lot easier.

MIKA-the-better-one

I completly understand the logical step in this electronic triggers direction, it seems to make alot of sense for music...... IT s creating that great drum sound minus the hassle of bringing a whole huge wooden kit of problems...
Perhaps I am just a bit taken aback by terms such as the "randomizer" you mention Alan..... to me why would i want ot make a machine randomize my drum sound...... when I could just have the real thing play it and legitimatly make it inconsistant... Yeh programming beats sometimes one does not have the time or facilities to get a REAL kit and then the randomizer may be substituted in. But for me it just isn't the point of drums.
B# studios here in jhb uses 99% programmed triggers over the original drummers beats, which to me in some cases is fine, but why not go and get that real human on wooden drum sound that we all strive for in our electronic drum replications. To me its not "we got the most pefect drum soudn ever" its rather "that sounds amazing and cannot be replicated and is completely unique in itself" Maybe through electronic drums in a few years one can achieve this "uniqueness" but for now all it seems to be is.. yes and amazing but sometimes to amazing drum sound.
the majority of ourlives are built up on the expectation of something, and then to throw in that perfect thing kind of destroys the whole process for me, as you know exactly what you are getting. It seems very results orientated, which always results in an anticlimax.

DonovanB

Mika I do agree with you when you say music shouldn't be about trying to achieve perfection. It is the flaws that make it. We wouldn't have had overdrive had the early amps been able to handle what they threw at it.

MIKA-the-better-one

you put it better than i could

Donovan Banks wrote Mika I do agree with you when you say music shouldn't be about trying to achieve perfection. It is the flaws that make it. We wouldn't have had overdrive had the early amps been able to handle what they threw at it.

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