Can E Drums sound good?

Dendrite

Inspired
Long story short, I'm not a drummer. But we have drummers at church, and they are generally really good. However, we (for various reasons) are stuck with e-drums in our main services. They sound, well, kinda bleh. Mostly the kick is a little thin and clicky, and anytime you have multiple hits on the snare it just sounds fake. Cymbals are so so. We've EQ'ed them the best we can. I think it's a Roland set from about 5 years ago, one guy who works at GC said they would run about $5K for the set we have. So it doesn't seem like they went cheap, but still... bleh.

So, with the vast experience floating around this forum, anyone have any bright ideas? Are there IR's of kicks we can use instead of what we have (is that even how these work??)? Are there software configs in the drums that can help? Has anyone ever made a set of E drums sound really good?

Any help is greatly appreciated.
 
You could probably trigger software drums. I know some bands that do that. At least worth a try before spending 7k on a new roland set.
 
Yeah, I trigger Slate Drums with a Roland V kit for recording... live, you better have a nice interface and capable machine to keep the latency low..but it is definitely do-able. I'd recommend routing both sources to the console in case something goes wonky with the computer side.
Alternatively, you can generally slap a new 'brain' on an E-kit instead of replacing everything. The sounds onboard today's kits are pretty decent.
 
You probably won't wanna use the sounds on a drum brain, but use it to trigger something like EZDrummer, Superior Drummer, Steven Slate Drums or whatever. I have an old Roland TD-3 kit that works well with Superior but I would never use the drum brain's sounds for anything. I'm very happy with Toontrack's products. Maybe give those a look?
 
Trigger superior or ez or something like that and use those sounds. more stuff than you know use samples.
 
Thanks for the thoughts. So if I understand correctly... I could use the current pads to trigger a software setup (so pads>interface>PC>mixer) or I could get a new drum brain.
I'd recommend routing both sources to the console in case something goes wonky with the computer side.
What do you mean by this? Parallel route pads to the interface/PC and also to the original drum brain as a backup? I'm all about redundancy here... but I wanna make sure I'm understanding.

Also, new brain vs. appropriate PC to run the drum software... how would the prices compare? Any chance the PC could simultaneously run Ableton?

Could I ask any more questions in a single post?? :)
 
I plug via midi the vdrums to the computer with addictive drums 2 and it sounds crazy good :)
 
Thanks for the thoughts. So if I understand correctly... I could use the current pads to trigger a software setup (so pads>interface>PC>mixer) or I could get a new drum brain.

What do you mean by this? Parallel route pads to the interface/PC and also to the original drum brain as a backup? I'm all about redundancy here... but I wanna make sure I'm understanding.

Also, new brain vs. appropriate PC to run the drum software... how would the prices compare? Any chance the PC could simultaneously run Ableton?

Could I ask any more questions in a single post?? :)

You should be able to run midi or usb midi out of the brain into your computer. If it has 5pin midi only then obviously you need a midi interface. You could then run the audio outputs of the brain to FOH while also running the outputs from your computer (software drums) to FOH as well.
 
A quick solution could be to maybe ad some saturation plugin on your kick and snare channels.

But EZDrummer2 or something similar where you can choose an appropriate drum set and even change individual elements to your taste should do the work.
 
Does the E-drums sound bad by itself or also in the mix? The one time I had to do FOH with an e-drum set it sounded like pants by itself but it did sat very well in the overall mix.
 
Does the E-drums sound bad by itself or also in the mix? The one time I had to do FOH with an e-drum set it sounded like pants by itself but it did sat very well in the overall mix.
Hmm. Does it fit in the mix? IMHO, yes, mostly. But honestly half of that is because I've worked it to death and the other half is probably the callous I've built up on my eardrums from listening to it so much :)
I'd say it's less noticeable when there are other things (in the mix) distracting you. Like a magician who moves the pea under the cup. Or how a broken toe doesn't really hurt as bad after someone whacks you in the head with a tire iron.
 
I'd say it's less noticeable when there are other things (in the mix) distracting you. Like a magician who moves the pea under the cup. Or how a broken toe doesn't really hurt as bad after someone whacks you in the head with a tire iron.
Reminds me of something John Madden said during a broadcast a long time ago. Something about having a broken bone here, a bruised thing there, a strained muscle there, etc, but you only hurt in one place--the part that hurts the most. From all my sports injuries, I realized he spoke truth.
 
Imo, listening to a band with e-drums is akin to listening to music over a CD or such. There is not as much energy and dynamics and the excitement of watching a live band is much diminished. I'm not a drummer but I've played with many world class drummers, same night, on the same kit, and they all sound completely different. If you really know what you're doing with rim shots and other nuances, you can get a better tone out of the drums just by hitting it differently. So yes e-drums have a time in place but I would not go there unless you have to.
 
I'm not a real drummer, but I have a nice Roland TD-30KV set that is amazing. :) It doesn't suffer from some of the snare machine gunning and other issues of prior generations. Over the years Roland has upgraded various components of the set, like the brain, snare, high-hat, cymbals, etc. I honestly can't play the cheaper edrum sets at all.

In your case, besides using various MIDI triggers you might be able to just swap out the brain and be good to go! However, I suspect you'll probably want the new brain and snare. Just my opinion. I haven't dove deep into this stuff in awhile, mainly because I just love the set I currently have.
 
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