Panterachat

anyone got an electric kit? what companies make good shit on the low end? my budget is around $1k and i've been looking at this Roland:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/drums-pe ... 6000000000

is the bass pad big enough for a standard double-pedal? a bass pedal doesn't come with it so i'm gonna borrow my buddy's while he's away in school throughout the next year. i've played a nice, $3k Roland at Guitar Center before and loved the mesh-heads and it felt pretty legit to play on. i'm used to acoustic drums but there's no fuckin way acoustic will fit in my place. it needs to be able to compact to a pretty small space as there's not much room.

i've been offered a drumming position in my buddy's band and need a practice kit, one that'll hopefully hold up for a couple of years too until my new career path kicks in and i can afford to invest a lot of money into one

Roland is best in market, hands down, with probably Yamaha coming in 2nd (by basically chasing the high-end Roland models). Low-end Yamaha is not durable (they use too much hard, breakable plastic on their pads and cymbals), however, so I'd go Roland there too. That's a good one, I'd pull the trigger if that's your price range. Yes, the kick pad is big enough. Obviously the snare is the only mesh head in that setup, but you can always upgrade pads individually down the line... ultimately, your expansion possibilities are limited only by the module (max pad inputs, sound customization, etc).

yeah i read in some consumer reports about Roland being the best. i can do a little over $1k too just don't want to get raped by credit interest and end up paying an extra $500+, i'm looking to only pay about $100 a month so this'll hopefully only have about $180 interest when all is said and done.

my main component is size issue though, is this model easily folded up? how big would you estimate the dimensions to be when compacted? the product features don't give size quotes

Absolutely; those arms on each side can be swung inward as far as you want, basically making it as thin as that main rack section holding the module in that photo.

I have one. They're fun to play on. I left my real kit at my parent's house.

it's pretty confusing trying to learn all the functionality of the head module, but so far it's a good kit, fun to play on though it's obviously a much different feel than a real kit. i'm having a lot of trouble keeping the bass pad steady 'cause it's on a solid floor and just keeps getting pushed back after a few hits, especially when using the double pedal. i don't have a mat or anything to put it on and secure it to like it suggests in manual so i'll have to figure out some way to nigger rig it better than putting some heavy dumbells on it

Id say go for it. Roland really doesn't put out "crap" products. Through a GOOD set of cans, a quality p.a., or good electric drum amp.. you'll love it. Downside- Only a mesh head on the snare. I like the mesh a ton better than the rubber stuff.

Yeah the mesh also gives off a nice bounce from the heads.

Roland is pretty much the standard. I have a high-end Yamaha which I love, but the pads aren't as nice as the Roland. I just didn't want to shell out another $2,000 for the Roland.

Do you have any updated pictures of all your gear by any chance?

Make sure you aren't wet when you play the electric drums.

Just the old ones. But I haven't updated any gear in a few years, so the old pictures are just as good as new ones would be!

Haha, nice expansion. What's the pedal to the right of bass drum though?

It's a cheap hi-hat controller. You can rig it up to play just a regular sound when you step on it (like a cowbell) or use it to control another hi-hat remotely (if you want to play open-handed) with another brain (I used a second TD-3 module which ran into a mixer which blended with the feed from the main Yamaha module). It was all pretty convoluted though. I ended up mostly using it to layer the regular kick drum sound with some other sound. Since it's just on a spring, though, it doesn't give much response. And then it ended up dying and I pitched it anyway. I moved the other kick drum pad over from the left to the right next to the main one. It's kind of uncomfortable over there, so I don't use it much--certainly not for anything that requires any amount of finesse. It has no rebound whatsoever.

hey CFB, how easy is it to install a new cymbal? I want another crash (I think, the farthest-right cymbal usually) as i'm used to having at least 3 cymbals to fuck with when on friend's kits. also, do i have to buy a new arm with it too or do the pads usually come with an arm for installation? any additional wires? would the pre-programmed kits that came on the module head recognize the new cymbal as an additional piece and compensate or will i have to reprogram its sound in all the kits?

also would it be retarded to add an acoustic/analogue/whatever element into the kit, like a cowbell?

Hardware usually sold separately. No idea about cables, I only know the higher-end TD models have a couple expansion-ready "AUX" cables pre-wired through the rack tubing. Also no idea about that particular module, my guess is you'd just have to select the correct pad type and once you did that, the existing kits would apply the correct sound to it.

Not retarded at all. Lot of guys mix and match electronic/acoustic components.

Really? I thought everyone preferred the hard, unresponsive rubber stuff.

That drum kit is goddamn electric

One foot on the high hat, the other one on the kick
chinese cymbal, double pedal, more cowbell for the solo
my kit's goddamn electric
Don't need no metronome
Goddamn electric drum kit

(Drumbag Solo)

Just put on my first expansion of a Yamaha PCY-135, a 3-zone cymbal. However, the head module did not recognize it was there whatsoever with the cable the cymbal came with. Only when I realized there was still a single unused cable left from the original group in the kit did it then realize it existed.

This is making me trepidatious to buy more expansions. Was thinking about getting one more cymbal and another tom also. But with it not wanting to register any new parts with any other cables, I'd hate to invest more money into it for a failure.

Do I need to use exclusively Roland parts? Are Yamaha's or certain brands not compatible with Rolands?

They should be compatible for the most part. The three-zone pads use a stereo cord (two rings on the end, so one zone is one ring, another zone is the other, and the third uses both at the same time). I'm not sure if the output signals are standard (i.e. you might have to switch the signal that's the "bell" and the one that is the "bow"), but they should work pretty interchangeably. When I used my TD-3 module as a "secondary", I didn't run into any issues. It'd be pretty shitty of Roland to make their pads, cables, and modules proprietary.

Fuck you guys. It took like an hour to come up with that shit.

my drum head module isn't capable of reading 3 zones

That's some bullshit right there.