[elegentdrum]

I have been a drummer for 35 years. and have 10K in both my acustic and electronic drum kit. Also currently im in process of purchasing a computer for the electronic drums.

With electronic drums, we are just ending phase 2, and entering phase three of whats out there. 1, was the alesis D4 and SR16, 1992. Phase 2 was the TD-20 and mesh heads about year 2002. Soon begins the first round of actual usable trigger that are responcive, starting a year from now, electronic drums will evolve significantly.

First off. the triggers avialable on the market, and that you can use yourself all basically suck. If you get anything other than the top of the line roland trigger, they dont respond well enough, and use what I would consider to be a very light velocity profile. The Roland trigger require less trigger sencing time, and with a low gain, and have usefull musical information at medium loud drum strikes.

I use a mixture of trigger brands. I like Roland top end stuff for the snare, kick, hats, and cymbals. The visulite ride is not bad because its larger, and very sensitive at mid lite ranges, and can choke a bit faster, but lacks the position sensitivity of the roland ride. I use hart toms because they come in 4 sizes instead of 2. and they look cool in chrome. Three new triggering technologies were anounced at namm this year. First Trick drums came out with a laser bassed kick drum trigger that attaches to the pedal. Second, Ziljian came up with a funky drilled set of cymbals with an integrated pizio mik that works like a trigger. and last but not least, Aquarian just came out with drum head that are actualy trigger using a new film technology that is very responcive, and for the first time allow the same device both make sound, and be a trigger. All three will be avalavle within a few months.

When it comes to drum brains. Only the TD-20 and any roland brain newer thats come out since has trigger inputs with the most options. the other brands of trigger inputs dont have nearly the options for trigger control as the top end roland stuff. TD-20 is about the only game in town to get a full kit working right. However, superior drummer software is adressing that issue with extra controls ont he triggers for use the inputs like the alesis units.

Once you get midi information from the drum trigger, either the drum brain, the computer, or both can be your sound source.

The real problem with the entire concept is latency. If a drum sound hits your ears much later than 4.5 ms(miliseconds) than after you hit the drum, then it does not feel right. With the trigger sensors needing 2 to 3 ms to decide how hard they were hit well, this leave another 2 ms+-0.5 to do all of the audio processing including converting the drum brains audio to digital, geting digital audio from BFD2(what I use) EQ, compress, mix, and reverb the audio, and convert back to anilog.......all in that 2 ms.

To get this done Im going with a PC audiolabs RokBox, an SSL alphalink and MX-4 card, Lexicon PCM plugin, .....and whala, in a few weeks I should be able to correctly mix, and time align every sound source from both and electronic or acoustic kit with any mixture I please. All in about 3.5 ms!

but now I will have $28,000 into my drum kit(s) lol


After all that, here is my big point. if you already have an acoustic kit, you better off buying mics and preamps than getting into electronic drums if you want good results, unless you realy get a full good electronic drum kit. If you really want ot try to do this on the cheap, then look at the DYI section of Vdrums.com.

Also, if you just want to gain a full electronic drum kit fast, without hastle and alot of cash, than a trapkat is a decent option. they go for about 1K, and eliminate the trigger issues by converting right to midi from the pads, but its not the easiest to use, and has no sounds of it's own and it does not feel like a real drum set, its just a bunch of area trigger (good natural rubber ones) one a flat surface with edges.