Anyone ever record electronic drums? How's it sound?

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Bad Halen
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Anyone ever record electronic drums? How's it sound?

Post by Bad Halen » Tue Dec 28, 2004 2:33 pm

Just curious if one could fake a real kit this way. I've been fooled by the pod. Just wondering if I could be fooled by some edrums.

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Re: Anyone ever record electronic drums? How's it sound?

Post by Everybody's X » Tue Dec 28, 2004 2:42 pm

I think you might pull it off if you used real cymbals a did some creative re-amping later. I dont think they're quite there yet. I've pretty much hated them the few times I've tried it, but we were just doing some quick pre-production demos so I never really tried to tweak them to make them sound more real.

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Re: Anyone ever record electronic drums? How's it sound?

Post by Mix413 » Tue Dec 28, 2004 2:53 pm

I had a band here once that used an electronic drum kit. Sounded like crap.
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Re: Anyone ever record electronic drums? How's it sound?

Post by bad_dude_69 » Tue Dec 28, 2004 2:55 pm

depends on what kind of kit you're using as well as what style of music you're playing. at any rate, if you bury in the mix you may be able to trick the ear -- albeit not everyone's. i agree about using real cymbals, but then again if you're going for authentic acoustic sound, why not use an acoustic kit?
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Re: Anyone ever record electronic drums? How's it sound?

Post by Milkmansound » Tue Dec 28, 2004 3:35 pm

Zappa did this in 1984... sounds ok to me. I think Chad Wackerman was using a real snare and real hats though. The toms sound fake as all hell - but isn't that the reason they are using them in the first place?
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Re: Anyone ever record electronic drums? How's it sound?

Post by rolandk » Tue Dec 28, 2004 3:51 pm

I had an e-kit for recording demos at home for a few years. It was the mid level Yamaha kit and it sucked. If you play a simple beat its a bit harder to tell the difference, but in a serious song trying to emulate real drums it'll stick out like a turd in a punch bowl. The only thing they are good at is getting a blatantly electronic 80's sound. That was the one thing I truly regretted buying. Sold it on ebay and lost a grand.
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Re: Anyone ever record electronic drums? How's it sound?

Post by Mr. Dipity » Tue Dec 28, 2004 4:02 pm

Spotty wrote:Just curious if one could fake a real kit this way. I've been fooled by the pod. Just wondering if I could be fooled by some edrums.
I think it depends on the kit, and also, on how hard you are willing to work for authenticity.

If you think that you can 'mouse' in drums, or use a little drum pad, you've got a lot of work ahead of you.

For example:

This didn't fool me at all

Nope. Not at all fooling

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Re: Anyone ever record electronic drums? How's it sound?

Post by KennyLusk » Tue Dec 28, 2004 4:24 pm

The Roland kits sound pretty good and I agree, if you're using an electronic kit then that's the effect you must be going for anyway. I always thought the Alesis DM-5 sounded nice too.

I'm also a fan of routing electronic signals from keyboards and drum brain's out to a guitar amp and mic'ing the cabinet. I've found that mic'ing complex electronic signals like that seems to work well if you use an amp with 2 speakers, like 2 X 10's or 2 X 8's, etc; Place the mic off axis about 2 inches from the grill and angle the mic toward the speaker frame and toward the second speaker. This allows you to capture a close mic'd feel from the one speaker without pushing too many SPL's and at the same time you capture some frequency response from the second speaker at an interesting angle. (Did that make sense?)

***Note: Also keep in mind Queensryche has used electronic drums in the studio, so has Judas Priest, Kiss, U2, etc. There's a long list of heavy rockers that have gone this route either for effect (the usual) or preference.

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Re: Anyone ever record electronic drums? How's it sound?

Post by joel hamilton » Tue Dec 28, 2004 4:38 pm

I recorded a guy who used Vdrums, and a DM5 kit once. Both sounded great with real cymbals, and a real hat. Both times the drummer(s) rocked, and we just chambered the kit for room mics with just the right amount of cymbals. Nobody ever asked me if the drums were "fake." They did, however kind of sound like alice in chains, the song "would".. like that kind of vibe. It worked with big guitars crunching in on them. One of the bands above was a band called "gunfighter."

They were/are great. I recorded a majority of their first record years ago, and they wanted to try some triggered sounds, and I had a DM5...

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Re: Anyone ever record electronic drums? How's it sound?

Post by jmligt » Tue Dec 28, 2004 7:04 pm

I recorded a shitty pop punk band that for some reason used shitty electronic drums and they of course sounded like shit. One kid in the band had rich parents and they had all of this obnoxious gear that they had no idea how to use. I actually had to tune their guitars for them. And "What kind of guitars?", you may ask..... An original 50's LP goldtop through a shitty multi-fx pedal into a vox ac-30 and a nice PRS.....made me cry....

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Re: Anyone ever record electronic drums? How's it sound?

Post by Rigsby » Tue Dec 28, 2004 11:37 pm

I tend to think that electronic drums sound fine as long as you want the sound of electronic drums. My 2pence.
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Re: Anyone ever record electronic drums? How's it sound?

Post by bigtoe » Wed Dec 29, 2004 5:39 am

i've recorded electronic drums...they sound a lot better than a really bad set...but they don't sound like real drums...some highschool band i did years ago had a set...i'd love to do a session with a whole set where the band used them in a nutty way.

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Re: Anyone ever record electronic drums? How's it sound?

Post by Rigsby » Wed Dec 29, 2004 6:11 am

A couple of friends of mine built an electronic kit using kit sensors that sat between wooden bases and rubber mats, joined together with plastic piping, triggering a head that they bought. You could pack the whole thing into a rucksack which made it really portable, get to the gig and join all the piping together within minutes. We used it live alongside an acoustic kit, two drummers, and i enjoyed the sound a lot. Running the outputs through a bigmuff gave some pretty interesting drum sounds when recording and we also miced up the kit and played with effects on that too, just getting the sound of hitting the rubber mats then putting that through huge reverbs and other effects. With that, the audio through a distortion pedal and a MIDI signal, we got some pretty interesting things happening.

Another friend has a more hi-end electronic kit, but largely uses it straight alongside his acoustic kit, and to be honest it adds little to the sound to my ears. I think he's best leaving that for home practice where his neighbours aren't too happy about live drums (the reason he bought it); playing sampled or synthesised kits that are supposed to replicate live drums sound particularly iffy when heard alongside real drum sounds. That's probably just making my earlier a point again though.
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Re: Anyone ever record electronic drums? How's it sound?

Post by gillentine » Wed Dec 29, 2004 6:30 am

Hey well they're good for some things. Mostly if you don't want to disturb your neighbors. I recorded an album with my band in my apartment and our drummer had a set of the Roland and they did fine for the situation. If you got the extra money and you already have a good acoustic set then check them out, but if it's between a good acoustic set or electronic, well only you know what your situation is. Overall they work great for what they are. That's what I think.
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Re: Anyone ever record electronic drums? How's it sound?

Post by Rolsen » Wed Dec 29, 2004 8:58 am

I use the lower end Roland V drum kit for my home recording stuff, and within the medium I'm using (korg D1200, usually at 16 bit, sometimes at 24), it sounds great. Out of 100 preset drum kits, I believe maybe 4 of them sound convincingly 'real.' Who the hell needs dog barks and shit like that! Once recorded, I just make sure to wet it with a little reverb and apply the same reverb across other tracks that call for it - kinda ties it all in. Like someone else mentioned, no one has quized me on the drum sound. I imagine with more 'pro' gear, the Rolands limitations may shine through a little more.

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