Maybe I am in the wrong place here -
My band has just imploded after ten years - something new. is emerging - but may involve me moving from guitar to drums....... I can play - drums are my first instrument - and I gigged as a. drummer from 16 till 22ish - I haven't had an acoustic set since that time - I have an electric set at home - which is great for practicing and home recording - but I am guessing wouldn't necessarily cut it live?
Would I need an acoustic kit to gig with? How much is a gig standard acoustic kit?
any help appreciated
Comments
What type of music/venues?
we have a PA (tough I dont know a lot about how that works - I understand that the ekit would effectively DI?). I am guessing an ekit might sit well in the mix?
Venue's would be pubs, clubs and small festivals......
The mix sounds very good with eKit IMO and it is less fatiguing on ears.
Get a Yamaha stage custom, some nice heads and some decent cymbals.
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
Football is rubbish.
In a live scenario, having an eKit means you can better control the levels and if everybody's going direct from modellers etc it makes things a lot easier to set up a consistent mix between venues, especially with a digital mixer. It also helps to appease venues that are stupid enough to book bands and then complain about the volume levels, as you can get it much lower than an acoustic kit.
If you're happy with playing an eKit, then I'd say 99% of the punters wouldn't care. If I were to gig with one I'd definitely want to use SD3 rather than the rubbish stock sounds though, which adds another point of failure and you'd ideally have to have a dedicated laptop configured with always-on power settings, and notifications etc turned off.
Bandcamp
Spotify, Apple et al
The PA is a big issue. Can it cope with providing all the drum volume? Have you got adequate monitoring?
You can buy dedicated E kit amps/ monitors although from a quick look anything worth having in a band is in the £hundreds. Which alternatively could go toward an acoustic kit. Although then mics,etc...
I have an ekit at home and have played it for years - I am entirely comfortable playing that or an acoustic kit - I am. fortunate in that I'll get a chance to try out the ekit through our PA in practice and. can decide from there whether. to gig with it or get an accostic kit - I can see there would be a lot of advantages to an ekit (in terms of set up, consistency etc) - its just a question of how. an ekit sounds in the. mix of the band and how. it goes over with an auidence...... thank you for the advice.
(your use your ekit as a sort of midi controller with a daw then @Bod? That sounds interesting)
Both Superior Drummer and EZ Drummer, which has just been updated to v3, provides tools for triggering from an eKit, including config presets for most of the popular units out there. You don't technically need a DAW as both provide standalone .exe versions. I haven't used it live, but have helped a friend configure a laptop and small audio interface for live use and he gigs it most weekends.
SD3 might be overkill for what you need, but EZ Drummer 3 looks amazing and will cover everything you need and more.
No, they don’t sound quite as good, no, they’re not as enjoyable to play….but your audience won’t care for either of those considerations.
Basically, if you can think it, you can usually do it somehow.
One reason a lot of people don't think electronic drums sound good is using inadequate amplification.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
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Electric kits fucking suck. (This point needs reiterating)
They are also terrible for your technique.
Playing on rubber hats in particular is a nightmare.
If you are already a good drummer then you can adjust but it is always a compromise.
A traditional kit is a better proposition- if you need them to be low volume then use low volume cymbals and mesh heads.
Like this:
With an e-kit you will learn how to play with tight arm positioning- you wont easily get translation from an e-kit to a regular kit.
When you eventually move to a proper kit you will have loads of muscle memory that will work against you.
The problem with the kit above is obviously that you won't be able to record anything useful from it.
You can get around that by using triggers and a drum module.
I do most of my playing on a kit of this type- it is fine.
It stays set up in the studio.
If i needed to a head swap would be about 30 mins if I needed to gig it- but I have a second kit I use for that.
When I've had (high end) e-kits they simply went unused- they are so uninspiring to play.
Never again.
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
Football is rubbish.
However,
I am not a great drummer - firmly average - so I'm not doing anything fancy.
Ensuring you have the right PA and monitoring for an EKit is a must if you do it within the band, otherwise, it will sound shit.
If you get a real kit - learn how to tune it properly, if you don't already know.
Unless high end kits have improved a lot, doing any kind of nice dynamic cymbal work on an ekit is a tricky
https://youtu.be/pBhTpxvA3IE
…just following on from some of the things Bod was saying. This is adding a greater level of complexity than just plugging an E kit into a socket on a PA mixer but you can start to see the possibilities.