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Does anyone gig with electronic drums


sling blade

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I've played a few gigs where our drummer used electronic drums. They've been smaller gigs where his real drums might have been a little loud. It has worked out well IMO. The main complaint I have heard from him is that he gets tired playing them because the sticks don't bound back as well as they do off real drums.

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Yup, my drummer Paul is very attached to his eDrums!

 

They make gigging so easy it's ridiculous. We literally can set up our entire stage of gear in like 20 minutes!

 

We have it down do a science... PA speakers, head, drum kit amp, and my guitar gear with an amp for the bass and microphones for singers and acoustic guitars and we're ready to play in 20-25 minutes and breakdown is just as quick! Never taken more than a half hour if we're tired or lazy!

 

They're great!

 

The only thing you have to be careful of is overloading the power circuit because if something draws too much juice away from the drums they can break-up and distort at higher volumes and it does sound really bad when that happens. (it could well simply be a product of our PA head and not paying the slightest attention to matching ohms and watts etc, we manage without perfecting the gear matching) It freaks us out, but for some reason the crowd at pubs & clubs rarely seem to notice... Could be the booze I guess, but we sure notice!

 

You just have to dedicate an outlet to the drums separate from the PA and stuff so that it doesn't have to compete for juice...

 

But they sound great and work great!

 

People just cannot believe how good they sound! He's got some neat synth stuff programmed into his kit control that lets him add a whole rhythm section into his drums and we do some really cool funky stuff with that. We were the backbone of an open-mic house-band, just the two of us, and we could hold the stage ourselves!

 

It's literally so easy to travel-with that he can pack the whole kit up with totes for the loose stuff in his car... A little Mercury clone of a Ford Taurus! I put the PA and my guitar amps and gear in my tonneau covered pickup bed (guitar gear in the extra-cab with me) and away we go...

 

Literally less than a half hour to setup & same for breakdown!

 

They're great!

 

I think they sound fantastic! He just picked up a set of free-hanging cymbals and they behave just like the real deal. He grabs them to mute and the whole 9-yards!

 

Electronic drums are awesome these days!

 


I remember back in the day how awful it was (no offense intended to drummers) having the acoustic drums simply drown-out or over-power even some stout guitar amps and fighting for volume turning into the battleship volley of volume swell games when competing against the percussion of acoustic drums in tight clubs and especially in rehearsals/practice with the band... It simply ain't an issue with the electrics, you just turn down the knob and find a perfect mix!

 

We don't have enough equipment to mic all the guitars, amps, etc nor all the drums of an acoustic set, so it's really optimal for a minimalist set of band equipment!

 

Do I like acoustics? Absolutely and there's just something spectacular about them in a live setting when the sound mix is right and you have enough gear to mic everything you need to... I've never had that luxury and the electrics just make things so much easier in our case...

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I'm sure it would depend on whether you like them or not.

 

I gig with backing tracks and my tracks all use e-drums. Many hit records have been done with e-drums, many with traditional drums and many with a mix.

 

As others said, the advantage live is volume and mix. Disadvantage is they don't have quite as many different sounds as the real thing - whether that is important or not depends on the type of music you play and the type of drummer you are.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

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a young (25+/- yr old) workmate "bar-gigs" with a set of expensive Rolands every weekend night...he's had so many interface problems with them that he wants to try a set of (I think the brand is) DRs (?).....but between recording issues and live gig issues he's also looking for a good set of acoustic drums because he's about sick of effing w/the electronic type.

he loves the IDEA of 'lectronic drums, and says they're GREAT to practice on.....but after 3+ yrs of "one thing after another" he's about had it w/them.

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