If you asked any experienced drummer a couple of years ago about electronic drums they would have predominantly given you some negative responses. Today the answers would be very different and only the most obstinate of them would deny that Edrums are now serious instruments in their own right.
The popularity of electronic drums can be judged by the amount of new manufacturers that have cropped up over the past couple of years or so, some good and some not so. The question is how do these electronic drums compare with their acoustic brothers. The big boys Roland and Yamaha have dedicated their R&D departments to getting Edrums to be realistic as possible having listened to drummers criticisms of earlier products.
Most of the nuances that drummers like such as rimshots, different pitches across the drums, sensitivity, the actual feel of the drum and above all the sound have all been addressed and have made electronic drums very acceptable to even the most fastidious of drummers.
Ecymbals - Jury still out
The same cannot be said about Ecymbal technology however as they simply do not, as yet, feel or even sound right. They are by no means bad but have not made the huge improvements that the drums have. Acoustic cymbals are of course instruments in their own right and apart from the low cost budget ranges are hand made with no two sounding the same. The best electronic cymbals are triple zone –bell, bow and edge but frankly it just isn’t enough. Sensitivity is also an issue as they do not feel anywhere near the real thing even if you are using the metal type Ecymbals. Hi-hats and the variety of sounds and effects possible must be an R&D nightmare and to be fair the boffins have nearly cracked it - but not quite.
Dedicated Brain or Modular System
Most Ekits have no shells and dedicated “brains”(modules) but some like Hart Dynamics, produce just the kit and leave the choice of brain to you. One manufacturer RET takes a different approach by offering a kit with shallow shells, resembling a real kit, and a hard drive, interface box and software of your choice.
There is lots of great drum software around such as BFD, Addictive Drums, EZdrummer, DFH Superior to name a few and the sounds are recognised by most to be better than those incorporated into current drum brains. Probably due to patent or copyright issues the kits in drum brains are named in such terms as Big Rock, Funky, Big Band, Fusion, Fat snare, Piccolo Snare, cymbals as 16” Crash, 13” Hats, 20”Ride etc. etc. Software kits use the manufacturers name such as Gretsch Jazz Kit, DW 6’ metal Snare, Zildjian K 20 “Ride.
Driving your Ekit from your laptop with a Software package can cause major headaches, the main one being latency. Simply put this means that when you hit a drum pad there is a delay between the strike and hearing the sound and even though it is milliseconds it’s enough to make the kit unusable. RET get over that by loading the software into a separate hard drive and using a zero latency interface to transmit your hits to the software.
Conclusions
Acoustic drums will never, ever be replaced by electronics. An acoustic drum sound is unbeatable; they are terrific eye candy and how many top drummers use Edrums live in preference to Adrums. Very few.
Having said that, electronic drums do have their place in the recording studio, the home, for practise and alongside acoustic drums in a live situation. They allow a drummer to gig in smaller venues that may not have been previously suitable for drums and if nothing else they are wonderfully creative .
