Drums - acoustic kit vs. V drums for home recording... any thoughts?

ZV Yoda

The reason I ask is that I’ve been trying for ages to get a good drum sound in my home studio, but although I’m making improvements (mainly thanks to advice from folks on here!), it just seems to be really difficult to get a consistently good sound.

I’m pretty sure the problem with my sound is the room & my poor knowledge of acoustics. I don’t think it’s the gear I’m using – it’s all reasonably good stuff (Pearl Session kit/ new heads (tuned!), good cymbals, pair NT5s, D112, SM57s, Digi 003 rack/Behringer ADA8000… So while the gear is hardly top end, it’s decent enough.

Now, I now I’m a noob & still have a lot to learn about acoustics, but I had a revelation recently when I played on a friends Vdrum kit (a TD12 I think). I was really impressed with the playability, versatility & the sound. I couldn’t help thinking that this seemed like a great option for somebody with a home set up (I don’t gig anymore, so only need something for the studio).

To date I have only used my set up to track drums which I then send to the other band member’s home set ups to be mixed with their vox/guitar/keys/bass.

I’m primarily a drummer but also play guitar & have also started dabbling with keyboards (virtual instruments via midi keyboard). As an exercise, I recently recorded a full song where I played all of the instruments & sang the vox in my own studio. I DI’d the guitar (a Les Paul copy) and was amazed at how easy it was to get a good clean sound – no need to worry about room sound/mic placement/phase etc. Likewise with the mid & virtual instruments. When I mixed the whole lot, I just felt that the drum sound let the whole thing down.

So my question is – do I continue to make incremental improvements in my sound & stick with the acoustic kit, or do I sell up (or should that be sell out?) and go electronic?

dav nagle

ZV Yoda wrote: »

The reason I ask is that I’ve been trying for ages to get a good drum sound in my home studio, but although I’m making improvements (mainly thanks to advice from folks on here!), it just seems to be really difficult to get a consistently good sound.

I’m pretty sure the problem with my sound is the room & my poor knowledge of acoustics. I don’t think it’s the gear I’m using – it’s all reasonably good stuff (Pearl Session kit/ new heads (tuned!), good cymbals, pair NT5s, D112, SM57s, Digi 003 rack/Behringer ADA8000… So while the gear is hardly top end, it’s decent enough.

Now, I now I’m a noob & still have a lot to learn about acoustics, but I had a revelation recently when I played on a friends Vdrum kit (a TD12 I think). I was really impressed with the playability, versatility & the sound. I couldn’t help thinking that this seemed like a great option for somebody with a home set up (I don’t gig anymore, so only need something for the studio).

To date I have only used my set up to track drums which I then send to the other band member’s home set ups to be mixed with their vox/guitar/keys/bass.

I’m primarily a drummer but also play guitar & have also started dabbling with keyboards (virtual instruments via midi keyboard). As an exercise, I recently recorded a full song where I played all of the instruments & sang the vox in my own studio. I DI’d the guitar (a Les Paul copy) and was amazed at how easy it was to get a good clean sound – no need to worry about room sound/mic placement/phase etc. Likewise with the mid & virtual instruments. When I mixed the whole lot, I just felt that the drum sound let the whole thing down.

So my question is – do I continue to make incremental improvements in my sound & stick with the acoustic kit, or do I sell up (or should that be sell out?) and go electronic?

You can do both master yoda?

keep working on your live sound I say..

ZV Yoda

You might be on to something there Dav... although unfortunately, I don’t think financial, marital or space constraints would allow me to have both kits.

... I suppose I could ask my buddy for a lend of his Vdrums for a couple of weeks.

I kinda think the Vdrums option is probably a bit of a cop out & that I wouldn't get the same satisfaction either playing or recording them. Still though, they sound great..

RealEstateKing

have considered V drums up to a year or two ago: Figuring that sampled drums were always gonna sound "electronic".

Then I got my hands on a copy of EZdrummer and I was really amazed: I can play better drums triggering that with my fingers than I can with a real kit: And I can do as many takes and retakes as I want (as well as quantising it afterwards) rather than having to rush upstairs to my flatmates and saying "Just let me do one more take and then Ill stop. "

Drums are a huge pain in the arse if you're not in a fully insulated studio, and can require hours of ****ing around to get them to sound like anything but a suit of armour falling down a stairs.

Secondly: I play in a band that plays quite delicate acoustic music, and was pissed off at the drums: No matter what beautiful delicately structured music we were playing, in would come the drums and all bets were off: Like trying to play a Chopin etude next to somebody randomly firing a pistol into the air.

I love Edrums, because, unlike the real thing, you can turn them down!

dav nagle

I say they sound great, digital sounds can feel like plastic once the buzz wears off, you will always come back to 'the real deal' it always feels better even if it doesn't sound quite as sweet.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

tried the vdrums and sold em - as they sounded to synthetic .
now I did not try vdrums with midi into something like ez drummer or BFD
im sure they would sound great.

I spent all ot of time and money on mics / pres room , effects , to reach a resonalbe sound and it is achieveable - but its very time consuming .
and then you have the issues with consisency , detuning , mics moving , phase, room comb filtering
etc. do home drums are very hard to get sounding good - but i think the effort is worth it in the end .

its hard to just walk in a bang down a track when you have live drums to deal with - but if you get good results its worth it

if you want to call up to me again and maybe see where I could help you possibly let me know- it is a pain in the arse though !

fitz

I'd say if you're going the v-drum route, use them with quality samples like BFD, Addictive Drums or DFH. I got AD before BFD 2 came out. At the time, the usability and quality of the samples was far superior to my ears than anything else. I haven't played about with BFD2. It's something I'll probably invest in at some stage.

ZV Yoda

Good advice there folks...

Tish - thanks for the offer... if I can organise to get a hosting site for some MP3s, maybe you'd throw an ear over them & see what you think? I'll post 2 versions - one raw with no Eq/reverb etc and then the same clip with some tweaks?

slavedave

I use EZdrummer with the latin and nashville expansion packs and can either trigger them via my edrums (see ads to get a look at 'em), a Roland handsonic HPD15 or my Zendrum LT. If you are used to acoustic drums then everyone on the relevant boards says that they are close to but not identical to playing acoustics. You just need to adjust your style a little depending on the kit, head material etc.
Regarding the sounds - the big sample libraries are just getting better and better. I know that I could never afford the gear to get the quailty of sounds that I get from the Toontrack products. Even using lesser libraries can still sit well in a mix. I have tried Session Drummer2, Natural studio (NS7_free), BFDlite which are all free/included with hardware/software and are all good albeit more limited than the fullblown, expensive main versions products. I think you would be surprised. I find it hard to play just using the internal roland sounds on the TD-8 module now that I can trigger EZDrummer but at one time I thought that they were not bad in their own right. As usual, it costs more to get better sounds. Got to factor in a software host programme, and interface of some sort for midi and audio and then the kit itself.
You could try triggers on your acoustic kit, then you could record audio live and then supplement/replace stuff via midi editing in your software afterwards. You can buy trigger kits (Roland and Ddrum spring to mind) or you could knock up some yourself with a little care. Link them to an alesis io module into your mac/pc and you could be up and running for relatively small outlay.

ZV Yoda

Slavedave... I was just admiring your kit there on adverts... how do the cymbals work?... they're real cymbals, but have zones like electronic cymbals?

I hadn't really thought about triggers... I'm not to well up on them tbh.

Has anyone ever gone about recording the audio out of the edrums...and then replacing beats(well I was thinking cymbals and stuff mostly) with beat detective or something to that effect?

fitz

Why would you bother when you can just grab the midi?

Seziertisch

I've made midi from audio that way in the past. It's a lot of work. It can be done, but it would be a lot easier to record midi.

I got a loan of one recently and ended up just using the audio from the midi drums...was trying to use it with bfd, not set up properly, and rather than try to reassign them afterwards (oh lord I tried) ended up just sayn f*ck it and using the audio out..

i57dwun4yb1pt8

yoda , send me a mail at gmail , and well have a chat

RealEstateKing

a Roland dd55 to trigger EZDrummer with (150 quid on Adverts) last night.

Its practically a toy, but boy is it fantastic - it's like playing a real drum kit, except much easier - I aint the greatest drummer in the world - got a great sense of rhytm and all but my footwork was never so hot.

I love this little thing, so much fun, and so cheap!

ZV Yoda

DaDumTish wrote: »

yoda , send me a mail at gmail , and well have a chat

Cheers Tish... I'll drop you a gmail later today. I'll run off a couple of short clips too & post them on a myspace

Thanks

ZV Yoda

Hi Tish, I finally got around to emailing that mp3 of the drum recording from my place. Let me know what you think... thanks