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Best e-drums in 2022???

Started by fishmonkey, April 12, 2022, 11:52:04 PM

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fishmonkey

hi there,

i'm still rocking one of the first Drumit 5 kits, and i'm completely out of the loop with e-drum systems.

what are considered the best e-drums in 2022, for playability and sound?

welshsteve

#1
It all depends on price bracket.

But ignoring that. Best of the best regardless of price, is generally considered to be:

Roland TD50X with digital snare, ride and hihat set up. Two things to consider with this:
1, it's bloody expensive. 2. As good as it plays with the digital hats/ride/snare combo, not everyone likes the sound of Roland TD50X in fact, many absolutely hate it. It's a very polarising topic. But if triggering a VST such as Superior Drummer 3 using an M1 chip Mac. Or a PC/Mac powerful enough to bring the latency down to an un noticeable level. Cost of such a set up (if you was getting everything) is around £10,000+ And as expensive as that is, many have done it.

Another very very highly regarded set up, but is also in the high end price bracket but definitely not as much as the above set up.

Pearl Mimic Pro module with an ATV pad kit. But you can have an alternative pad set up and bring the cost of this down. This is in the region of £5000 for 5 drums, 2 3 zone crashes and a 3 zone ride. The sound of which, very few disagree sounds the best and has massive personalisation options, even with the small 120 sound library. Updates seem to have dried up, last one was in June 2020 and no chatter of anything new coming. With that said, if they don't update it anymore, it will still be a hell of a module for now until 10 or so years to come. Pros: The sound is fantastic. It's easily the most realistic sounding module I have ever played. The multi mic fader adjustment and processing (including actual room faders) give it absolute authentic playing experience. Lots of trigger inputs for expansion and 5 midi slots if you use all of them. 12 individual assignable outs (but with some work arounds, you can get 16!) Great trigger engine, can be used for any pads from any manufacturer.

Cons: Expensive module, but less than TD50. No electronic, percussion sounds. But one shot sample import is supported.

Other decent contenders are:

1. Roland TD27 This will come in many forms, either as a pad-set with the module, or in one of the VAD set ups. The module is the same but with an acoustic drum kit-looking set up. You of course have the option to have the digital hi-hats too, not sure which ones (if any) include it. Sound-wise is similar to the TD50. Prices range, best do some checking out the range yourself as my knowledge is a limited.

2. Yamaha DTX10. Also in the £5000 mark for 5 drums, 2 3 zone crashes and a 3 zone ride. Pros:Multi sample import (via a very clunky USB sample import with a 250mb total limit) Mesh and TSC pad options (TCS more slightly more expensive, but IMHO just edges it as the best feeling playing surface) based on short stack acoustic drum shells. Lots of decent drum sounds and great editing possibilities with 4 voice laying on ALL zones on all pads. It's got 2 multi effect engines, compression, eq...  Awesome hardware including a HEX rack, so you know it's very stable. Also has 8 assignable outputs plus main stereo Left and Right. I don't know if using these individual outs affects the main out. i.e. if you assign kick, snare, to individual outs 1 & 2, does it get lost from main outs. I'd have to sift through the manual or search a video detailing output assignments to see if this is addressed.

Cons: Unless you're splitting inputs with Y-cables, there's only 1 aux input for an extra pad. How it sounds some people have criticised, but I personally think it sounds great. And while the sample input is clunky and size limited, from personal experience, it would be enough to have at least one good VST ripped kit and definitely more so if using internal cymbal sounds (which take up the most memory anyway) The kit modifier controls are a great feature for on the fly processing.

3. Efnote are new-comers and have been making serious waves recently. They have 3 main kit options, Efnote 3, 5 and 7 lines. They're going with the very nice looking and built acoustic shells, but they also do small footprint set ups of pads. All perform and sound pretty much on par with each other. Prices are very reasonable, all things considered. USB routing via 8 channels is a great feature, mainly for recording into a DAW but can be done for live use with a laptop and interface/digital mixer. How much latency is introduced would depend on the specs of both. Sound wise are very dry unprocessed with enough velocity layers, but some minor machine gunning is noticeable sometimes. They have internal reverb but all videos I have seen this used is very subtle.

But one option that should be considered (as you are here reading this) is...

4. A drumit5 MK2 with either a 2nd one or a drumit3 as an aux module. Still a major contender based on its open architecture. The above modules work with pretty much any pad set ups (There's one issue regarding an ATV hihat on another thread which hasn't been concluded yet, but others have used this hihat with no problems too) More pad inputs than you can shake a stick at (excuse the pun) outputs a plenty, no horrible cable snake (a bug bear with ATV, Roland mid to lower end modules and Efnote models) and very reasonably priced!

I had 2 x drumit3 as a set up before I went with the Mimic. I was totally happy, it played and sounded great. I could have any sound I wanted. I would still have at least one of the drumit3 module if not for a huge tax bill and a van repair forced me to have to sell off a lot of stuff.

In conclusion, there's no perfect set edrum kit about. It will depend on your budget, what sounds/feature you like. So what's perfect for me, isn't perfect for the next guy/girl.

It's a good time to be into edrums though, the place has never felt so alive as now and I have been around doing this YEARS!



My Hovercraft is full of Eels!

welshsteve

#2
I forgot to mention Gewa G9 and G5. I can't recall the cost, but it's the pro end too £3500 - £5000 ish for a full set up.

Same sounds on both, G9 is massive touch screen, G5 more physical buttons with a smaller LCD screen.

I won't go into detail, but they had a very clunky start but apparently have been making lots of improvement to the triggering and performance side of their modules. Pad Hardware is acoustic (hyperdrive dimensions) and mesh pad types.

The cymbals had hot spot issues as demonstrated on a few reviews, along with the module triggering and performance improvements, I hope they've addressed this too.

Go check out some of the reviews.

Another one worth a mention is the Pearl Emerge kit. Hardware is very solid, one of the best feeling kick drum towers out there which is the same thing in their 18" kick drum albeit behind a mesh head. The snare pad (at least, maybe the others too, but I am told it's just the snare) uses Korg's wave drum tech so very expressive playing. Module is decent and has a lot of sounds. 8 outputs, not sure about how many AUX pad ins there are. ad a certain character to the sound of it, you'd have to check it to see if it's floats your boat as they say. Check out the Drumtec Youtube videos.
My Hovercraft is full of Eels!

edcito

Forget gewa, I had the G9 and spent countless hours trying to get the triggering right, never got it, sold it, Gewa told me they were working on an update, the update came, never fixed the issues. They just tell you what you want to hear...

Mimic Pro is the best right now, pair it with any pad, I'm currently using a mix and match kit with efnote 14" snare and 20" ride, yamaha TCS 10" pad, Roland VAD 12" Tom, ATV 13" floor tom and a 14" tama starclassic floor tom with a triggera intrigg, ATV 14" hats, lemon splash and cymbal and 2 16" roland 16" pads. I've learned to not marry to a brand, I even have an edrumin to connect another 4 pads. 

What's missing on the mimic are percussion sounds and some MIDI stuff like local control and midi thru. Otherwise is simply the best out there.

welshsteve

Yeah I was cautious about recommending the Gewa, but in the UK drum show recently, Luke Hesketh who had previous reviewed the G9 and outlined the major flaws with it, felt that they had ironed them out.
My Hovercraft is full of Eels!

edcito

Quote from: welshsteve on April 13, 2022, 03:39:16 PM
Yeah I was cautious about recommending the Gewa, but in the UK drum show recently, Luke Hesketh who had previous reviewed the G9 and outlined the major flaws with it, felt that they had ironed them out.

I just had a look at their G9 facebook group, all woes and worries there, no thanks, they fooled me once, never again...

welshsteve

My Hovercraft is full of Eels!

fishmonkey

hey, thanks for the detailed replies — super appreciated!

most important to me are triggering nuance and sound quality. i'd settle for fewer sounds if they are of high quality. also, i rarely use any of the "electronic" sounds in the 2Box kit — i have far better electronic sounds available in my other music equipment.

my main gripes with the standard 2Box pads are inconsistent cymbal triggering, almost zero nuance of cymball bell triggering, and inconsistent rim triggering. the hi-hat response is a low point.

i'm not wedded to a single brand and happy to combine stuff to make something decent. i do need decent MIDI triggering for sometimes controlling software on my computer.

to put it another way, if it was practical to have another acoustic kit i'd do that in a heartbeat. but noise and space considerations make that impossible.

edcito

An ATV Ad5 is a good option, 4ms latency, nice sounds, compatible with many brands of pads, (not the case with efnote which has a proprietary hihat) and plays nice.

welshsteve

#9
Quote from: fishmonkey on April 18, 2022, 11:57:40 PM
hey, thanks for the detailed replies — super appreciated!

most important to me are triggering nuance and sound quality. i'd settle for fewer sounds if they are of high quality. also, i rarely use any of the "electronic" sounds in the 2Box kit — i have far better electronic sounds available in my other music equipment.

my main gripes with the standard 2Box pads are inconsistent cymbal triggering, almost zero nuance of cymball bell triggering, and inconsistent rim triggering. the hi-hat response is a low point.

i'm not wedded to a single brand and happy to combine stuff to make something decent. i do need decent MIDI triggering for sometimes controlling software on my computer.

to put it another way, if it was practical to have another acoustic kit i'd do that in a heartbeat. but noise and space considerations make that impossible.

Okay so money no object, the consensus in the edrum world is:

Best triggering - Roland TD50/27 with the digital ride, snare and hihat.

Best sounds - Superior Drummer 3. I am not 100% sure if the most optimal system to run this with very low latency, but at a guess, the new M1 chip MacBooks would be hard to beat.

If it's to take out on the road and don't want to use a Laptop. You'd do very well with a Pearl Mimic. While it's not on par triggering with a TD50 with the digital stuff, it's still very very good!

Whether you want to drop £2000+ on a module, especially one which support seems to have hit a wall (the jury is out on that, but certainly feels that way) is another thing.
My Hovercraft is full of Eels!