Electric kit over Acoustic for improvement?

Zaneyj

Junior Member
I just recently purchased my second drumkit for travel and practice reasons, and it is an electric drumkit. The feel is a little different, but its a good feel to me. Are there any downsides to an electric kit that could cause me to develop any bad habits in my drumming? Anything I need to be aware of?
 
i had an issue w/ a version of the Yamaha kit (at the time $1000). for jamming to tunes w/ headphones, working on charts, midi-out recording to make demos, playing at 2 AM on crazy ideas - all GREAT. then i rehearsed w/ a blues band for an entire weekend. i felt like i had lost my touch, sensitivity & dynamics. i ended up beating the sh*t out of the kit just to get a punchy sound (going thru very powerful sound system). it was horrible.

i felt so disturbed that i had lost my musical "soul" that i sold the kit a few days later for $700. at the time, i felt like i would rather be playing brushes on a snare drum & working on my touch than dealing w/ that. i also felt like there was a maddening delay when playing live...like a 64th or less "off" delay. but headphones seemed ok.
 
I can understand that, I noticed that I get the same volume no matter how hard I hit, so I was worried about the sensitivity aspect. I still have my acoustic set, and I still gig with it, but the electric kit was like you were saying, for jamming at odd hours since working and gigging leaves me very little time for personal practice.
 
Electric kits at their worst are glorified practice pads, at best they are still not nearly as sensitive as real drums.

Really watch and feel what you doing more than listen. You can come a long way with electric kits co-ordiantion, timing, chops, technique etc but you will never get your groove together on an electric kit. Like a practice pad there will be periods of adjustment when playing the real instrument.

I dont think you can get any real bad habbits as such if you pay attention to your form ect, you just cant develop certain areas of drumming to its full.
 
I got a Roland TD-4 and sold it a few months later. E-kits lack touch and feel, no matter how advanced they claim they are. Nothing beats good old-fashioned physics, where you control everything EXACTLY the way you want it. Although they are fun to mess around with, especially with all the different sounds. They're also good if you simply cannot play an acoustic kit where you live.
 
The feel IS different and it'll take some getting used to but, if it's the onky way you'll get to practise it will help tremendously.
I practise my electronic kit everyday apart from band practise day, at first I thought the kick towers did more damage than good to my playing but, like anything, if you do it long enough you'll get used to adjusting.

When I set my acoustic kit at practise it takes me 15-20 mins before I feel like I'm grooving, that could also be that I'm warming up too.
I've cut little pads out of foam/rubber drum mutes and glued them onto my kick towers for that soft 'give' of a real bass drum and spent ages customising my kit, trigger sensitivity, gain, cross-fade sample and even just turning the toms down and the cymbals up so I don't feel as much of a shock when going back to acoustic 'cos all electronic kits are set up appallingly with their factory settings, toms are too loud you'll get lazy so just adjusting these will help.
It's never going to be exact but I treat them as seperate instruments, sone things I do on acoustic don't work so well on electric and vice-versa but, learning that is another string to your bowe.
I record with my e-kit so I instinctively know if I can pull it off on my acoustic kit. If I don't think I can I don't record it that way.

The dynamic levels are nowhere near real drums but, if you can groove on an e-kit you can certainly groove on an acoustic kit.

Actually I've developed techniques and way of playing to 'flatter' my e-kit and make it seem more real. Just like the guys who demo them for the companies, only for people to buy one and it sound nothing like the demo!

It's the future though so jump aboard. I'm not saying they're taking over from acoustic but hybrid sets are becoming more common and the quicker you get used to it the broader your horizon is.
 
I still find that they don't have the same feel and the same realism... so I don't use them instead of real drum sounds most of the time.
They would be standard for techno/electro/dubstep, so if your band is called "Kraftwerk", by all means use them exclusively.
However, for other styles, you're going to need something much more real, where you can adjust the dynamics simply by playing harder or softer, instead of reaching for the volume knob; it still might be good to dot a couple of electric pads around though.
 
I think that if you go between an acoustic and an electric kit regularly then you will be fine. So if you play on an acoustic kit say once every week or so then you'll be ok, that's what I do. Just make sure that you set your ekit up realistically and have the drum pads as far away from each other as they would be on a real drumkit, don't be tempted to cramp them all together just because the pads are smaller than real drums

You can improve the dynamics and sound of your ekit greatly by hooking it up to a computer and using ezdrummer, that does cost a bit of money though.
 
Touch and feel as the others have mentioned.
I played an e-kit for 3 years with no acoustic kit at all, when I got an acoustic EVERYTHING seemed so far away it was absolutely horrible and felt really uncomfortable.

I definitely think e-kits are brilliant and have a place for quiter rehearsals / practice and smaller venues but I'm lucky that I have both set up at home and alternate from one to the other so I never again get too unfamiliar with my acoustic kit.
 
I treat them as two entirely distinct, and different instruments. And they both have their +'s and -'s. I own 7 acoustic kits, and 3 e-kits. They all sound different. They all do "different" things. But, essentially, what you do is hit them. You can't expect an e-kit to respond like an acoustic, and vice versa. The possible exceptions being, the Korg Wave drum, and the Mandala. I own two of each. They simply blow every other e-drum out of the water, as far as "sensitivity" goes. But, with the Wave drum costing about $400, and the Mandala running $800, not a whole lotta people are gonna have drum kits made up with Wave drums and Mandala's.​
 
I have played both for years and as long as you keep up with both, I believe there are very few problems.
The problems begin when (like I did) you play the e-kit for 9 years and seldom touch the acoustic drums.


This is a very generalized statement but, having said that, here goes :

For me, except for controlling dynamics and e-cymbals, the e-kit is easier to play............especially the double-bass.
For many years, I played a set-up that was e-toms and basses with acoustic cymbals and snare.....................................weird I know, but it worked for the band I was with at that time.

Now that I am back on acoustic drums, I much prefer them over electronics.
 
As someone who's practiced on an Ekit for years now, I'd say go for an acoustic. I find it incredibly difficult to transfer stuff from my electric to an acoustic kit - an acoustic kit is bigger, everything is further away, the toms have different rebound to rubber pads, the drums have rims to watch out for .etc.
It takes me like half an hour AT LEAST to get into the groove on an acoustic kit - I can play crazy stuff on my ekit that i just can't do on an acoustic without lots of practice.
 
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