Electronic drums

Hi guys,
I need a little help. I am about to move to a new house and I will not be able to play my drums there so I am looking in to electronic drums. I'm no pro drummer but I have played on and off most of my life. I'm only staying in the house for a year so I don't want to spend 2 or 3 grand on an electronic set that I'll probably sell. Can anyone steer me to an affordable kit that I can build on? I want to have at least three rack toms. I've been looking around and none of the sets I see say anything about being able to add on. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

You can add modules to Roland kits for sure. I would assume the same for Yamaha.

Top of the range Alesis DM10 with or without surge cymbals might suit your needs.
Think you can add one, at least two extra instruments, and more if you get adventurous with the setup of the thing.

They draw mixed reaction...I bought a DM8 Pro about six months ago an genuinely couldn't be happier with it in terms of 'bang for buck'

I would suggest a set with foam or mesh pad for the snare at least. Those black pads can be hard on the hands. Also, you might consider buying the most you can afford. Being able to play at any time, in any place you live is huge. I have an electronic set for practice and while I would much rather play the acoustics, I now practice way more than I aver have.

Thanks for the advice. I'm headed to Sam Ash now to try a few kits.

Hmm this is a tough call...

I know you don't want to spend too much with your anticipation of selling the kit. But keep in mind that the more expensive kits will hold their value as long as you buy used. In other words, I would much rather recommend buying a nicer used kit (Roland TD-9 or better) than to buy a brand new cheaper kit and have to resell it at about half the price.

Therefore (the way I see it) you can either buy a cheap new kit and lose money in the end or spend more up front and get most if not all your money back in the end.

Ex.:

New Cheap Kit - $1000 (sell it used for around $600)

Used Higher End Kit - $1800 (sell it used for $1800 in a year)

Two words

Craigslist.....Roland


You can have as many heads/cymbals as you have inputs and you can cable two kicks together into one input.

The older TD6 module has 9 inputs. You might be able to make that to 11 because two of the inputs are marked 5/6 and 7/8. I assume it's a stereo jack and you can split in incoming signal. I never tried it.

The TD 10 has 11 inputs and the TD20 has 12.

There are higher end units have more tweekability. The mesh heads play much quieter than the hard pads.

Everything I own except the SPD-SX was purchased used from CL. I bought a couple different used kits and mashed them together. All the hardware and racking is pretty much the same.

That's all I know

Yamaha DTX 5xx series is very nice, and sounds great. I got this DTX 550 for about 1500.
I really wanted a "mechanical" hi-hat, and the DTX snare is really nice. It is great for playing through headphones and allows for an i-pod (or any other music source) mix-in for playing along (almost silently)!

I'll second this. DTX has really brought some game the last few years and they have kits under $1000 that still operate and work great. I myself use one of the lower-end ones and it's still great!

mike d said:

Yamaha DTX 5xx series is very nice, and sounds great. I got this DTX 550 for about 1500.
I really wanted a "mechanical" hi-hat, and the DTX snare is really nice. It is great for playing through headphones and allows for an i-pod (or any other music source) mix-in for playing along (almost silently)!

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