Beginner electronic drum kit?

[TRA]

Do any of you have experience with the inexpensive Simmons and Alesis electronic drum kits? I'm not looking to become a beast drummer, but I'm hitting an early mid-life crisis and want to learn how to play the drums. I have a very small space and noise restrictions. An acoustic kit is out of the question.

That said...what do you recommend for the bare minimum in electronic drum kits? I can always expand later if I stick with it.

EDIT: I just want to add that I own Superior Drummer so the drum module doesn't need to have great stock sounds as I'll likely not use them.

 

[Mago]

I guess the cheaper roland v drums aren't too bad.

How about noise restriction regarding the floor? If you life in a flat and you've got someone living down yours, that might be a problem since the sound traveling through the
ground/walls can piss of the neigbours downstairs.

 

[TRA]

The room that the kit would go in is above my garage so noise from an e-kit isn't a concern. An acoustic kit would get the cops here within minutes.

 

[HotRails]

when it comes to electronic drums, the microtonic vst rules all drum synths, IMHO.
http://soniccharge.com/microtonic
I bet you can trigger those from MIDI with a relativily simple setup.

Patternarium gives you a lot of grooves and great sounds.
http://soniccharge.com/patternarium

 

[TRA]

when it comes to electronic drums, the microtonic vst rules all drum synths, IMHO.
http://soniccharge.com/microtonic
I bet you can trigger those from MIDI with a relativily simple setup.

Patternarium gives you a lot of grooves and great sounds.
http://soniccharge.com/patternarium

Thanks. I'm talking about actual drums that you hit with sticks. Like Roland V-Drums, but not thousands of dollars.

 

[Torsis]

I was in the same boat - wanted an ok set for messing around and for triggering and capturing MIDI.

When I put mine together, I had problems with some Pintech stuff mis-triggering (they might be better these days, though, since this was years ago).
The cheaper Roland Pads (PD-n) were/are pretty accurate and always trigger fine.

Cheapest would be something like this to get you going, then fill out the rest if you need more pads/cymbals.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Roland-TD7-Electronic-Drum-Set-/370980210236#viTabs_0

I have a similar set, but I put it together bit by bit when stuff came up for cheap on eBay.
I ended up with:
TD-7 brain
1 PD-9 dual trigger pad (snare)
4 PD-7 dual trigger pads (1 for hats, 3 for toms)
2 PD-5 single trigger pads (one for tom, one for kick)
FD-7 Hat Pedal
2 Visulite cymbals - 1 with choke strip, 1 w/out
Gibralter curved rack.
Generic double kick pedal
Roc-n-Soc throne

I think it ended up about $700 or so for all those pieces.


Note: non-mesh pads are pretty hard and don't have a lot of "give" so sticks bounce quite a bit ...and the absorption of the drum-hit vibrations are your hands.
Meaning: if you're a hard hitter and play for a couple of hours, your hands will get sore.
You can lessen that by covering the pad surface with felt or those 12"x12"x1/16" colored foam sheets you'd find in craft stores.

 

[HOFX]

I made the mistake of going down the Drum-Kat route, please do not make that same mistake.