Cheap electronic drum kit recommendations

R

Rhys Llewellyn

Member
Oct 16, 2010
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So yeah, I'm after something cheap, don't care if it's ugly and sounds like shit. All I want is some half decent stick response and something slightly better than just rubber pads.

I'm gonna be purely using it to trigger SSD, so obviously the ability to have a MIDI Out and MIDI note assignation are a must.

I've thought about making my own, since I've already made my own triggers and also have a Roland Octapad so I can vastly expand my inputs but in reality a cheap shitty one will probably still play better than anything I could make for similar money.

I'm thinking of a maximum of £300 new and came across this... http://www.andertons.co.uk/electronic-drums/pid9052/cid567/session-pro-dd505-electronic-drum-kit.asp

Anyone have any opinions or recommendations? I know I'm gonna have to put a little more aside for a decent double kick and stuff, I just want something to get me back in to drumming for now. I would do unspeakable things for a Roland TD-20!
 
Got a mate selling a Roland kit , when I say he played it a couple of times that is no exaggeration . It is good as new . I am not a million miles from Essex send me a PM for phone numbers if you are interested .
 
Rhys Llewellyn said:
So yeah, I'm after something cheap, don't care if it's ugly and sounds like shit. All I want is some half decent stick response and something slightly better than just rubber pads.

I'm gonna be purely using it to trigger SSD, so obviously the ability to have a MIDI Out and MIDI note assignation are a must.

I've thought about making my own, since I've already made my own triggers and also have a Roland Octapad so I can vastly expand my inputs but in reality a cheap shitty one will probably still play better than anything I could make for similar money.

I'm thinking of a maximum of £300 new and came across this... http://www.andertons.co.uk/electronic-drums/pid9052/cid567/session-pro-dd505-electronic-drum-kit.asp

Anyone have any opinions or recommendations? I know I'm gonna have to put a little more aside for a decent double kick and stuff, I just want something to get me back in to drumming for now. I would do unspeakable things for a Roland TD-20!
Click to expand...

A friend of mine has this kit (under the millenium brand) and it's utter shite.

Sure it works but I wouldn't be surprised if it gets broken in the next weeks.

I have the even cheaper Medeli/Fame/millenium kit and I think it's more durable.
Toms feel actually great. The snare is hard as a wood plank tho.:lol: The Kick drum is alright and the cymbals... Well, they suck like with every entry level e-drums kits.
The magic happens when you plug it to superior drummer and spend some time messing with the velocity curves.
Then you forget you're hitting pieces of plastic.
 
Rhys Llewellyn said:
So yeah, I'm after something cheap, don't care if it's ugly and sounds like shit. All I want is some half decent stick response and something slightly better than just rubber pads.

I'm gonna be purely using it to trigger SSD, so obviously the ability to have a MIDI Out and MIDI note assignation are a must.

I've thought about making my own, since I've already made my own triggers and also have a Roland Octapad so I can vastly expand my inputs but in reality a cheap shitty one will probably still play better than anything I could make for similar money.

I'm thinking of a maximum of £300 new and came across this... http://www.andertons.co.uk/electronic-drums/pid9052/cid567/session-pro-dd505-electronic-drum-kit.asp

Anyone have any opinions or recommendations? I know I'm gonna have to put a little more aside for a decent double kick and stuff, I just want something to get me back in to drumming for now. I would do unspeakable things for a Roland TD-20!
Click to expand...

Hey dude, I got that very same kit in my studio. I use it purely for the MIDI out into cubase. Only thing that sucks about it is that the kick channel sucks and doesn't pick up double bass. But what I did was swap tome 3 with the Kick (toms have quick triggering) and then change the MIDI notes in cubase so that when the tick plays (tom 3 channel) it triggers the kick MIDI note. And for just jamming just make your own kit and assign kick to tom 3 channel. Then kick works.

Hope that helps you choose
 
I purchased the Ion iED01 Electronic Drum Set a few years back for real cheap (suspiciously cheap in fact). The kick pedals are awful but the rest of the kit would probably work for your purposes. I rigged it so that the hi had pedal triggers a second kick drum, but the response is pretty much unusable. And it's very inexpensive. Ion:

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:eek:fficial&client=firefox-a&q=Ion+iED01+Electronic+Drum+Set&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=9799180221351433474&sa=X&ei=re7fTdLLL4rAtgfQ-LzyCQ&ved=0CDsQ8wIwAw

Also, my drummer has this Simmons model and it's much better quality. We use this at night at his house often. Simmons:

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=simmons++Electronic+Drum+Set&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=4235448279229963233&sa=X&ei=de_fTeLbKs29tgeLjLGLCg&ved=0CF8Q8wIwAA
 
Thanks for all the replies.

Plenty of links to be checking out there!

The Alesis DM-5 has come up a lot on another forum I also posted on.

I used to have a Roland TD-3, but really hated those plastic pads.
 
Can I just point out for anyone thinking of getting a TD-20 ... don't. The latency on those things is fucking dire. It's because they do some fancy positional sensing, which makes very little difference to the sound, and not many software amps can take advantage of the data anyway. But it means there are extra buffers in the midi signal path, which means it takes more time to calculate the values - hence.. latency.

Get a TD-6, TD-9, TD-12, or a Yamaha DTXIV, or DTX900 series. The 900's have USB out, which will be faster than midi out - hence less latency.

The TD-20 is old tech now. Pretty much bottom of the barrel as far as I'm concerned, and I have to work with this stuff most days ;)

I have a TD-6 at home, and it isn't too bad. The pads are limiting a little, no edge detection, and the cymbal pads I've got have been beaten too much and now they just don't respond that well. But it's much better than the TD-20 at the office!!
 
Yamaha DTXpress IV is a great value. The Yamaha rubber pads are way better than Roland's; I actually prefer them over Roland's mesh.
 
Sorry to bump an old thread... But I'm also looking at these at the moment.

What I'm looking for is satisfying a 12 years old kid just starting out and a daddy who would like to be able to record some quick drum takes in Reaper, than use ezD or SSD.
 
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