For those looking for an alternative to Roland, Pearl is coming out swinging. The Pearl e/Merge e/Hybrid electronic drum set is a five-piece kit engineered and designed by Pearl and Korg. Now, the Alesis kit isn’t going to hurt as much as a high-end Roland kit, but you’re still going to shell out a considerable amount. I don’t really see much use for the USB memory, as I just like to plug in my phone or tablet and just jam with Spotify.

With an electronic drum kit, you can produce drums for recorded music very easily without ever having to record a real drum set. We’d personally recommend getting something with a ‘proper’ bass drum pedal and pad as opposed to a standalone controller pedal, such as the Alesis Nitro Mesh. This will help you improve your bass drum foot technique and makes swapping from electronic to acoustic drums much easier. The electronic drum set world moves incredibly fast with a raft of new releases landing over rhe last few years. Most recently, Roland announced a pair of fantastically specced beginner/budget kits, the TD-02K and TD-02KV which boast the nifty new TD-02 module. We've already reviewed the 02KV and it features in this guide.When exploring the best electronic drum set for you, it depends entirely on what features you need and where you are in your drumming journey. There are other pads with qualities this module doesn’t have, but overall the Roland SPD-SX ‘Special Edition’ is amongst the best of the best. The combination of high build quality, intuitive design and excellent functionality means this is a great alternative to the Pro model.

You may need to adjust your playing, as well. The rims on most Roland drum pads are pretty loud when you play rim shots. The cymbals can also be fairly loud when played on the edge and bell zones. Your digital audio workstation will be able to see these instruments all on different MIDI channels depending on how they are configured at the hardware level. Choosing an E-Drum Kit Specifically for Recording I would like to make it abundantly clear that I don’t believe you need the most expensive kit available. I suppose it depends. You’ll get a nicer module with the Roland kit, but the shells aren’t much to look at. Also, the VAD307 doesn’t have the incredible digital snare and digital ride. I didn’t think these would be that big of a deal before I bought mine, but they make a world of difference in the e-kit world.

Electronic Drum Kits FAQs

Alesis has a unique electronic cymbal design, in that, the trigger area doesn’t include the entire circumference. A little bit more than half of the cymbal is playable. I’m not huge on this design. While you can use your own drum sounds from your module, I guarantee if you use a professional sample library with MIDI, you’ll achieve way better results than any drum module on the market ( even the TD-50). When you have a master level drummer like Steve Gadd involved in the design process – you know there’s going to be something amazing to use at the end. The more important thing is that you play the thing. Electronic drum sets are more intended for practicing if you ask me. The Roland TD-50K-S

The Nitro MAX is vastly superior upgrade from the Turbo Mesh with 440 sounds (as opposed to 100 only), as well as custom presets from BFD, one of the leading drum sample companies around. Depending on the type of pad, the predominant functions can be vastly different. Before investing it’s important to know the subtleties between the pads on offer, so you can accurately choose which best suits your needs. Generally speaking there are sample pads, percussion pads and drum synthesizers, all usually listed under the term ‘drum pad’ or ‘multipad’, so let’s take a closer look. What is a sample pad?The only problem with wooden tips is that they’re more likely to wear out and damage your pads. But that’s only if they get chipped from constantly hitting metal. Since you don’t hit metal when playing electronic drums, this never happens. I caught myself getting a little too used to it, as they are a bit bouncier when compared to actual drums. But that’s what a mesh head is! The cymbals

Another common issue lies in the Strike Pro’s hi-hat. Many users reported that the edge sample will not respond in some cases when playing. Looms are hand-made “snakes” that keep your cables that reach the same destination together. You can use electrical tape or gaff tape to make your looms. Where to Buy a Used Electronic Drum Set? If you’re going to be gigging with your drum set, again, we’d say that an acoustic drum set is best. A lot of our first gigs were in halls, garages, pubs or small venues - usually with small PA speakers, incapable of handling a full electronic kit going through them. For this reason, an acoustic drum set is preferable - unless you’re playing somewhere with reasonable sound equipment. You aren’t just limited to traditional acoustic drum sounds. You have the ability to choose from acoustic drum sounds, electronic drum kits, and even synthesized samples. Capturing MIDI Data from Electronic Drums Being that this an electronic drum kit that’s pretty affordable, I didn’t expect the sound to blow me away. And the original Nitro Mesh didn’t. The Nitro’s biggest issue for me were the drum samples. This electronic drum kit sounds like early 90s MIDI drums.Both traditional 5-pin MIDI ports and USB 2.0 will both transfer the same type of data. The only difference being that USB can offer bus-power. When it comes to choosing a kit to record with this setup, any will do just fine. All the electronic drum kits listed here have a MIDI output available, so you’ll be able to connect to your digital audio workstation fairly easily.