New TD30KV - not happy with the sound yet

[Gilrock]

I'm not a great drummer. I've only played a couple years but I do play in the church praise band on their Roland TD9 kit. I was using a PDP acoustic set at home but I always felt limited on practice time so I figured I'd buy an electronic set so I could practice late hours and it would be really close to the feel of the set I play when I'm live at church. I bought into the advertising and decided to get the TD30KV. So far I'm a little disappointed because it's not sounding much better than the TD9 I use at church. I don't even know if the previous drummer at church had setup the TD9 but we mainly use the default #1 kit and I've only changed a couple things like crash sounds. Right now I'd say that main kit setup I use on the TD9 is sounding better than most of the default kits on the TD30KV. I'm sure there's a way to make my TD30KV better but why wouldn't they have it sounding awesome out of the box?
I happened to put it on Pattern 1 last night and it sounded awesome. I want to know how the heck can I make the kit sound like that pattern? The gains for the kits all seem way too low cause when I started the pattern it about blew my ears out. I had to quickly grab the headphones volume knob to turn it down. I have all the sliders set in the middle to 0db with a boost to the hi-hat and kick because they seem weak in comparison to everything else. I don't know why the kit sounds are sounding so weak in comparison to the pattern sounds. I don't think it's the head tension because they already seemed too bouncy to me so I didn't tighten them further.
Any advice would be appreciated.

[vhdrums]

Geez man... not meaning to be rude but you might read your User Guide and understand how this stuff work. My kit isn't even close to be mid range but knowing how to configure it [by extensively reading the User Guide] I've been able to do wonders.

[jammin777]

e drums dont sound great out of the box and unfortunately its not plug and play as far as sounds and playability is, you need to dial it all in.
here is a great start.
http://www.vexpressionsltd.com/

[Gilrock]

Yeah I wish I wasn't so busy right now. I do plan to go more in depth with the User Guide but so far I only read the quick start stuff and a few pages in the guide. When I was going through the Quick Start and followed the instructions for playing the Patterns I heard some really good sounds so I was hoping there was a quick way to make the set sound like what I was hearing in the pattern.

[Gilrock]

e drums dont sound great out of the box and unfortunately its not plug and play as far as sounds and playability is, you need to dial it all in.
here is a great start.http://www.vexpressionsltd.com/

Thanks...I actually stumbled on that site yesterday. The pack I was interested in didn't have a price it just said Call Alan.

[jammin777]

try to pm him

[Alan VEX]

Drop me an email. Everything's still available. I'm just making changes.

[tivi]

also find the post from Tommy_D for the TD-30 Initial Setup Guide, really help.

[scthom]

also find the post from Tommy_D for the TD-30 Initial Setup Guide, really help.

This. I have it bookmarked because the search feature wasn't always working.
http://www.vdrums.com/forum/advanced...ngs-discussion

[bakerboy]

Connect the TD-30 module to a computer, install EZDrummer 2, and you'll never want to hear those module sounds again

[perceval]

I bought into the advertising and decided to get the TD30KV. So far I'm a little disappointed because it's not sounding much better than the TD9...

e drums dont sound great out of the box and unfortunately its not plug and play as far as sounds and playability is...

Connect the TD-30 module to a computer, install EZDrummer 2, and you'll never want to hear those module sounds again.

All these that I read all the time make me cringe.

How can a company, selling its flagship model at a ridiculously expensive price can not give the user a good playing experience out of the box?

[jimorlando]

I've read the manual several times and also read Tommy D's post a few times as well. I vexed it and I'm getting it to sound pretty good. My kit will be a year old next month. It takes some time and I'm always experimenting and getting ideas from this forum.

[Gilrock]

Cool I'll check out the Tommy D stuff. I had some pleasing improvements last night. I bought that Strike package for the TD30 and got it loaded. Those kits were sounding much better but I didn't have a lot of time to mess around before having to goto choir practice. Just before I left I checked and noticed they had TD9 kits also so I brought my laptop with me and grabbed a USB stick. After choir I had a couple minutes before praise team practice and I scrambled and was able to get the TD9 unit backed up and I bought the first package in the list I believe called Acoustics. I got that loaded and tried to run through hearing some of the kits. I picked out a couple and used them for the songs we practiced. OMG I was blown away by the improvement. The ride cymbal wasn't so dead anymore and I could actually do cymbal swells that faded up in volume on the crash. And the bass drum sounds were awesome. I could almost feel it vibrating in me. Everyone commented how much better the drums were sounding and they probably could tell I was like a kid on christmas morning.
So I got home and experimented more with the Strike kits. One thing I found out is I was getting much better sound in the headphones than when I was trying to play it through my Line 6 Flextone II guitar amp. I probably didn't have the amp set right. I think it just took me awhile for the electronic sound to grow on me. It's like the sounds you hear are more like the drums are mic'ed up than the what I was used to hearing from the acoustic set.
My main issue right now is the hi-hat. There's a few things I can do with it that do seem better than the one on the TD9 at church but the sound when I hit a closed hi-hat seems pretty dead. And I have set the offset. I feel like I need to drop the entire kit down 20db and raise everything else up to max to get it on par with the relative levels I'm used to. Or I have to try to lift my foot to slightly open it much more than I've been used to.
But all in all I'm feeling a lot better about the set now. I am surprised the factory sounds aren't better. I mean at church we've had 4 different drummers playing on that TD9 and we all played the factory kits not knowing any better.

[Kenster]

Welcome to the Forums!!!!!! How about some pics of your set up? You are on the path to getting your kit dialed in the way you like for sure.

K

[BWaj]

All these that I read all the time make me cringe.

How can a company, selling its flagship model at a ridiculously expensive price can not give the user a good playing experience out of the box?

I had no issues right out of the box, I tweaked them to taste but they sounded great right out of the box to me. I think the issue may be there is simply no pleasing some people. Acoustic drums don't sound great right outta the box either, the wrong heads or tuning will make the nicest kit sound like crap.

I wonder how many people that complain about a TD30 are using a terrible sound system or simply don't know how to run sound? If one can't get a decent sound from a TD30 on a decent sound system, the issue is not the TD30, imo.