Some hopefully helpful sound tips

[Blades]

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with the fact that the effects can not be used live. Period.

Of course it depends on the system, the engineer, the room, etc. I play the v-custom with seperate outs (this is REALLY important) for the Kick, the snare, and then Others. It's amazing how bad the kick sounds when we accidentally patch it into the snare channel. EQ on the board can change anything and is necessary for ANY room...and in this case, I don't need effects because it is a large church with plenty of its own room sound.

But, when we play outside live, the drums sound like **** (any...acoustic, v-drum, d-drum, etc) unless they are completely re-tweaked. Sometimes effects, sometime EQ, sometimes just volume. Out side EATS the bass end.

Now, I may use the ambiance effect as a seperate channel in a studio situation and mix it in at the end of the rec. process, but NEVER record the effects with the drums...again...this doesn't matter if they are acoustic or electronic. Just too much of a pain at mixdown time. But, of course, in a studio situation you have a lot more time, and hopefully cleaner, better equipment.

In the studio, vocals sound GREAT in a good condenser mic...Will you use it live...no way. Use a 58 or such live...which usually does not sound as good on a vocal in the studio (there are exceptions). The same thing goes for the v-drums. No, the effects are not perfect...probably not studio worthy (maybe home studio, though), but more than plenty for live situations.

Especially since many of use play in bands where the guy who owns the PA has not invested in all the outboard gear, or the mixing board only has one or two auxs on it, which get used for vocals usually, or the club house system is completely different than what we are used to. All the built-in stuff is very valuable for flexibility. At least I have the option to use it or not. These effects on a snare certainly beat a DRY snare when you are trying to cover something off of Chicago 17! But they may sound STUPID on an old Beatles cover like "I wanna hold your hand".

Be reasonable.
redbrick

[Jimmy C]

From cgrieves to Rudi-Mint:
"P.S. I'd recommend SonicImplants kits, they are breathtakingly realistic. There's a separate post with some MP3s I made."

Is that really intended for home studio use only? Or could those natural sounding downloads be dumped to the TD-10 and used live without the need of additional outboard equipment? Or is that just wishful thinking on my part?

[Blades]

Only in a "studio" environment, unless you want to bring a pc out to the gig with you...A laptop would work if you could get a card to support soundfonts or gigasampler. Keyboardists do this all the time...why shouldn't drummers.

But...to directly answer the question...it is just wishful thinking...you cannot load samples into any of the Roland drum brains that I'm aware of...td-7, 8, 10, 10ex, tdw1, etc..

redbrick

[puttenvr]

Using a Gigasampler in general can be usefull at home or in studios. I don't want to carry along a personal computer to my gigs. I already have 3 flightcases full of stuff.

Apart from this you need a powerful computer with a decent soundcard; those things are quite expensive. Perhaps even more expensive than a good drum module. Next I wonder if the positional sensing is possible and if the download time from samples is not too long. Last but not least: I haven't seen any good freeware drum samples around the Internet. Only samples for which I had to pay...

[cgrieves]

Nah, as I've said elsewhere, you need:

A Pentium2 300 with 128Mb RAM (most of us have something similar, probably much better)
Soundblaster ($20)
Gigasampler LE ($99)
A Sonicimplants kit ($25 for lots of sounds)
or Converted Clavia samples (free)

So that's $150 for a lot of sonic potential (more than any drum module).

Unless you know of any TD-10s/Ddrums going for $150??

[drumser]

Originally posted by szvook:

The system that I play through does use the BBE 482 and some compression. My experience has been that non drummers can't seem to feel the drums the same way we do as far as presence and depth of sound; the nuances of the kit. They are preocupied with vocalists most of the time. The sqeaky wheel gets the grease you know.

Since my last post i just picked up the upgrade chip and notice "out of the box" sounds on the TDW1 are fantastic compared to the original. That alone I'm sure will be a great boost.

Thanks for the comments.
(:

[szvook]

[dunks99]

I have a question in regards to the subject of this original post. I have a gig in a large club next week and have decided to use my v-drums vs. my acoustic set. I was planning on getting a converter that goes from a 1/4" male to a mic cable female connecter. That way I can plug a normal mic cable into my td-10 and send it to the snake at the club. My question is in regards to an earlier post about having a power amp, and separate effects...Do you really need an external power amp to sound good. This is the last time I will be playing live till Thanksgiving when I get back from school, and just dumped a ton of money on the V-drums and am looking for the cheapest way out. While still sounding the best that I can.

Thanks

[Steveo the Devo]

Originally posted by dunks99:
Do you really need an external power amp to sound good.

Howdy dunks, welcome aboard.

There are levels of sounding 'good'.

I am a little confused by the term 'external power amp'. Naturally you will need drum fill (to hear yourself), but the club should have decent foldback speakers that you can use.
If you mean external effects/processors then that is a different kettle of fish altogether. To me, I believe that my sound is enhanced and made better by the use of external effects and processors. I do not use any onboard effects when I play live or record. BUT, if it is not a seriously professional gig you will probabaly get away with your plan.
If you are only runing a single line out then I wouldn't worry about external processors. That is clearly beyond the scope of what you are trying to do. I would definately be using a DI box though (do not just buy an adaptor - it will still be an unbalanced signal running all the way to the FOH desk), the good news is that most decent clubs who have decent systems will have DI boxes - give them a call and find out.
There are many v-drummers out there who are really happy with their 'onboard' sounds and effects. While there are equally many who use all manner of 'external' gear.
Horses for courses - it's just a matter of personal preference.
Hope this helps!

[dunks99]

thanks again steveo! i played with all of my onboard effects off, but did purchase two whirlwind DI's for the gig. i have a fender mixer at my place and found with the trim all the way up the signal still did not have a enough power to peak. judging from previous e-mails, getting DI's was the way to go. the set worked beautifully. i got compliments from the house sound engineer on how great the set sounded, and how little he had to actually do. he said that all he did was run the kit through some of the house rack effects, set the levels and let me go. in the future i intend to do two things, get a BBE and more DI's. the only problem with my plan is that if i run more outputs with the DI's i'll only be able to, with one BBE, to run two of those outputs through it.

[Steveo the Devo]

No worries, great to hear.
The BBE will change your world.

[V-Junkie]

Originally posted by dunks99:
the only problem with my plan is that if i run more outputs with the DI's i'll only be able to, with one BBE, to run two of those outputs through it.[/B]

Can I use multiple DI's (outs) to the main board on the house system, and have the house system use (1) BBE for all the inputs (via the sends?) Is this the best way?

use the