Why I think v-drums totally suck.

[TangTheHump]

I apologize as this is a bit of a rant. Well, okay... it's a full-on rant!

I've been pondering whether to sell my TD-30KV kit. I stopped playing it because it just didn't motivate me in any way musically. Sonically and in terms of expressiveness, it's such a huge step backwards from my acoustic drums. The best thing to happen to my TD-30 is Tommy D's Gavin Harrison patch, which at least made the v-drums sound less boinky and toy-like. There's no preset on the TD-30 that sounds anywhere near as expressive, clean, and uncluttered as Tommy's programming work. However, shortly after that I built a portable acoustic kit and realized, once again, just how much I was missing when playing the v-drums.

I'm still pondering whether to keep my TD-30KV kit. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Roland got it totally right with the v-piano. No boinks, bells, whiz-bangs, and whatevers. Just a solid instrument that sounds ridiculously good and hugely, organically expressive.

Rai Thistlethwayte on the Roland V-Piano
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chyTf8UXNQM

Contrast the v-piano with Roland's top-of-the line v-drums. The v-drums have to be some of the worst sounding drums I've ever heard. Case in point, take a listen to Tony Royster playing this TD-30 kit. This may be a $10,000 kit, but I wouldn't pay $3 for it. It makes Tony Royster sound like garbage. Bleep! Bloop! Whoosh! Boink! Slap-dash! What the heck is this? That's what we get from two (maybe three) decades of v-drum refinement? I've heard better sounding drum machines!

Roland needs to migrate the sonic level and simplicity of the v-piano to the v-drums. Get rid of all the whiz-bang sounds and model a single, great-sounding, acoustic drum kit. Imagine if a concert pianist sat down at the v-piano, pressed a key, and the instrument went "bink, boink, bloop"? Instant fail! I'm going to repeat my advice for Roland's benefit: get rid of the whiz-bang sounds on v-drums; model a single, great-sounding, acoustic drum kit; and you'll have a winner. When Roland does this, only then will drummers start to consider v-drums for serious performance.

Tony Royster on the TD-30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzCPZ7Uet_U

Ugh. The hi-hat machine guns all over the place. Ditto for the toms and snare. And, the sounds are horribly electronic, with no complexity and limited dynamic range. Please don't make me listen to that ever again. Tony is great. The v-drums? No so much so.

End rant. Sorry folks. I just needed to get that out of my system.

[jimorlando]

Wow. I'm about to pull the pin a buy the TD-30KV. Somebody give me some encouragement.

[Tommy_D]

Tang, I should send you an updated version of my Jazz kit. I made a couple tweaks to the EQ to smooth out the toms a bit and its really nice. The more I tinker with the kit and give my kits time to settle in, I find my first go-round just wasn't quite right. I played the G. Harrison kit the other day and it needs work, IMO. Its an okay starting point, but I think I made that kit over a weekend and it could use more work to give it a but more uumph. It sounds a bit hollow to me.

I'm also working on a Tool - Vicarious kit which is sounding pretty good so far. I also have a Queensrych - Empire kit that I have about half done. That one has massssssssinve reverb in it. If you listen to that album its crazy how much it has. The thing with the Roland modules is that you need to tweak, and tweak, and tweak until its just right. That takes a lot of time.

I agree that Tony Royster kit is garbage sounding. I think Michael Schack's kit sounds great in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqReO5NPN_g

[perceval]

Well, A-kits seem to keep their advantage even today, in terms of dynamics and range of sounds (user's ability dependent of course). E-kits have progressed a lot, but not as fast as piano (sampled or generated) as you mentioned. Can't believe that piano sounds are easier to manage than drums. Maybe because a lot more people want to play the piano than drums, so resources are channelled that way. Anyway, you may be a prime candidate for a 2Box module.....

[hemiboy]

Hey Tang, I read your post a couple of times and I gotta say that I agree that there is nothing like a nice well tuned quality acoustic kit. But, I myself, am mot in a position to have one . I live in a second floor condo, so after many years away from drums, 3 years ago I came back to drumming and e drums. I went the Roland route and after several other Roland Modules , I ended up with the Td 30. Compared to the other Roland modules, the sound were awesome. But, I. not being tech savvy, was in way over my head. The tweaking that has been mentioned here as totally necessary to get the most out of the module, was too much work for me. I was discouraged after going to the top of the Roland line and was ready to give up drumming altogether. I started heading about 2 oc and I didn't like the orange color or the looks of the kit, but I kept reading post from ex Roland users saying that the 2 box sounds were awesome and extremely realistic. Roland and Yammie and others all say the same thing but for some reason I believed in 2box. I wanted full sized shells, so I sold my Roland kit, and I blindly went into an a to e conversion and bought a 2 box module that took 8 months to get . Was totally discouraged thinking what am I going to do with my ludwig kit on my this module comes in and I don't like it. Well it finally came in and the minute I turned it on, I knew I finally found what I was looking fordrums sound real, the toms blow the Roland toms sways please Roland guy, don't get me wrong! If I was a tech guy and knew how to tweak a sophisticated module, I am sure there are awesome sounds hemiboy Silver Contributor Join Date: 02-2012 Posts: 266 to be had. But for me,not in a band , and playing for my own enjoyment, the 2box module and my Ludwigs was the answer. Try playing 2box on full size shells.

[jpsquared482]

IMHO the TD30 is both awesome and has its limitations. I have serious hearing loss from acoustic drums - to the point that I gave up playing almost altogether. The TD30 has opened that door for me, not just because I can control the sound, but also because I find it to be very expressive, particularly the VH13. I do think that they need to work on the sounds to really get it right. doing Their sound generator is good, just not great. In addition, I don't want to spend my time doing the tweaking! For that I highly recommend VEXpressions. Totally worth it.

I have more recently gotten into VSTs and specifically Steven Slate Drums. The combination of the TD30 and SSD4 is amazing in my opinion. Why Roland can't simply add 32GB of sound memory and trigger that internally is beyond me. For the price we pay for their gear, their cost to do that, and how it would change the game, I just don't get it.

[bwilburn79]

When electronic instruments are used to mimic acoustic instruments, they will only ever be, a reasonable facsimile. Electronic drums bring practicality to the table first and foremost. I can play my electronic drums in my house when my family is sleeping. I will never own hundreds of high quality acoustic drum sets, but I can cycle through them with the turn of a dial on my Vexed TD-12. It's similar to a pilot using a really good flying simulator, it serves a practical purpose, it can be very enjoyable, but it's not quite the same either. So, when you get the opportunity to "fly" on an acoustic kit, enjoy it to the fullest, and your electronic kit will be waiting when you can't.

[flurbs]

Why Roland can't simply add 32GB of sound memory and trigger that internally is beyond me. For the price we pay for their gear, their cost to do that, and how it would change the game, I just don't get it.

They can't ADD 32GB of sound memory to what's already there because there IS NO sound memory to start with. The Supernatural sound engine is a synthesiser. It doesn't sound real because it isn't real. The TD30 is not a sample-triggering platform, it's hard-wired for synthesis.

[hairmetal-81]

I'm amazed time and time again that the very nature of the TD-30 still has so much 'conflict' potential...


[............]





The guys 'in the know' seem to have long turned their heads towards 'Sweden', and in the other forum there are content members, with threads about 'What mesh-head?' or 'Favorite new color?'.


On this forum, I seem to witness a certain form of 'evil re-run' threads... - Stuff like...

'A-drums vs. E-drums'

'Roland got this one so right'

'Machine-gunning: Fact or fiction?'

'TD-30 vs. 2box' (...which got closed-down after what...? ...90+ pages and near fist-fights...?)

'TD-30 vs. DTX-502 (...which was a silly, silly comparison to begin with...)

'They're legit drums, dammit!'

'TD-30 - how does one justify $7500 for it?'


...and every now and then, there's the occassional 'What's the technology behind TD-30 sounds?' thrown into the mix...





Everybody's viewpoint (including mine, which should be blatantly obvious already) is clear at this stage. All the things that could be said about this subject have been said ...every statement was written before.

I could now go on and re-hash some of my (boring) blah-statements I did to such topics in the past. But I will spare my fellow forumites. I just don't feel like it...
...use the freakin' search-engine, if you're really interested in my previous blah...


I don't know what else to contribute...










HTH

[Kenster]

I can't say I hate anything about e drums except the price lol. I would be curious to know why Roland resists the urge to make the ultimate module...with COSM sounds AND user loadable sounds. I guess I hate all the secrecy or the entire gap between us end users and the companies that make this stuff.
K

[soccerdude84]

They can't ADD 32GB of sound memory to what's already there because there IS NO sound memory to start with. The Supernatural sound engine is a synthesiser. It doesn't sound real because it isn't real. The TD30 is not a sample-triggering platform, it's hard-wired for synthesis.

hmm, didn't know this

[jpsquared482]

I didn't make my point clear. I am suggesting that Roland could keep the SuperNatural sound engine and ADD 32 GB of sampling capability so that the user can use either the sound engine OR import samples. Imagine a TD-30 with a 2Box inside. Since they have all the hardware already there, adding some memory for sampled sounds and accessing that from the triggering and sending it to the internal preamps, accessing the digital audio, etc, would all be very do-able.

[jimorlando]

Well in spite of all this controversy, I pulled the pin today and bought the TV-30KV. Hopefully I will be able to figure out the sounds or VEX it. I don't have the time to build a kit and I need to be able to control the volume.

[BWaj]

I love e-drums and my TD-30 and will never play acoustics again, so there! I don't miss my ears ringing or heads breaking or going out of tune or lugging them around or having a hard time mounting them where I want because they are too big or wishing I had a bigger sounding kick or higher pitched cowbell, and I got a fever! And the only prescription, is a higher pitched cowbell! Or that the band could have a killer mix in a small room but instead all you hear is snare and ride, or that the client wants to put a plexi wall around me or wants me to hit softer, etc.

No worries if you hate them and don't want to play them. But back on up off my TD-30, it's not it's fault you don't understand it!

End my rant.

[jpsquared482]

They can't ADD 32GB of sound memory to what's already there because there IS NO sound memory to start with. The Supernatural sound engine is a synthesiser. It doesn't sound real because it isn't real. The TD30 is not a sample-triggering platform, it's hard-wired for synthesis.

I didn't make my point clear. I am suggesting that Roland could keep the SuperNatural sound engine and ADD 32 GB of sampling capability so that the user can use either the sound engine OR import samples. Imagine a TD-30 with a 2Box inside. Since they have all the hardware already there, adding some memory for sampled sounds and accessing that from the triggering and sending it to the internal preamps, accessing the digital audio, etc, would all be very do-able.]
Like Kenster said above in post #10.

[hemiboy]

Agreed for the kind of numbers that they somehow can continue justify charging, Roland should be offering every bit of technology that is known to the edrum world Maybe 2 box has the tables turned with patents on the open sound and sampling features that Roland hasn't been going after. Although I just read that Yamaha is working on a more sophisticated type of a "2 box " set up. I think that all 3 are here to stay

[campster]

I can't say I hate anything about e drums except the price lol. I would be curious to know why Roland resists the urge to make the ultimate module...with COSM sounds AND user loadable sounds. I guess I hate all the secrecy or the entire gap between us end users and the companies that make this stuff.
K

If they were to add sampled sounds to the drum module line, they'd probably lose some of their sales of SPD-SX and SPD-30 devices. I'm sure a lot of drummers that have e-kits and percussion controllers wouldn't have both if the drum module had built in sampling. The percussion controllers definitely have their place in the line up, maybe they need to do cut down (from a SPD-SX/SPD-30) sampling in the drum modules?