Sat 05/30/20 04:33:02 pm
Categories:
Electronic Drums
Why I finally decided to move to electronic drums.
First, here is a photo of my practice pad drum set:
Notice the pads in the top, right, and top right corner of the image are all the same. The one in the top right corner has a few more years of use (and some exposure to direct sunlight) on it. These three pads have slight differences in sound, probably due to variation in materials, manufacturing process, and age/use of the one in the upper right corner. For the most part though it is hard to distinguish these pads by sound. The top hi-hat cymbal has an elastic fabric around the rim to mute it, and a pad to dampen the playing surface on top. This pad sounds similar to pad on the snare drum (which is in turn on top of a gum rubber pad). Finally, the bass pedal hits a bass drum practice pad, which is very quiet.
A picture is worth a thousand words but sound samples are even better. Here are four short recordings of different rhythms played on the practice pad kit. I played them slowly to give the listener a better chance to distinguish the sounds.
Jazz:
/assets/recordings/practice-kit/DR0000_0100_amplified.mp3?
Mambo:
/assets/recordings/practice-kit/DR0000_0101_amplified.mp3?
Samba:
/assets/recordings/practice-kit/DR0000_0103_amplified.mp3?
Funk:
/assets/recordings/practice-kit/DR0000_0104_amplified.mp3?
In case you are not familiar with these rhythms I programmed the same four rhythms into Hydrogen to demonstrate what they sound like. I adjusted the volume on individual parts of the kit to make everything easier to hear. For a real playing situation these would sound a little different, but the goal here is to compare the sounds of my practice pads to the sounds of real acoustic drums, not to show what these rhythms sound like in an authentic playing situation.
H2 Demo Jazz:
/assets/recordings/h2-demos/h2JazzDemo.mp3?
H2 Demo Mambo:
/assets/recordings/h2-demos/h2MamboDemo.mp3?
H2 Demo Samba:
/assets/recordings/h2-demos/h2SambaDemo.mp3?
H2 Demo Funk:
/assets/recordings/h2-demos/h2FunkDemo.mp3?
I think at this point you’ll agree, it is hard to hear and distinguish the different sounds of my practice pad kit.
So why now? Why I have been able to get away with this practice kit for the past few years? I think it is because when I first started playing drums I could practice on a real acoustic kit. The acoustic kit helped me work things out and get initial muscle memory. Then I could use the practice pad kit to work on coordination, speed, and endurance. Since moving into my current building I have not been able to practice on acoustic kit, but I was not learning anything new either. It was only a few months ago when I started working through Jim Payne’s “Funk Drumming” book (and learning new rhythms) that I found the lack of distinct sounds limiting.
After I make progress with my do-it-yourself triggers, switchs, and edrums I’ll follow up with a post demonstrating what they sound like for comparison.
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