15" Dark Matter hihats

19" Energy crash

22" Bliss crash/ride

22" Dark Matter Flat Earth ride

18" Pang Chinese Style

My Noble & Cooley - Horizon kit in honey amber black burst. Now why won't lemmy let me upload more than one pic to a post?

I've decided to treat myself to a E-Drum set this christmas but now I'm stuck trying to find a good fit. So I'll try to write quickly about myself and the ones I've found so far that could be good.

I'm a music producer and play some guitar and piano. I also own Superior Drummer so the kit will 100% of the time be routed into that so if the drum module sounds ass idc I'm good for sounds. But drum programming is just not fun.

I've also never touched a drum in my life. I'm not looking to become a expert drummer. I could easily just buy a high end kit and that's that, but knowing myself it will eventually gather dust in some corner. Not tryna become the next Mike Mangini. So I'm mostly looking for something that's juuust good enough and won't immediately disintegrate when looking at it funny.

Here are the kits I've found so far and some drawbacks about each:

Alesis Nitro Max: I've heard that this one's actually a relatively meh kit and the fact that the ride (and maybe the hihat?) aren't chokeable would be the biggest deal breaker.

Roland TD-02K(V): This one seems to hit the sweetspot between price and not being extremely flimsy, but in all my research I always hear this: "Always get a kick tower". But obvs I don't know how bad a simple kick pedal is compared to the real deal. I assume with a real kick tower it's easier to upgrade to a double pedal setup which I might want to do down the line and idk if you can just connect more kick pedals to this thing. But aside from that this kit would prolly be my go-to.

Millenium MPS-750X: This one might be a bit too large for my space and on thomann I'm reading some mixed reviews regarding build quality so idk what's up with that. Otherwise this also seems like a fine if maybe a bit pricey option.

Yamaha DTX402K/DTX432K: I haven't done research on those yet but they're available and also in my price range.

Alesis Nitro Pro XL: This one seems to me like the best option but at a cost ofc. The question with this one isn't "is it good" but rather "does it make sense to buy a set this good if I could save money and live with the compromises".

So bottom line I think the biggest question I have is whether I should get a set without a kick tower and save lots of money, or treat myself and have no regrets. And secondarily does the chokeability of the ride matter?
Again I'm mostly just going to do it for fun and to spruce up my own songs, not to join a band or audition for Dream Theater haha.

Also idk if I can get to a music store to try one out in person.

Needed a port for my Bassdrum and bought one of these simple cutters
I was plesantly surprised about the final result, but just a word of warning, if you are doing it on a nice kitchen table, put somthing other than a single piece of cardboard under

End result looks nice thou:

drumheads:
You can cut them up into strips for snare-wire straps, or damper ring for your snare

Sticks:
Wood Filler, Pet Bedding, Spill Absorbent, Composting Aid, or perhaps make a fire starter?
I know that it'll take a while to get a useful amount of saw dust from hitting the hi-hat, but if your bass-player is into Tony Levin, he might find use for the bottom half of old sticks to make a set of "funk-fingers".

Shells:
I know that some like to use old drums for wastebaskets and coffee-tables, but personally I'd rather restore an old drum to it's former glory or donate it to someone who can use it to play on.

Let me know if I'm missing something

Found this listed for 25,-DKr (about 4 Euro), and I know it looks nasty in it's current state, but I'm hoping to restore it. I also got a millenium mic-stand and a Yamaha hi-hat stand (that had not been standing outside for a week), so that alone made the trip worth it.

Quite a nice haul:

I know that WD-40 and aluminium foil works wonders on old chrome hardware, but I'm not sure how to handle the black painted rack, I'm thinking that the best solution would be to sand it down and paint it, but if anyone have a better solution I'd love to hear it.

https://peertube.wtf/w/m2xJy3pWw7CUqQwLnzqL4m
https://youtu.be/nIr6eSO35og

I always wanted to try recording drums with natural reverb a'la Led Zeppelins fourth album, and this is my attempt at doing that, with a few caveats thou, first being that I don't live in or have access to Headley Grange, but I do have a staircase to the second floor, where I placed a B&O BM3 (a bidirectional ribbon microphone I bought at a yard-sale for a couple of euros).

I also don't have access to the same recording equipment, drums and talent but that never stopped me before :-) Here is what I used to record the video:

BassDrum: AKG D12
Snare & Toms: Sennheiser 504
18" FloorTom: Sennheiser MD 431
Overhead: Behringer C-2
Room Mic: B&O BM3
Soundcard: Focusrite 18i8
DAW: Ardour (Linux)
Videoeditor: Kdenlive
Drumkit: Pearl Wood-Glasfiber with a Ludwig Rocker snare

I was shopping for sticks when I saw the Tama 50th Anniversary drumkey, and I just had to order one, mostly because of the colour.

It came in this cute little box :-)

Sorry if this sounds like a commercial, I'm usually against useless extra packing, but this one is actually quite useful imo.

One of my friends have been working hard rewrapping her old Ludwig kit, turned out amazing.

The old wrap had lost all it's colour, looks cool how the sun have faded it imo.

All the hardware have been polished with a whole lot of love

I started playing when I was six. My mother would work in a bookshop attached to a church in a rural town nationally known for its meth addictions and annual flooding. While she did that until 6pm, I would venture into the church and play on the drum kit, keeping me amused and her not having to look after me knowing I was fine so long as she could hear the drums.

We got out of that town and she bought me a beat up Pearl kit at a garage sale for $300 which was HUGE money for us then. She managed to set me up with lessons with a jazz drummer, that turned out was a bit of a national legend, for $13/hr, and we'd travel almost an hour to get to him each week.

Edit: Oh, at this point, the dollars in this post aren't USD. If you're from the US, half it.

One day I bought my kit with us because he was going to teach me all about tuning. He saw the state of my kit and we spent the day fixing it. Not only did I learn how to tune, I also learned how to fix the action of a kick pedal with a leather belt and two nails—still runs like that. He got me new heads from his shop, taught me how tape deadening works, and that I needed a new radius rod, but he didn't have one. I was about 9 then and the music store in my town were blown away that this kid walked in knowing what that was, the type I needed, and ended up heavily discounting me a new stand. Then they helped us even more by heavily discounting a beginner pack of Paiste 506s and second hand stands for those I was missing.

After a few more tweaks here and there—like getting a front skin for my bass—I finally had an actual kit four years after picking up the instrument. I was able to play properly at home and not just practice with what I had. The only time I got to play a "proper" kit was at school or at lessons.

I sheepishly asked to join the school band and was accepted. I did not know that all the years prior of practicing, practicing, practicing with the minimal busted shit I had, while being taught jazz—being all about making music out of thin air—quickky got me recognised. Young kid, out of no where, played really well and uniquely. So I also got drafted into the church band and did that for years. Often I'd bring in my old beat up but now rejuvenated kit for it because to me it just sounded good and I knew it inside out.

Fast forward to 19, I moved to a city. I had no where to set up my kit in share houses. I dragged it around with me but would be in apartments never allowing the noise.

A decade after, it got to the point people knew I was a drummer, but no one had ever heard it. I accepted, I was no longer a drummer. I was someone dragging around a kit no one ever heard played.

Last time I looked, that $300 garage drum kit is now worth $35K to the right buyer to Pearl vintage seekers. I almost sold it a few years ago, but just couldn't.

It's been 25 years since I played before I forked out for a TD-27 eKit a few months ago. I'm not emotional at all but actually cried on the way home as the realisation hit me. I was finally going to get to do the thing I always loved so much.

Boy was I in for a shock. It wasn't just that I could barely play anymore—the brain knew what to do but just couldn't and the limbs were even worse—pkagung on an electric kit was SO weird and SO hard to setup to come close to feeling like acoustics. I used to be able to do so much and so well, but it was all gone...

Time to learn to walk again, one step at a time.

It's funny. I've tried to learn other languages, I've tried to learn guitar, but never do. But drums, I can sit down for hours practicing drills, paradiddles, time signatures, tweaking stool positions and the layout. It's a thing I genuinely enjoy and therefore know I'll enjoy it more putting the hard yards in. I don't know if it's the meditative state, the flow, or the jazz influence of just jamming well with other musicians so they all feel empowered to also send it to new levels, but it's something, or all of it. It's just overall haoppiness, whatever it is.

So as I start learning to walk again on this eKit, with no one to play with, I've been humbly going back to basics. But these days I get to removr drums with AI and play along rather than fuck around with an EQ to only remove punch. Where I would once play Dude Ranch all the way through, I now can't fathom how I did that halfway through the first track. I've started again at my roots; lots of rust to get off, just pick some tracks I think would sound better with a drummer rather than a machine or samples, and just get the muscle memory slowly coming back.

Here's my status in rehabilitation as I learned how to record WAV to SD on Saturday. Just wanted to play and groove. It's not much, but I am happy. That's what this instrument is all about.

I hope this inspires anyone returning or anyone starting. Don't just tap your foot, let it all out.

Drumming is dancing that lets everyone else dance ♥️

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h-Obe8VxRxi2s8LWsJYcYQw8EdvT9rVl/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/123Nn86vwF5dOvRNUdYETITjC0zEfhQXt/view?usp=drivesdk

Also, if anyone can suggest a smart way to share personal audio other than GDrige, please...

I have been following Nic Collins 30days Odd time course (on Drumeo) and this is the result.

I recorded it using my silentstroke kit with Zildjian L80.

The song is by Kaz Rodriguez

https://peertube.wtf/w/kcmhiCKJVUU86mSu3dew5i

I bought this recoated 70' Pearl Wood-Fiberglass for 2800DKr (about 375€), the original coating (white pearl) is covered with a thin black coating, and according to the previous owner it didn't look good, so I might considering giving it a real recoating but for now I just enjoy playing it.

The shells are 22", 13", 16" and 18" and it's the first 18" floortom I have ever owned in all my years of playing drums. There is no basdrum port and no dampener of any kind, so it's a bit more boomy than I'm used to, the whole kit just sounds remarkable louder than my other kits, my husband even thought that I had forgotten to close the door to my practice-room when I tried it the first time.

I wanted to make a recording, but it's harvest season around here and there is a constant rumble of heavy machinery spoiling it every time I try to record. I plan to use and old BM3 ribbon microphone as natural reverb, by placing it on top of the stairwell to the second floor, hoping to recreate John Bonhams sound on "when the levee breaks".

I know that there are a lot of these around, but I rarly see one with a 18" floortom, plus all hardware is polished and in mint condition, even had brand new heads (top and botom) on all shells, so I feel like I made a good deal.

Found a couple of used splashes online that I bought, this is how they arrived :-)

A very nice list of cymbals with samples I came across while searching for sound samples of different splash cymbals.

Love the sound (and price) of the ZBT series, but they unfortunately don't make them anymore. Found a set with 14" HiHat, 20" Ride and 14" Crash for only 100€ and a 18" China for 45€, all in near mint condition, but I haven't been able to find any Splash yet, they supposedly come in 8", 10" and 12", I would love to get my hands on the whole set :-)
Some say that the "i Family" should be similar, but I haven't had a chance to try them yet, and living far from the city unfortunately also means living far from a decent music-store, so I'm hoping someone here have had the opertunity to try both? The i series only have one 10" splash thou, so I'm open to suggestions/alternatives.

TLDR: Have you tried the i Family from Zildjian, and are they similar to ZBT?

I have seen that some pads use the dual trigger for the rimshot, and if you never play on the rim of your toms, you might as well add another trigger, you could even build your own simple trigger for something like a cowbell https://lemmy.world/post/30587588.

Dual trigger inputs use a stereo jack, where the two internal triggers are on tip and ring (with comon ground), so to make a split cable, you just solder the individual trigger-wires to two mono jacks, like this:

You can also buy premade splitter cables, but wheres the fun in that :-)

If you have a spare speaker or perhaps an old subwoofer you no longer use, you can convert it to a subkick and get that extra "umpf" when recording a bass-drum.

In case you didn't know, a microphone is basically a speaker and vice versa, and a big membrane is better at detecting low frequencies (plus it's more likely to withstand the air-pressure).

The only problem is that the signal from a speaker is not balanced, and therefor prone to noise, one way to mitigate this is to eq your way out of the problem, after all only the low frequencies are needed, so the 50/60Hz noise (depending on your location) from the mains is the main thing you need to worry about.

Another way is to just use a linedriver placed as close as possible to the sub-kick.

This one I made using an old e-drum:

I used hairbands to make a "floating" speaker-mount, a mesh head on the speakerside, and a dampened normal head on the other side.

I've even seen people using a free-floating speaker with great results, so perhaps it's a bit overkill to use a drum, but it looks nice.

Right now guitar center is having a sale on 2 kits ive been interested in. The Roland Vad 307 and the TD - 27kv2. My personal preference is the VAD kit, but I've read reviews that the 27kv2 has better gear. I don't play in a band or professionally, drumming is just my hobby so I don't need top of the line gear. I was hoping I could get some feedback from owners of these kits to see which one would be better. Both of these kits are pricey for me so I want something that will last a long time and I won't grow out of it in a few years. My experience level is only intermediate. One thing I do want is a good bass pad for double bass. The TD looks smaller than the vad Thanks!

EDIT: I ended up buying the TD 27 bundled with the KD 180 kick drum from edrumcenter. This kit is amazing! It feels so much like playing a real acoustic kit. I still can't get over the actual hi hat controls and the snare drum that's so sensitive and responsive. The module is also really awesome, so much customization and the stock sounds are actually pretty good. One thing that's kind of lame is it doesn't have WiFi and the only means to update the firmware is to use an SDcard. Overall, I recommend this kit to anyone who's looking to upgrade.

I've been working a lot on my bass-pedal technique lately, and it's hard to hit the same spot every time, specially if that spot is almost 5cm from where you have placed your foot the last 30-40 years, so I wanted to add a toe-stop as a guide, but all the ones I could find was the same length. Does anyone know of a company that sells adjustable toe stoppers?

I ended up making this myself, but someone with the right tools and know-how could likely make something a bit more stable.

I don't think I'll be practicing today 🥵

Mostly I just play along to some riff and explore where my limits are, and then try to push them, unless there is a specific purpose like having to learn a new song, but I recently started one of Drumeo 30 day courses (66seamus double-bass), and it's nice with a more structured approach.

I'm self-taught and don't have mush experience being on the receiving side, but I'm having a blast and most importantly, it keeps me drumming every day. When I got my first drum-kit, I had one lesson, and he just told me that I was doing fine and to keep playing.

Have any of you tried online drum-teachers, did it help you, and would you recommend it to others?

If you haven't tried it yet, I highly recommend using lithium grease on your tune-lugs, the bolts run so much smoother and it makes tuning them very easy.

For many years I was convinced that greasing the bolts on my tune lugs would make them go out of tune, but that doesn't seam to be the case.

You can get it in most bike-repair shops