Electronic Drums

So, I had an opportunity yesterday to play on an electronic drum kit, and I thought I would take a minute to talk about it.  I’ve played electronic kits before, but yesterday was a real jam, as opposed to just messing around, which of course makes it a vastly different experience.  And for the record, this was a pretty good kit – so it’s not like I took a couple of whacks on a kids toy from Wal-Mart, and now I want to rant about it.  When we were done practicing, the owner of the kit – Dave Stroeve, (affectionately known as Super Dave, because he is awesome), asked me what I thought of it.  So, for all of those who consistently wonder; here is why I don’t play an electronic drum kit:

• First of all – and this is really the biggest issue for me – there is very little dynamic with an electronic drum kit.  By dynamic – I mostly mean volume control.   With an acoustic kit, the harder I hit it, the louder the sound; but an electronic kit has a ceiling, and it’s a pretty low one.  If the spectrum of what I can do on an acoustic kit is on a scale from 1 – 100; the electronic kit captures from about 10 – 50.  In other words, it doesn’t pick up the really light things like ghost notes, and accents; and when I’m trying to build to 70 or 80, it’s still stuck at 50 and there’s nothing I can do about it.  I feel like this is a vital component of my playing, and it’s an aspect that I really enjoy.
• It doesn’t catch everything.  Now, I’ve already mentioned that it doesn’t catch the lightest touches, so I’m not talking about that.  (Side note – this is controlled with the “threshold” setting, but even on the lowest threshold setting there are things that are missed).  My point here is that it’s simply not fast enough.  If I want to do a roll, I want to be able to hear every hit; and the technology is just not there yet.
• The feel of the cymbals.  Props to the work that has been done to make the snare and toms feel like they’re real, but there’s a long way to go on the cymbals. 
• The sound.  I realize that there is an extremely wide range of sounds that can come from an electronic kit, but at the end of the day, the digital kit just doesn’t sound as good or as full as genuine maple or birch. 

All that being said, I am not opposed to electronic drums.  I just think that we need to take them for what they are.  Just as an electronic keyboard won’t replace a grand piano – electronic drums won’t replace my Yamaha Birch Custom’s.  But they do have an application, and I think that they have much to offer.  A few advantages:

• Volume control.  If you are playing for eight people in a living room, electronic drums could be very useful for you.  You can play without fear of drowning out the other instruments or the vocals, or causing permanent damage to your listener’s eardrums.   For this reason, they could also be very useful for practicing at home, especially for people who are just starting out on the drums. 
• Compact and low maintenance.  This is great for practicing and for beginners.  Learning how to set up your drums and tune them takes time.  Electronic drums are basically good to go right out of the box... or bag, or case, or whatever they come in; and they take up a minimal amount of room in your valuable jam space.
• The wide range of sounds.  Again, if we think of the comparison between a keyboard and a piano, the reverse is also true.  An acoustic drum kit can’t perform all the functions of an electronic kit.  The sounds and effects that you have at your fingertips are amazing.  So much so that I think an electronic kit could actually be a great addition to a band that had an acoustic kit.

Conclusion - electronic drums should not be thought of as a replacement for acoustic drums, but rather as an entirely different (albeit closely related) musical instrument.  If we are trying to use them to completely replace acoustic drums, they will always be a failure; but if we can appreciate them for what they are, then I think we might be pleasantly surprised at the potential that they have.  I, for one, would like to spend some more time learning how to play on an electronic kit; and I would be especially happy to do so in conjunction with an acoustic kit.  I think that to play alongside an acoustic kit would relieve me of the ‘duty’ to supply the main beat and free me up to explore the potential of a new instrument.