I wasn't expecting to hear a shout out when I opened this video, thank you! 🙏 Great work on this. It's really interesting to get a review from your perspective and to see the kit in action. Hearing you hit those cymbals in that room is something else!

Jake, your videos are not known for their comic styling but the beginning of this video cracked me up . Very nice!

We recently switched over to a the Roland V-drum kit, but we kept our actual cymbals (a combination of Heartbeat Custom Dry and Dream Bliss) and it's been a killer combination. Really flexible I/O but we still have a natural stick feel for the player and a natural wash in the mix.

We demo'd the kit at a local dealer last week. We were already reluctant on this option with the laptop, but the noise of the "metal" cymbals was a complete 100% roadblock for us. They actually don't feel any better with the metal tops, and we would argue that they felt worse than the Roland cymbals. As for your Dante Virtual Sound Card comment.... I don't think that the latency will work out there. You're already loading up the CPU with short buffers to keep the latency down on the kit. If you also try to run DVS with short buffers you're just not going to have enough CPU to make it happen. I welcome someone proving me wrong, but this just gets back to why the laptop is a less than ideal variable in the setup.

Thanks for featuring these! I'm not sound tech-y or drummer-y enough to know the pros and cons of everything, but definitely love seeing what's out there!

The tech is super cool, I think once it gets fleshed out and brought down in price (after early adoption) then it could be a big hit for church’s that want drums but literally can’t, even with a shield and everything. Unfortunately due to cost, you could still get a decent Ludwig kit fully mic’d with a full enclosure for cheaper then this E-kit.

the cost makes it a no-go for a regular church

Great Review! Thanks a lot!

We just got a Roland VAD507 kit. It looks real and sounds great!

Drummer of over 30 years here… I personally am not a fan of electric drums, I am really against the sustain and dynamics that they have compared to an electric kit. My worship pastor has recently asked for us to make the change to this kit, and after some spirit searching I agreed to go to our local drum shop (Drum Center of Portsmouth, in NH) and try them out. I have to say that they are impressive in the way they feel and the dynamics and sustain have actually come far enough along I can close my eyes and almost believe I’m behind an acoustic kit. I’m impressed to say the least. I’m still against electric drums, but I’m willing to adjust for my team and their ability to improve online sound and production. I agree with the concern with the cymbals, he is not wrong… I would offer this suggestion for anyone considering the kit. Remember there are small glass, or plastic circulars that can be purchased for sound deflection, these may be enough to prevent the bleed. That’s at least my thoughts on our church design. Happy Drumming!!

If electronic is desired, go hybrid with Heartbeat or K Custom Dark cymbals that can be managed a bit better volume-wise - I've played such a set up and it worked well even in a smaller venue... \m/

I've played this kit as well and another deal breaker for me (like with every other e-kit) is that the drummer is limited to only using sticks. Creative drumming is expanded these days with rods, mallets, brushes, hands and other ways to draw a wide range of sounds from a kit. Yes, there are many sound samples available in the library, but the nuances of using creative sounds comes from the very playing techniques and implements used to make those sounds. Using sticks and a "brush" setting on an e-kit is like telling a guitarist to swap out their guitar for a Guitar Hero controller. We need to teach our drummers to play with nuance and feel and use the creative implements that are available in the acoustic realm; then we don't have to resort to making them play imitation instruments.

My 2 important questions and I'm searching for answers everywhere are, 1. How to mix and eq individual tracks in FOH and for in-ears 2. How to record multitrack along with the other band instruments and vocals via mixer like how we record normally?

They’ll probably come out with a stripped down rubber cymbal option eventually. Either that, or the Roland kits will upgrade to wireless

Jake, that was a great, honest review. Well done. A couple quick things: Thanks for mentioning "C-weighting" for your SPL readings ("90-95 deciBels"). However, it's best to reference A-weighting for worship (better following the way our ears hear). C-weighting is a great corollary for checking bass balance (as approx. 6dB higher than A-weighting, is generally a "balanced" mix; a bass-heavy mix would be more like 10dB higher than A-weighting, and less than 6dB increased weighting could be considered a thinner mix). Also, in the live worship demo, the kit didn't sound balanced. The kick sounded odd, the cymbals sounded thin. Is it difficult to dial in a full and balanced kit sound on this kit?

I love this new tech, and will probably hold off getting a new Ekit until we see what Roland or other companies do with this new wireless. I do wonder who decided it would be the best idea to make the cymbals metal. Its seems to be a major issue with most people ( I certainly would never buy them) with an otherwise perfect execution of this game changing technology. We'll see how long it take for them to change it. I'm sure the cymbal volume is a deal breaker for most people.

Why don’t you get an SPDX pro and get an acoustic electric drum kit and trigger your sounds from the SPDXPro? You should do a demonstration on this.

For acoustic drums that won't overwhelm everything else, check out Parish Drum Designs - Joey Parish designed a kit specifically to not need shields. I have no connection whatsoever, just like how they sound.

Is it not possible to use real low volume cymbals (the ones with many holes eg. Millenium Still Series Cymbal Set ) and amplify the sound with microphones around the cymbals?

i would say they sound great and are good if you can actually swap the cymbals for accoustic ones, in which case you still have to run cables for overheads - and have a very carefull sound aware drummer who will not mess up the balance between trigered sounds and accoustic sounds

In case you did not know Roland owns DW bought them last year I believe

Be worth checkin out the Adoro "Silent Sticks" as well

Also, I'd say laptop stand is the *only* proper use of a cajon.

I can appreciate the idea, but I'll always stick to the acoustic as a drummer/church drummer

Those cymbals are exactly why you see the photos of electronic drums inside a cage, and then people making fun of that because they don't understand how loud the unnatural noise of hitting the cymbals is

I think there COULD be a way to use the inbuilt triggers, AND put acoustic heads on for the drummer's playing comfort...Don't mic it unless for "show" Use something like the Evans Hydraulics. ABSOLUTELY use acoustic cymbals!!

I've played $10,000 electronic sets. The mesh heads don't rebound like a normal acoustic set. And the drummers playing this set developed wrist problems from having to "lift up your stick" instead of relying on the rebound of a traditional head. My issue with electronic drums is you hear a "tone". You can't really tune them to a specific note which is very helpful in a lot of circumstances. Most people don't notice but professionals notice it right away.

The perfect drum set for churches is to start with an amazing drummer

You can use lemon rubber cymbals.

most churches aren't going to spend 10K on a drum kit. lol.

9000$ kit for churches. Sure, MEGAchurches. Not every church, that's ungodly expensive.

U ever try the premium Drum-Tec / Pearl mimic a try?, pretty awesome.

Get a baffle for the electric cymbals 😂

Any details on the total latency? What about the wireless frequencies that are used, and are they adjustable?

Wonder if it would be possible to put a rubber piece on the cymbal to silence it a little and still get the proper trigger response for the sound activation with the triggers?

I’m curious why the wireless is such a big deal, an acoustic set has a whole bunch of mic cables hanging all over it. 🤷‍♂️

I thought, the frontman of band The Almost will be talking 😅

Awesome 👍🏻😊

hey.... emmm what lighting were u using?

boomers are still going to complain about volume with this

So many people listen with their eyes... Just look at the overwhelming number of churches that can't stand to see a keyboard so they gut an acoustic piano and use it as a keyboard stand. In light of that a lot of edrummers went to mounting various triggers inside real drums a long time ago and with a tiny bit of creative cable management, those are less noticeable than mics/cables all over a kit and no batteries/wireless points of failure. Those cymbals let this kit down - most of the time cymbals are barely visible to the congregation anyway and with some creative angle positioning they vanish on camera if you want them to. In any case, it is way better than trying to mic up an acoustic kit (usually done wrong and/or poorly maintained) and then vainly attempt to muffle it behind plexiglass

You lost me at batteries, wireless and computer. We got enough batteries and frequencies on stage now to worry about. Then computer ...

Question --> If possible to complete "skip" the mixer , so I can use the FOH console e.g a Digico or so ???

Those cymbals sort of ruin the whole thing because they use a proprietary system that makes it impossible to just swap them out. I suspect that metal would be nice because the attack is more similar to the sample you are triggering, and they would look a million times better. If anyone is old enough to remember Simmons pads, they were really noisy - like those DW cymbals. Doesn't Roland make edrums with shells? Maybe those would make more sense for your church.

He said electric! ⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡

Cymbals. Literally the only part of drums mentioned in the Bible.😂

Con: it’s $9000+

Also you forgot you to mention the very costly price tag of this kit, 10k is going to be way out of budget for most churches, with maybe the exception of mega churches that can afford it. DW needs to come out with an entry level kit for half the price, why was it necessary for them to make this kit out of their top of the line series (Collectors)? Besides all that, wireless electronic drums are new technology, I would wait several years so all the bugs can be ironed out.

I just want to plug and play. Now you have to worry about adding a computer + Interface and configuration. Roland Electric Kit is the way to go. We Talking about almost $10K. That is just overpriced.

Yeah the drum is great for electric… but for that much I rather get a Dw collectors or performance with all hardware and cymbals.

just put some rubber covers on them bad boys, if they will fit

the church may not have the money to get it

MORE COWBELL!!!

damn all these rich churches haha you would think they will help the ones that need it with that money and get a set that costs half and does the same

Nooo, no electric drums. A Drumer prefer acustic! Thank you for sharing!

Put rubber tips on the sticks.

Ick $9000 and the cymbals make a terrible clack sound. The only electric cymbals I’ve found to be quiet and work good are the Gen16 hybrid cymbals and the Roland Rubber cymbals.

Any e kit is a con kit.

👍

Your washed-out, overexposed camera adjustments and lighting are SO distracting...

Worship drummer? What's that?

No true drummer would choose this over a real acoustic kit and especially cymbals. And typical overpriced DW crap.

The sound is not awesome 😢

Sorry but on the demo, it didnt sound great

Junk

🤮🤮

Okay but if the power goes out on a Sunday morning, you’re s.o.l.. acoustic kit, you can still play with the acoustic guitar 🫳 🎤