Yes. I am. I didn't buy e-drums first, I have went ahead and gotten a proper controller at last; the M-audio Axiom 61. It's a pretty old controller, but it seems to please some ppl and it has a decent array of features. I wont post a mega analysis of it but I'll cover some points.
The keys seem ok, nothing amazing. Aftertouch is slightly stiff. All controllers feel fairly good. The endless encoders are a bit too clicky tho, and it wouldn't have been a bad idea if 4 of those 8 had been replaced by normal pots. The pads are also interesting in that you can also use them as a continuous pressure source as well as velocity sensitive triggers.
The controller is pretty flexible to program overall, even from the front panel. All controls can have a min/max range for instance. And you can program switches to act as a toggle - 1st press send one value, 2nd press send a different one. You must refer to the manual a lot when programming the controller directly, but you can program the controller via the M-audio "Enigma" software. Personally I preferred to use the front panel, but Enigma also functions as a controller setup librarian as there are only 20 setup memory slots on the controller itself.
All in all it's a useful and value for money controller. You can merge the MIDI IN into USB, plenty of useful controls, expression/sustain pedal inputs and it can be bus powered for even less wiring. It's a product that's at the end of it's lifecycle - the axiom pro has been or is about to be released, but it's still pretty decent.
Last October, my Mum sadly died. She wouldn't have thanked me for this picture, but it's all I have to hand. I am coping with it pretty well, but things have been a bit weird. The main strange thing is that I now have some money from an inheritance - I've been a workshy fopp most of my life, so it is really a strange feeling to have any sum of money available. It's really nice feeling, but one that is obviously tinged with sadness. I'm pretty sure my Mum would have wanted me to use the money in a positive happy way, and not feel any guilt. So that's what I'm going to do.
The inheritance has come from the sale of a house and I'm staying there until the buyer takes over, but obviously my first step will be to find a temporary flat to get myself settled. Once I've done that, I'm gonna start to get some cool music equipment. I've been into writing music for a long time so I've always wanted to have a little home studio - something half pro, but still kinda humble. And being a workshy fopp I've never really been able to afford anything decent. My guitar sucks, my keyboard controller sucks... even my cables are crap :D
So being primarily a guitarist and a keys player second you might well think I would like to buy a new guitar or master keyboard first? Well I'll get to those... :D
Electronic drums is obviously the priority here :D Pictured left is the Roland TD3KW. This is a entry level electronic drumkit from Roland, but it does have a proper shaped hithat/cymbals and Rolands mesh type snare head. Ive read some reviews, and this looks like a good kit to get for my purposes. I've been trying to record playing drums via keyboard for my own compositions for a while, and it doesn't really cut it. I considered a decent MPC like solution or some other pad unit, but I figured for the extra few bucks, why not simply get e-drums. I'm no expert drummer, but I can play a bit, and the main thing is I can get better if I have some sort of kit in any case. So I think I'll plunge for this one. I've not actually played it yet, but since I only have played and never owned a real acoustic kit anyway I figure "feel" wont be a major issue.
The main problem with e-drums of course is the fact that most of the "drum brains" (the hardware that links all the pads and makes the sounds) sound pretty crap. You get the typical "machine gun" effect quite a lot on repeated strokes. This video kinda shows that a bit...
I suspect many if not all of the drum brains suffer from this problem to a greater or lesser extent. This is not a problem tho since I already knew this... Enter the VSTimultisampleddrumlibrary... Consider that a hardware device has a limited memory - therefore we don't have enough space to store enough samples to make a truly acoustic and realistic sound. VSTidrumlibraries do not suffer from this problem... Many are 25GB and some even far bigger. I'm no expert on Roland drumbrains, but I'd be surprised if the one in the kit I'm looking at has more than 512MB to store all the samples for all the kits. 512MB/18 (or so kits) vs 25GB for one kit. Math. Do it. Here are a couple of examples of the type of sound you get when you hook up to computer and use VSTi or sample based kit... A whole world of difference.
Ok. The guy is crap, but you get the point. Better realism. There could be a shortage of pads eventually with this kit... the drum brain can only accept one more trigger input than what is in the default standard kit. I'm not too bothered tho. You could always augment the kit with something like this fellow.
Ill post a follow up when I get a hold of the kit. Assuming I don't entirely change my mind and buy a gong and tablas instead.
