The Year of The E-Drum
It is starting to look like this year is going to be the year of the e-drum. We've seen several new announcements from different companies. DW, the Lexus of the drum world, teamed up with Gewa to create the G9. Pearl has teamed up with Korg to create the E/Merge, which is completely separate from their collaboration with Steven Slate for the Mimic Pro drum module. Alesis' Strike Pro kits have done very well, despite a somewhat rocky launch. ATV's drum lines have garnered a lot of attention, and they recently launched a new line of pads aimed at the mid-level, electronic-looking market. Then, of course, there is Roland.
ATV aDrums has set the e-drum world buzzing with their new kits. Having more acoustic drum sizes and larger cymbals it has really hit the nail on the head. When the AD5 module came out, it was not exactly a finished product. It only had a few kits in the module. However, ATV has since released quite a few new instruments and matured the product. The ATV cymbals are 18" ride, 16" crash, and 14" hi-hats, which are much larger than anything Roland or Yamaha (the former Rulers of E-Drums) have ever produced. The drums are 13" snare and floor tom and 10" rack toms. After using my converted PDP kit (14" snare, 10/12" racks, and 16" floor) I can tell you that going back to 12" snare and floor toms would be difficult. ATV found a nice medium between size and weight. It is a great looking kit, sounds very good and, by all accounts, plays fantastic.
Street Price: $4250
DW/Gewa G9 (http://www.gewaelectronics.com)
Nobody saw this one coming. It was announced at Musikmesse (trade show in Germany). Whenever something like this happens, the forums (particularly vdrums.com) light up with speculation and ravenous searches for information. As of right now, there is mostly just marketing information on this kit, but what is known is impressive. It has combined features from other major manufactures and improved on them, like 10" touch interface, USB output, Wifi, bluetooth, positional sensing, XLR outputs, and cloud store for more sounds. I have not personally heard many good audio samples of it, but what I have heard sounds in line with Roland's top module. The price tag on this set up is pretty high, so I am hoping there is more to it than it seems, right now.
Street Price: Unknown, but expected around $5k
Pearl E/Merge (http://www.peralemerge.com)
A couple of weeks ago, Pearl announced a big announcement coming on May 2nd. Pearl fans expected some upgrades to the Mimic Pro or a dedicated kit for it. I was very surprised that their announcement was actually a who new system developed by Korg. This new kit, called E/Merge is based on Korg's very cool Wave Drum technology. Wave drum is not foam cone/mesh head tech. It is capable of recognizing the difference between sticks/mallets/hands and changing the sound A single Wave Drum can simulate a conga being played by hand and mute/slap/slide. It recognizes brushes. After-touch. I've always thought that a drum kit made from Wave Drums would be awesome, and now Pearl and Korg have done it. They also released larger cymbals (18" ride, 15" crash, 14" hi-hat), but it is unknown currently if they are compatible with the Mimic Pro. The E/Merge is a closed system, meaning you can't just plug them into any module, or any pad in to the E/Merge module, and expect it to work the same way. Personally, I'm ok with this, as it represents a major change in e-drum technology. Of all the new kits announced, this would be the one I'd most likely be interested in (had I not just built a whole new kit based around the Mimic Pro).
Street Price: $4200
Alesis Strike Pro (http://www.alesis.com/products/view/strike-pro-kit)
These have been out for a while, but I include it here, since it fits in a niche that none of these others do: a quality instrument with great features for a much more reasonable price. The Strike Pro looks great, with 8/10/12/14" toms, 14" snare and 14" kick, as well as 16" ride and 14" crash cymbals. Being 5" depth makes it very easy to pack up and move. The module is more like conventional drum modules, with sliders and knobs, but it has a nice color screen, sampling, and a software editor. While it doesn't sound as good as the Mimic Pro, the entire kit (drums, cymbals, module and rack) costs less than the MSRP of the Mimic. And it does sound GOOD. For what it costs, you get a whole lot of bang for the buck. As I understand, there were a few problems with the drums when it came out, but that has been fixed. I seriously considered this kit when it came out because it reminded me of my old Green Machine kit that I built. Had Pearl not released the Mimic Pro, I probably would have saved myself a few grand and gone with the Strike.
Street Price: $2300
Roland Forthcoming Announcement
In a fairly obvious attempt to tamp down the buzz over the DW and Pearl announcements, Roland has announced their announcement on Tuesday, May 8th. We don't know what they're going to announce, but I don't get too jazzed about Roland announcements. Don't get me wrong, Roland's gear is bulletproof and does a great job. However, their idea of a major announcement is the release of new colored modules. The TD-50 was a minor improvement over the TD-30, sound-wise. I suspect that they will announce a 14" tom pad ($600) and possibly an 18" analog ride cymbal. Based on a teaser video floating around the Intertubes, possibly a new style of pads, along the lines of ATV. Rolandites are squee-ing at the possibility of a 14" digital hi-hat. Roland's current top line analog hi-hat (12" VH-13) is $750, so I shudder at what a 14" hat would cost. Probably around the 14" bass drum cost of $1200. While it may sound like I'm dogging on Roland, I just recently sold a PD-9 pad that I used as a snare drum with Loose Change, circa 1994. It still worked perfectly. They are ridiculously overpriced, but they are solid, road-worthy gear.
UPDATE: Today (May 8th, 2018) Roland had their big announcement. As I suspected, it was not anything to get excited about. They released the TD-17, with a "new" snare and hi-hat that are just redesigned "old" snare and hi-hat. "Supernatural" is now called "Prism", but sounds like the same kind of thing. They introduced a new 18" kick drum, which is an acoustic kick with an 18" version of their KDA-22 trigger assembly.
I actually found it kind of hard to watch the fine folks putting on the presentation try so hard to gin up enthusiasm for these new products. They just didn't seem like they were buying the whole "they're better because they're new" pitch. They used the term "incremental improvements" several times, which really fell flat compared to a significant change by Pearl/Korg and the major improvements of the Gewa. It just seemed like a ho-hum addition to an already crowded mid-level market.
There has been lots of other product releases, recently, especially in the area of Hybrid drumming. This is, by no means, an exhaustive list. These are just the biggies to hit in the last few months. I am a bit disappointed that Yamaha seems to have dropped out of the fully electronic drum market. They still produce the DTX-950, which is a great kit priced way out of its league compared to other offerings. However, DW and Pearl both caught everyone off-guard, so I'll hold out hope that Yamaha will surprise us. With Roland's patent on mesh head drums expired, many can now get into the game. Who knows what the next year holds for e-drums?
