The electronic drum kitis basically the digital version of an acoustic drum kit. Every electronic kit comes with its own advantages and there are a lot to choose from. To help make the choice a little easier, we’ve put together this Buyer’s Guide and offer answers to your most frequently asked questions. If you can’t see the answer to your question here, feel free to contact us!
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1. I’m a Beginner. What’s the Best Electronic Drum Kit for Me?
If you want to drum in the same way that you would with an acoustic drum kit, you need a snare, tom, bass, and cymbal pads. But you’ll also need pedals for the bass drum and hi-hat. Depending on how much space you have, you could go for a really compact kit or a full-sized model. Kits that include a drum throne (stool) and set of sticks are great for beginners. There are also ‘tabletop’ models that are good for learning to play rhythms, but aren’t the same as playing a full drum kit, like the drummer in a band.
The playing technique for electronic and acoustic drum kits is the same, but they can be used differently. An electronic drum kit produces less volume and as such, is great for rehearsing. You can easily play along with your favourite music without having to turn the volume of your speakers all the way up, and most of the time you can even connect the kit to a computer for easy recording. If you want to play in a band, you might be better off choosing an acoustic drum kit. A hybrid drum kit, on the other hand, gives you the best of both worlds since it includes features of both an acoustic and an electronic kit.
If you just hit the pads of a electronic drum kit, you won’t here a drum-like sound. Every strike is processed by the included module and is then played back as a sound. To hear these sounds, you need a set of headphones or an amplifier. The module will also come loaded with different drum kits to choose from, and each will have a different sound. For example, a rock drum kit or a jazz drum kit.
The maximum number of drum and cymbal pads you can add depends of the number of inputs on the module. Usually, you’ll see that an extra cymbal or tom can be connected. What’s actually possible is different from module to module.
5. Why is there Such a Big Price Difference Between Different Elecronic Drum Kits?
Generally, the rule applies that the more expensive the kit, the more you’re getting. More expensive kits usually come with a module with more sounds and settings, and give you a more realistic ‘acoustic drum kit feeling’. The pads will often also have more zones, so that a number of sounds can be played on a single pad, depending on where it is struck.
When browsing through our electronic drums, use the ‘Price Range’ filter on the left of the page so that you can look at the kits that fit your budget.
You can play an electronic drum kit using normal drumsticks. Bear in mind that the sticks will have less rebound than you get when playing an acoustic kit. So, if you play an acoustic drum kit, then using the same sticks to play an electronic drum kit will feel a little bit different. For more information about which sticks to use, see our dedicated blog linked below.
Most electronic drum kit manufacturers also make special drum headphones. These are especially focused on reproducing drum sounds. But in principle, you could actually use any set of headphones. Just make sure to check the headphone output socket of the drum module to see if it’s compatible with a 3.5mm mini-jack plug or a larger 6.35mm jack plug.
The cables needed to connect the pads to the module come included with every kit. Other cables to connect the drum kit to an amplifier or computer, for example, will not be included.
