Drumming With My Fingers

I don't use a keyboard, I use a ZenDrum LT, which is a very nice MIDI controller for percussion:

http://www.zendrum.com/catalog.html#lt

I play all my drums 'for real', where real means I play them all on the Zendrum, so all the timing and dynamics are being controlled by me in real time as I record. It makes all the difference in realism.  The only real gotcha is that it's hard not to be come the "Fifty Foot Drummer from Hell" when you start getting into it, and playing too hard, which will max out the velocities on all the hits and destroy the quality of the performance.
 

P.S. I only have SD3

oh man. you gotta get out in the world.....

Oops...I accidentally flammed my keys...................

I've been seriously lusting after one of these ever since I first got to play one at NAMM. 



Or the slightly cheaper version (10 pads instead of 15): 
 





If you're a keyboard player, you'll adapt to this in 10 seconds. All of my dexterity is in my ten fingers - none of it made it down to my feet. I can't dance, and I will never be able to play kick and hi-hat at the same time. But with this gizmo I can go nuts. It's even more impressive in the hands of a real drummer.


EDIT: That was weird. Chrome wouldn't let me insert image links. Maybe I'll have to use Chrome for entering text and IE for pictures. Remember when the promise of the web browser was that it was going to be universal?

Here's a good demo of the ZenDrum, though it's the older V3 model, which isn't as powerful as the newer V4 version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-riu6QZ7xE

Here you can see him showing how he's setup his V4 using external pedals which makes it more flexible:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFGFfsJUPsQ

I had a client who sent over a song with drums he'd played himself, with fingers. He was pretty good, there were fills all over the place and he only went out with the click for about ten seconds of the song.

Yep, fingers on the keyboard, but I rather have a real drum set (since I can play drums although getting almost too old for that anymore).
(I don't like doing the main drum set in different tracks.)
(I also find that I am not really here to adhere to the metronome either, no flow with it, and I doubt if you can tell the difference in the first place. I am not a robot.)

Most pads intended for triggering by fingers suck. Haven't tried the Korg thing, but I have an M-Audio keyboard controller with 8 pads and they suck. Maybe they're meant to be played with sticks, because they miss a lot of hits when played by hand.

That's why I am so jazzed about the Roland products - they've got the balance just right. No false triggers, no missed triggers. You can play them very dynamically if you want to. 

I just did a benefit concert last Saturday with a drummer who played the HandSonic. It was phenomenal. We're scheduled to do it again in a couple weeks and some of that performance will go up on YouTube. I'll post a link when it does.

Thanks again for the in put everyone! I'm pretty happy with my EXRs keyboard. I'd still like to try some of the pads out but due to funding I' have to wait a bit.

Bomes Mouse will allow you to use your qwerty keyboard for MIDI input. It requires some virtual MIDI routing and is limited, but it does what it's supposed to do.
For what you are wanting to do, the PRV is a far better option. It is easy to see errant hits, and make minute corrections. Just watch your snap-to-grid setting. I usually leave mine set to real time.
You can also adjust velocity on individual hits if needed.