Looking to buy VDrums..

Hey guys -
 
    I am looking to buy VDrums. So far, the Roland TD 11 looks to be the best deal in my pricerange ( $1,500 ish).
Before I purchase this from Sweetwater or Musicians Friend, I figured I would ask here if anyone knows a reputable dealer with a better price?
 
    Any feedback appreciated.  Thanks.

Check Hello Music. They have specials daily.

I have for 4 years been extreamly pleased with my Yamaha DTXpress IV kit.  It was around $1500 from Musiciansfriend but is less now.

IK Obi


Let us know where you end up buying it from and how you like it. I've always wanted an electric set, but can't give up my cymbals. I'd miss them too much.

I hear you on cymbals Obi!  It really seems tough to capture all the velocity layers and sound of a real cymbal or high hat.  I've heard of people using real cymbals with an electric kit. 
 
I went with the Td11 Kit from Sweetwater, it should be here on Thursday.  Yep, vacation day requested from work and I will be sitting at my door step awaiting it's arrival!  (This means it will come on Friday instead!)
 
I ordered a 10 foot midi USB chord, I wonder what the maximum length should be for minimum latency.

IK Obi

12-16 ft is the longest Midi cable available due to power restrictions from what I've heard.

I have been using an 8m (25ft) midi cable for one of my keyboards with no apparent problems.  10m is the longest that I have seen:

http://www.staggmusic.com...bles/miidi_cables.html

It's tricky recording with the real cymbals because of the bleed from the rubber drum heads( Yamaha kit) which do not sound like real drums. This might be better with the V drums with the mesh heads. What I've done is record the electric kit first then record the real cymbals in a second pass. Then delete the midi cymbal events.

25ft for a Midi cable does sound right, I knew there was indeed a limit. And I can' see rubber heads bleeding, but mesh should be fine. I kind of just want to buy mesh drum heads and a module with triggers to convert this old kit I have to see if its something that I'd even want to get into. Then it'd look like a normal kit and I could still use cymbals. Maybe....

Probably need tweaking. Sure they don't sound better with the analog main outputs instead of midi output??

Makes sense though, they focus more on the technology and not as much on the sample library. Plus they know with MIDI you can connect it to control a whole world of different drum sounds.

If you are a drummer (Or used to hearing real drums) you will probably never be satisfied with the sounds in any hardware drum module, there's just to little memory in these things to hold a properly multisampled drum kit with many velocity zones and 8-10 round robins pr zone on each drum, so if you play well you will retrigger the same samples at the same velocity and with no round robins it's shotgun city. They try all kinds of tricks to make it sound better like velocity filtering and tuning the harder you hit, but it just won't sound right if you have heard real drums.

I wish they'd make a kit with nothing but a dumb brain and no sounds because it's just a waste of money for something you won't use.

Look at the full version of Steven Slate Drums, or if you'd really crazy, look at mixosaurus drums