Studio minus Drums

I can't see it being more of a deal-breaker than having no drum option at all...
Unless you've got the space and equipment to record a kit properly, I think this is a solid start.

Voda La Void

highlandermak
So I have a personal studio in my basement that has a 4 by 6 vocal booth. It is great for recording most instruments except an acoustic drum set. I would like to expand the "personal studio" to record bands. I thought about getting an electric drum kit and let drummers record via midi. However I feel as though it might be a deal breaker not being able to record acoustic drums. Has anyone faced this road block and figured a work around? Thanks

Speaking as a drummer, that's a deal breaker.  Electronic drum kits are great if the drummer is basically a lifeless metronome.  The only use for the electronic drum kit in that case is to record the notes instead of dragging and dropping and building the drum track.  
 
But some genres of music actually want the drummer to play his drums and contribute.  You miss all the nuances of snare hits and cymbal work when you don't capture an acoustic performance.  Electronic drums put you behind the beat a little too, depending on their latency, and can really screw up a drummer's sense of time and feel.  It's a micro thing, but it changes how you play.  Sure you can fix all that with quantizing, and get that lifeless machine feel.  
 
I played electronic drums for years and it ruined my feel for acoustic drums and much of my original skill set.  The way the pads bounce, that little micro-detectable delay, the sterile sound of piezoelectric triggering of MIDI notes...just lead to such a boring and unexciting drum track.  
 
But I can't speak for all drummers and I am seeing more and more bands set up with electronic drums.  There's a market out there, I guess.  
 
 

My take here is that it depends on the drummer.
 
Most drummers coming from an acoustic kit will struggle with the limited dynamic range that MIDI has. Piano players used to real Pianos have the same issue. Most notes end up with a velocity of 127 which means that they all sound the same. In simple terms the dynamics end up sounding like they are over compressed and all of that careful velocity mapping gets lost.
 
You can fix some of this by setting the kit up well but its not always that easy and like most musicians drummers play harder when performing that when they are setting up.
 
The feel issue can be fixed. Higher priced kits will have mesh heads rather than the rubberised ones. Well setup and maintained these can be made to respond as the drummer would expect. Certainly not perfect but worth the effort. Modifying a kit without mesh heads is relativity easy the main challenge being achieving the right level of tension. 
 
There is no doubt that using electronic drums requires a change in approach for the drummer. Cymbals, including hi-hats, really do behave very differently when you are relying on triggered samples. Its not all bad though and the ability to access a large range of sounds from a small kit can be a real benefit. 
 
My son has played an all electronic kit for years and is very comfortable with it and the drummer who I play with now is using a hybrid approach with real Cymbals and Snare but electronic Toms and Bass Drum.
 
The questions I would probably be asking if I was you are:
 
What do my competition offer?
 
If a local band wants to record today, what are their options?
 
How many drummers in local bands already have electronic kits they use for practicing?
 
If there are no local studios that can record drums then a good MIDI kit might help you get business and you could offer a free hour for the drummer to get used to the kit and a sampling service where you create samples of the drummers kit.

Great discussion and great advice. Thanks for the insight. At least if I go the electric drum path I know to get the better kit :)

I have had great results using VDrums with real cymbals and hats. It's no different than recording a real kit and using a drum-replacer. Usung something like Addictive Drums 2 with several kit packs for the drummer to choose from could actually be a selling point.

I'm not a drummer, but I'd never buy an electronic kit without sitting down and playing it first. Since you're in Illinois it wouldn't be a huge road trip to pedal on over to Fort Wayne and visit Sweetwater. If you're not a drummer yourself, I'm sure you could find one to come along. Offer to buy lunch if necessary; drummers will do anything for a free burger.

A lot of drummers really dislike electronic kits for all kinds of reasons. Many won't even consider using one.
 
Which is fair enough because they require a very different technique and might not be able to produce the sounds a particular drummer wants. Like other musicians drummers tend to be fussy, especially about snares and cymbals.
 
Before arthritis got to her right knee my wife played a variety of electronic kits over the years and we've seen other drummers who are used to acoustic kits try them and really struggle because it's not what they expect in terms of feel, response or sound.
 
So offering a studio-supplied electronic kit as the only option for drummers might reduce the available pool of prospective customers quite a lot.
 
If you've space for an acoustic kit and can handle the volume coming off it the Glynn Johns "four microphone" technique which he used to record John Bonham and many others is a way to get good drum recordings with limited space and resources. 

Oh yeah...hahaha...just when you get it all together and ready, some dude will walk in with a double bass drum set-up. 
Remember this, as much as we like to get a natural sound, what sounds good live on stage does not necessarily translate the same way in a studio when you are dealing with your own acoustic challenges.  Good luck and have fun.

An alternative method you might consider is Melda's MDrumEnhancer. When I saw this thread it reminded me I wanted to try this out "unconventionally" and it is rather nifty. Basically, you can use it for real time drum replacement (the latency is that low), but will need one instance per track (supports kick, snare, and toms). I did nothing more than connect a dynamic mic to it, pick a snare, and set it to 100% wet. Tapping the mic plays just like a snare. When I get a chance at some point I want to try creating a "finger tapper drumset" to spectrally slice input by frequency band and send those to the kit pieces (I may need to buy a thimble, but no reason this cannot be done).
 
Anyway... a comment on that page above is valid... "Normally, recording engineers spend hours to set the microphones right. 2 or 3 mikes for the snare drum just to ensure that both the body and snares are captured, similarly for the bass drum to get both snap and boom... Then the mixing engineer spends hours trying to make it all sound good and in 50% cases he/she ends up with drum replacing." Basically, you can mic a real kit in a less-than-ideal environment, and send the mix out to the drummer. It needs to be fed audio, not MIDI, but is zero latency. If you have an acoustic kit available, the 14-day trial is another option to consider; but again, it doesn't have hi-hats or cymbals.
 
Quick edit:
Links to my playing around:
Tapping Dynamic Mic (Dry)
Tapping Dynamic Mic (Wet)