E-drum guru Martin Trommler has prepared a VST primer for those starting out.
Drummers tend to turn to VSTs (Virtual Studio Technology) in search of high-quality drum sounds – otherwise they’d just stick with module sounds which I can describe best as a caricature of acoustic drum sounds.
But VST-e-drumming is unfortunately associated with latency (often around 10 milliseconds, which is significant compared to the 2 ms which an acoustic snare drum sound takes to reach the drummer’s ear).
So, it doesn’t make much sense to go with the inferior onboard sound chip of your computer, poor audio driver emulations (like Asio4All) and low quality/unsuitable headphones or headphones connected to poor headphone units/amps.
And it also makes no sense to try to get a good performance (glitch-free audio at very low latency) on computers that are not capable of handling real-time audio (especially at higher real-time CPU load).
There are also some important points that you should be aware of before buying an e-drum kit or e-drum hardware.
E-drum hardware
Module latency should be seen as the time between striking the pad to provide the MIDI event and the MIDI output from the module or trigger device. When looking at drum modules, there are significant differences in module latency and this latency can’t be fixed in the signal chain, so I suggest getting the fastest module or trigger device you can.
I would avoid (cheap) Alesis, Millenium, Fame and all that Medeli-derived stuff (there are loads of those brands) when it comes to the module or trigger device! These are slow – around three times slower than a fast Roland module. (See digitalDrummer’s latency ranking here.)
My recommendation is a Roland module or the Audiofront eDRUMin trigger-to-MIDI device.
Another component that should be considered is the electronic hi-hat, which is a critical part.
My recommendation for the most inexpensive and, at the same time, suitable solution is the Roland FD-9 paired with a good two-zone cymbal pad like the CY-12 or Yamaha PCY-135.
If you want hats mounted on a traditional hi-hat stand, go with a Roland VH-10/11 connected to an eDRUMin (not a Roland module).
If you need to keep the costs down, you can get a (used) Roland TD-9/11/17 kit and modify the hi-hat a bit: don’t use a CY-5 for your hi-hat pad as it suffers from internal crosstalk: EDGE hits can generate BOW notes. So, get at least a CY-8 cymbal pad for the hi-hat
and don’t use a VH-10/-11 without an (additional) eDRUMin trigger device.
Note that Positional Sensing is only provided by higher-end Roland modules and the eDRUMin.
The right computer
If you’re a Windows fan, get a desktop PC with a strong CPU, like a good i7 as a minimum (the higher the default CPU clock (GHz), the better).
Avoid off-the-shelf Windows laptops as they are often not very suitable to handle demanding real-time audio tasks (because of hardware bottlenecks). Use such a Windows laptop at your own risk! Avoid weak CPUs in any case.
I recommend a MacBook (Pro) for trouble-free laptop performance – preferably the ARM Silicon models (M1/2/3) as they don’t get hot (no fan!, no noise) and provide state-of-the-art real-time CPU performance. 16 GB RAM should be minimum.
And, of course, audio-optimise your machines. You should find optimisation lists and recommendations for your OS and CPU on the Internet (Google “real-time audio-optimisation + OS”).
One very useful tweak that enhances real-time audio performance is to get rid of virtual CPU cores, so deactivate hyper-threading on Intel machines, for example.
Audio interface
Don’t use the built-in audio interface function of the Roland modules. This additional function was not designed for real-time tasks, so the native Roland ASIO output suffers from poor performance and high latency. It may be OK on Macs with monster CPUs (like the M1/2/3) as MacOS uses CoreAudio (Apple’s own driver), but you’ll still get lower latencies and better sound quality from dedicated fast audio interfaces.
Get a decent audio interface – even for your Mac – as it helps to enhance the real-time performance and to get the lowest latencies and, of course, to get superior sound quality.
I recommend PCIe devices like RME AIO Pro (for best performance/lowest latencies) and if you want a USB device, get an RME Babyface Pro FS (very high quality) or a MOTU M2, which is a more affordable option.
Monitoring
Use high quality closed-back headphones! I recommend AKG K-271 (and the high-end K-872).
You should also consider a good headphone amp, especially if the headphone unit of your audio interface is too weak or you can’t get your e-drum sound loud enough. Connect the headphone amp to the Line Out of the audio interface (use decent balanced audio cables to connect to the amp with balanced inputs) to obtain extra power (more volume) and superior sound quality. I recommend the Lake People G111 MK2, which, soundwise, will make pure e-drum heaven possible.
Software drum sampler
Get started with Toontrack EZdrummer 3 as it works really well (without issues) right out of the box. There is a free demo version, so you can try before you buy.
EZ3 does not provide raw drum audio like Superior Drummer 3, so it will be pre-processed and therefore more suitable for a newbie.
EZ3 has great kits and lots of different kit pieces, drum and cymbal samples and presets onboard.
Martin Trommler, AKA Because.Drum.Geek, sees VSTs as a building block rather than a complete solution. He offers personalised dial-in sessions to enable drummers to optimise their hardware and software through fine-tuning and customisation.