Roland TD-6V

26 years playing in my 30 yr tenure on this planet - touring 10k venues to quiet NY sessions.. everything in between.

Bought used, but like new condition. TD-6V (2005 model) for 1100.00

First, I take my reviews really seriously. Check my DW review (link below) just so you have an idea of how much so:


www.musicgearreview.com/review-display/5974.html

BTW: I hope my reviews are helpful to you. If they are, please RATE THEM accordingly. Thanks!

I can go on and on about what I like about these things, but I am going to try and give it to you straight- both the pros AND cons here:

First, all us drummers know what a bitch it is to carry all the crap we need to. About in 2001, I went on a crusade to maximize efficiency of my acoustic kit. I have it such that my 5 piece club-date kit is reduced to kick, 13x6 snare, 10x6 aux popcorn snare, and 10 and 14 toms (pop corn located where rack2 would normally be). These 5 drums PLUS 18 ride, 16 and 14 crash, 14 china, 10 splash and 13 hats: ALL of this shit literally fits onto TWO boom stands, plus normal hat stand and nsare stand... NOT BAD RIGHT?? well guess what - even as "streamlined" as I've made my acoustic kit, the V-Drums kit is SOOO EASY: fold in the rack "sides" so its one neat unit, pick it up and CARRY OUT. DONE!!!

Aside fromm the lightness and ease of transport, let me say this: ELECTRONIC DRUMS HAVE COMME A LONG LONG WAY!!! back when I was touring, I used to play a 6 piece DW kit along with an ALESIS DM PRO brain linked to a DrumKat TURBO Kat. despite how good that brain sounded, and how fast the Kat was, I gotta say- the v drums kit (I think) triggers FASTER. there's literally NO latency - it works phenomenal.

WHY BUY ELECTRONICS: Interestingly enough, many drummers hate the idea of electronic drums -- STOP THAT SHIT. V-drums sound incredible- but aside from that, THEY SOLVE THE STAGE VOLUME PROBLEM! The difference between a great sounding band on the other 99.8% of the shitty sounding garage acts out there is even if they're organized and tight sounding as a unit, they DONT have a workable, usable stage volume. Acoustic drums are wonderful- but its very very hard to NOT raise your natural volume as the crowd gets into the show and starts shakin ass etc etc... we've all been there- we all know. add to this the natural fact that ALL guitarist love to play on "eleven" - it becomes a mess. On stage, all the instruments get turned up trying to complete, the vocal monitors get cranked to earbleed, just so the front cant HEAR... it sucks! ENTER ROLAND V DRUMS:

V Drums SOLVE the stage volume problem. Even more importantly, they DONT go out of tune!! I dont give a shit if you play DW's, GMS or ToysRuS brand drums - play 3 hard 55-655 minutes sets - THEY GO OUT OF TUNE! V drums no not. EVER. And for the record, if ya WANTED to change the pitch and "tune" them - you CAN... its one of MANY parameters you can change in the brain!

Even more importantly then the fact that they dont go out of tune, the TOm-Tom sounds CUT - you have to realize, youur eliminating the need to Mic ANY drums - which makes MANAGING the drummers' used inputs EASY. You simply run 2 1/4" (left and right) outs from the brain to your board - DONE. For the record, even if you have a stereo-capable board, I recomend SPLITTING your outputts- leave a seperate channel for your left AND right... (trust me- the fact that you're NOT occupying 5 or 8 or MORE mic-channels will make your sound guy happy... he or she will be more than happy to let you use 2!!!

The diversity of sounds is incredible! The brain comes with 99 pre-programmed "kits" which are your MIDI patches. While youu cant store MORE than this, 99 is plenty. you can easily "move around" patches within the brain- this way you have all the kits you need NEAR each other- so you can shift on the fly, whilst on stage in the middle of a set. Furthermore, you can rename kits, so that way the names are meaningful to you: Example: WTF is the point of "rosewood"... that name means shit to a drummer! On the other hand, if you named it "U2 Streets" that is a PERFECT name - and meaningful- easdy to identify mid-show.

Bring Balance to Your Stage!! In keeping witth the huge improvements in stage volume, what you'll notice is since EVERYONE in the band can (and NEEDS to ) play LOWER, all of you can HEAR EVERYTHING! it becomes easier to play better cause there's no more guess work - the stage volume is controllable enought to everyone such that you can hear the mix AND the outside volume -- its not masked by an out of control stage volume. This alone will yield great improvements to your bands' sound-- PROVIDED the rest of the guys are responsible enough to lower down and stay that way!

EASE OF NAVIGATION: I cant tell you how impressed I am at the ease of use and tab-nivigation built into the TD6 brain module. Consider that i bought my TD6v kit used, SATURDAY MORNING. I played it out both Saturday night AND sunday night... Trust me- I was nervous! But the drastic change in stage volume meant everyone was able to hear EVERYTHING and they didnt need to turn up

A few notes on the CONS - I've given you all the PROS...

1) You need a powerful speaker to hear yourself on stage: and particularly something that can reproduce a kick drum pretty well...

You will need either a REALLY good powerful monitor speaker with a good couple of hundred watts from your board OR a great amplifier. IF using a board-monitor, This alone MIGHT be a con, because doing so means you typically DO NOT have any EQ control through the board for a monitor... It helps to EQ in a "smile" so you can hear kick drum well, and hear hi-hat.

2) Hi-Hat will be one of the areas that requires the most attention, if you want to be successful with this kit: First, it's almost a GIVEN that you will need to crank the HH foot pedal volume- if you want to be able to get that nice natural sounding "chick" when you stomp on it. You can find this in [common] and then toggle to [ PEDAL HH VOL]. Again, it helps to be able to crank up the hi's EQ-wise, because you really need to hear what the HH is doingg while on stage, to make sure you're keeping it OPEN long enough..

EXAMPLE: Take the opening beat for AeroSmiths "Walk This Way." The openingg beat is a simple rock beat, BUT, it requires you to hit the OPEN hi-hat on the "1" and keep it open until exactly the "2" If you close it early or late, it sound wrong- PERIOD. You will need to modify the volume, sensitivity and threshold, as well as the chick-volume (above) to make sure youur foot will get the natural feel of a real hihat.

NOTE: the TD6V kit commes standard (now) with a CY-5 as a hi hat. The next older itteration of the kit used a gum-rubber pad (like the tomtoms) instead of the cymal-shaped CY5 pad. There's not a WHOLE lot of difference between the two, PLAYING-Wise, though I personally like the feel of the CY5 better, since it more accurately gives you the bow-VS-bell feel- AND it pretty decently triggers the sounds accordingly. YOU DO NOT NEED TO SPEND THE MONEY ON THE CY-11 OR CY-12 HI-HAT SYSTEM!!!! IN FACT, IT IS A WASTE!!! despite the advantage of the 2-cymbal system of the CY11 and 12, vs the one cymbal CY5, the 11/12 does NOT trigger a whole lot better AND requires you to drag around a heavy frickin hi hat stand. SAVE YOUR 500 BEANS!! stay with the gum-pad OR cy5... whichever yours came with.

RACK UPDATE: Roland evidently added a cross-bar to the stock rack that comes with the TD6V... BFD!!! well- in fairness, maybe not - we'll see how road-worthy this thing is the more I play it- but for now, it seems fine. If i start breaking rack parts (clamps etc) I will change the tone of my review to "pissed off" as expected!!

A few last notes on the pitfalls:

Be extra aware of where instruments are PANNED - especially if palying through a PA system! while it's nice to pan a kit, alot of how that effect comes across hinges on the room you'r playing in and its acoustics- so bear in mind, for level reasons, it's wiser sometimes to keep things centralized... BTW- I didnt write this to start a debate. Im sure MANY of you guys keep your shit panned and it works great - I'm just saying this is a subjective thing. YES- I LOVE when myy drums are panned beautifully bla bla bla... and gorgeous virgins are dropping at my feet and shit bla bla bla.. But let's face it- UNLESS you have a full-time sound guy, it's really hard to pull that off without SOME trade-off. EVERYTHING is a trade-off some how.

NOTE on KICK drums: Again, particularly if you're a club-date player, or you're just using this thing for gigs, i recomend keeping your kick drums level fairly HIGH - like over 105 or so - dont be shy- 120 is fine. BUT- do NOT do the same for the snare of toms - those may need to be a bit lower. the Hi-Hat also requires a higher level in order to cut through AND to be heard- see also the above note regarding HI-Hat sound and EQ through monitors.. etc. While it's nice to avoid the weight of carrying your own AMP as a monitor, the benefit again, fo doing this is you get your own EQ control AS WELL as your own volume control. Regardless, I used a powerful Yamamha monitor (SM151V) all weekend, through our board, and it worked very well- even without the EQ control. BUT - it required the rest of the band members to stay controlled in their volumes. Again, a SMILE curve of your own amp's EQ will give you easier volume control from the Throne AND better EQ control so you can make sure you HEAR THOSE HATS!!!

Thus far the thing seems pretty robust- but only time and wear-and-tear will truly tell the tale... Again, if stuff starts breaking down, you will hear my tone change from happy to pissed off in myy update... hahaha

Almost all drummers have a fear of electronics - if its not worrying how they sound, or how difficult it may be to use them, worse, its the STYGMA that is tyypically associated with em... FORGET IT!!! Read what I opened this whole damned review up with: THESE THINGS HAVE COMME A LONG LONG LONG WAY!!!

In terms of sound, I give em a 5. Quality and build, a 4.5 and in terms of flexibilty, I give them a 4, only because you get much more finite adjustment in tthe higher modules, like the TD12 and TD20. Regardless, the 6 has been more than FINE for me- and my gig is COMPLEX- we do everyting from reggae to soca in addition to the rock, hard rock and oldies- so you can bet your ass that i use ALOT of kits through the night. The TD6 is a great module for a working drummer- because it keeps it simple enough to learn quickly and to navigate effectively through the night wihtout drama. While I know the 12 and 20 modules have more bells and whistles, they're also harder to get around in - which is why i think the TD6 is a stupendous module for the working drummer.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I purchased my kit from Musician's Friend website for $1495.00

I love everything about my Roland V-Club kit! I could go on and on about my kit, but here are a few things. First, the sounds that this kit reproduces is awesome! I love to be able to put on my headphones and play with the demo songs - it's as if you're playing with a band! Of course, the pad levels are set to default volumes out of the box, but if they aren't loud enough on some of the demo songs with a lot of highs, you can easily turn each individual pad up. Speaking of adjusting pad settings, and this brings me to my second reason, you can adjust the pitch of each pad, change the instrument, inc/dec the decay setting, change the type of room you want to hear the drums in - like studio, locker, gym, cave, etc. - there are so many things you can do with the settings! In fact, you can do so much with the TD-6 that I'd be scared to even see the manual and what all you can do with the, say, TD-10...and this brings me to my third reason for loving my V-Club kit, over the mesh head kits. Sure, the mesh head technology is great, but those heads do have to be replaced eventually, and they're not cheap. The rubber pads will last. Just to say how confident I am in the rubber pads, I bought a PD-9 dual trigger pad for my snare when I got my kit, over what I've heard most do and buy a PD-80 mesh head pad or similar. Speaking of the PD-9, you actually get three sounds out of it, even though it's 'dual trigger'. Middle, outer, and rim. This kit is SO MUCH EASIER to handle/transport/setup than regular drums! You don't have to worry about mic'ing these, and believe me any drummer knows what a pain it is to mic drums. I can't wait to get into a studio with it! I use it at my church and it is great! I say to the person reading this and thinking about buying electronic drums, don't pass up the Roland V-Club kit! To me its sounds are just as good as the mesh head kits, not to mention it's about $3000 cheaper!

There's not anything bad to say about it. Buy another CY-6 and a PD-9 when you get the kit for even more options!

The kit is very sturdy, overall. And the quality, well, all I have to say is Roland knows quality when it comes to the electronic percussion technology!

Bottom line, I love my Roland V-Club kit. If you are tired of hauling around acoustic drums, and tired of having to mic acoustic drums, this is the kit! One to two cables from the TD-6 to the board, and you're mic'd!!

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com