One of the things that struck us about the interview with Omar Hakim was his use of the V drum ‘brain’ to create unique kits to play on his various musical projects. For one track, this even included a drum kit made from vocal samples provided by Michael Jackson! Generally, Hakim spoke about how he used the ‘brain’ of the V-drums kits to edit his drum samples in the studio setting so that when he plays live he can recreate the studio sound for a particular track quickly and easily before adapting it as required for the live context.

Clearly, learning to programme the V Drums is an important part of the contemporary drummer’s skill set. Here’s a basic introduction to some of the key points thanks to Roland.

Why Use Drum Effects?

Thanks to COSM modeling technology in V-Drums, it’s possible to take any single instrument within the internal sound library and edit it. Tuning, muffling (or damping), shell sizes, snare buzz and more… it’s all there to play with. You can then recreate, or “model” any sound you want. It could be a huge drum sound from a favorite record, or it could be creating your own custom drum sound.

But, the drum sound alone might not give it the “presence” or the professional shine that help bring the drums to life. In fact, adding some basic effects can make the difference between the kit sounding nearly right, and sounding really right.

Drum Effects Explained

Let’s start with ambience. A “dry” drum kit sound is devoid of any echo or “reverb” at all. You have the drum sound via the microphones, but not the sound of the environment around the drums.

If you stood in the room with the drummer, listening as they played, not only would you hear the drums and cymbals directly, but you would also hear the drums’ sound bouncing off the walls (reverberating, to give it its technical term), all around the space you are in. So you have the actual sound of the drums, and then the sound of the “room” or the ambient space. These combine to give the overall sound hitting your eardrums.

Adding ambience to a V-Drums kit is simple. Whether it’s a TD-4KP V-Drums Portable kit, a TD-11 series, TD-15 series or TD-30 series module, you will be able to add ambience. We’ve made it easy to use too – we’ve created pre-set ambience environments such as “studio”, “hall”, “basement”, “garage” and “stadium” that you can instantly apply to your drums. Each of these can also be edited so you can get the ambience just right.

You can “send” that effect to individual drums too. In some modules, such as the TD-30, you can say how much of the ambience you want on each individual drum and cymbal – just as you would in the studio. In other V-Drums modules, you can turn the ambience on or off on each individual drum.

Multi Effects: Going a Step Further

Ambience and reverb are just two simple effects available. Multi effects offer a multitude of ways to apply effects to your drums, opening up the sonic possibilities and letting you create studio drum sounds similar to those off favorite records from past and present. This comes into its own for the cover band drummer – imagine getting Bonzo’s “Levee Breaks” kit sound spot on at the gig by using some delay and reverb!

Multi effects are simply a range of effects that can be applied to the kit one at a time. These include echo, delay, reverb, filters, flanger, distortion, compression and many more.

As with ambience, these effects can be sent to individual drums and cymbals so that you can have more, or less of an effect on each drum. You can also edit the effect parameters themselves, so you can tailor the effect to your needs.

Real-Time Effects

In Roland percussion products, such as the HandSonic HPD-20, SPD-SX Sampling Pad and SPD-30 Percussion Pad, you can turn an effect on the kit on or off and can change the effect as you play. In other words, you could play a sound or a beat, apply a drum effect to it and change it as you play (i.e. in real-time). Check out a Craig Blundell using real-time drum effects in the SPD-SX Sampling Pad: