Roland Electric Drum Set Td 20sx V Drums Review

The TD20KX is Roland'due south flagship electronic drum kit — simply how does it measure up against other large hitters?

Over the years, Roland have become almost synonymous with innovative drum and percussion products, from iconic drum machines like the CR78, TR808 and TR909 through to the Octapad and SPDs. After some initially less‑than‑successful forays into the electronic drum kit marketplace, 1997 saw the introduction of the V‑Drum organisation, which has since joined this ring of historic products.

The electric current top‑finish kit in Roland'southward extensive 5‑Drum range is the TD20KX SX, which certainly cuts a dash with its five V‑Pads featuring interchangeable beat 'wraps', substantial new 5‑Kick and new silvery‑coloured 5‑Cymbals and 5‑Howdy‑Chapeau. Sound generation is taken care of by the powerful TD20X module.

The Hardware

This is a half dozen‑drum kit comprising two ten‑inch rackmounted toms, 2 12‑inch rackmounted toms and a free standing 12‑inch snare and 14‑inch bass drum. Three cymbals are supplied with the kit (two xiv‑inch crash and one 15‑inch ride), and a pair of 12‑inch hello‑hat cymbals completes the set.

The kit ships with the new MDS25 drum rack, a pretty substantial piece of hardware constructed from cylindrical chrome tubing and held together with brushed aluminum clamps. Five similar clamps are provided to adhere the toms and cymbal arms to the rack. Those of you good at counting volition accept noticed that that'south plenty clamps for four toms and three cymbal arms. This is because either ii of the cymbal artillery or tom arms (depending on how you choose to prepare the kit) are mounted directly into the rack legs. The tom arms themselves are, again, significant pieces of hardware and utilize a adequately standard ball and socket organisation to enable the pads to be hands positioned exactly where you lot want them. This works very well and gives the whole arrangement a very solid feel — although for my coin the hex‑rack system employed on the Yamaha DTX organization seems more suited to a kit at this level and cost point.

The wiring loom that connects the pads to the module fits neatly inside the rack and can be accessed via rubber grommets at the diverse points where the system connects together. Trivial black cable clips fitted to each tom arm and cymbal stand aid keep the whole thing neat and tidy, and the silverish‑coloured cables help it all blend in. This is a very elegant solution to the obvious cabling issues an electronic kit will always have over an acoustic one, although it was a bit tight getting all those cables down the rack tube!

As I mentioned earlier, the snare pad, hello‑hat and kick‑drum pad are free standing, which I personally like a lot, equally it allows a neat deal of freedom in setting up the kit exactly as you lot would an acoustic set. The only thwarting is that the TD20KX SX doesn't send with either a snare or hi‑lid stand up. I have diverse stands effectually that were perfect for the job, simply in a top‑end kit I was surprised that they were non included. Roland, yet, say that this is because the professional players at whom the TD20KX SX is aimed will already have their ain stands and preferences for stands.

The Pads

The PD25XS snare pad features a mesh caput developed in co‑functioning with Remo.

The pads included with the TD20KX SX kit are Roland's new V‑Pads, and I would say they're as close to hybrid as y'all'll get. They are constructed nigh exactly like an acoustic drum with a very shallow shell. The head sits on the shell and is held in place by a regular rim/hoop, consummate with tension lugs. The rims have a covering of blackness rubber to reduce the audio-visual dissonance when you're playing rim shots.

All the pads use the Roland mesh heads that have been an integral part of their electronic drums for many years at present. Developed with probably the best-known drum-head manufacturer in the world, Remo, the Roland mesh heads behave in almost exactly the aforementioned way as a regular drum head would, but produce very picayune acoustic noise. The multi‑layer mesh heads can exist 'tuned' to give you lot exactly the tension you want on each pulsate, just equally yous would look on a real audio-visual kit. Of grade, turning the tension lugs doesn't actually change the pitch of the drum, simply I can honestly see that happening in the non as well distant future! All the pads, apart from the kick, take dual‑zone triggering, so tin can exist struck on the caput or rim (or both, giving a true rim shot).

Although they're possibly non the quietest pads on the marketplace, the mesh heads are an absolute joy to play, and being able to accommodate the tension of each individual drum brings a huge degree of realism to playing the kit. Another unique feature of the pads is the ability to alter the drum shells. The TD20KX SX comes with a brushed aluminium‑fashion trounce‑wrap, only red and blue variations are as well bachelor, should you lot ever fancy a change!

It's worth mentioning the kick drum at this point: it has been 'upgraded' from a 12‑inch to a 14‑inch pad and certainly has some presence. It almost took two people to elevator information technology out of its box! This weight, combined with a couple of substantial legs, means that you can really lay into this drum and it feels as solid as a regular kick.

The whole kit is certainly middle‑catching, and the new V‑Cymbals add to this with their unique silver colour. It gives them the appearance of a regular acoustic cymbal, and although this is purely visual, information technology's a squeamish touch and fits in perfectly with the look of the kit. The cymbals feature ii trigger zones — the edge and the bow — and can also be 'choked' past grabbing the edge. The ride cymbal adds a third trigger zone by manner of the bell.

The hi‑hat comprises ii cymbals, silvery once again, and fits on a regular hi‑hat stand, in much the aforementioned style as its audio-visual equivalent. The two cymbals are continued together by a small-scale jack‑to‑jack cablevision to allow triggering information to laissez passer between them.

Encephalon Work

At the middle of the TD20KX SX kit is the TD20X module. Physically, it's the same equally its predecessor, the TD20, only now combines the features of the original TD20 with the TDW20 expansion board, in a single unit.

The module is laid out logically, with the rear console featuring the usual choice of jack sockets. Across the bottom of the rear panel are pad inputs for kick, snare, the 4 toms, cymbals and hi‑chapeau. Four additional 'Aux' inputs are provided to connect actress pads to the kit, and the loom thoughtfully includes four actress cables for exactly this purpose. In that location is an unbalanced Left /Correct primary output and an S/PDIF digital output, forth with eight directly out sockets, labelled for kick, snare, hi‑hat and ride, with a stereo pair each for the toms and cymbals. By default, each kit's drums are pre‑assigned to these private outputs, so information technology's very quick to get an individual feed from each drum to, say, a mixing desk or audio interface, in addition to the stereo mix from the master out.

A footswitch socket is provided that can be used to switch kits, or for starting and stopping the on‑board sequencer, and a Mix In jack allows you lot to connect a CD player or audio source to play along to. The rear console is completed by MIDI In and Out and an IEC mains socket rather than an external PSU connection, which adds to the professional experience of the unit of measurement.

The front panel has rather a lot of knobs, faders and buttons, merely they are grouped together in well‑labelled sections, making navigation pretty like shooting fish in a barrel. A big LCD displays the currently selected drum kit and relevant parameters when editing, and a vivid LED brandish to the left shows the current kit number. V 'soft' function buttons under the LCD correspond with whatever is displayed on the LCD. An LED ladder shows the trigger level on whatsoever pad being hit, which is particularly useful when setting upwardly some of the trigger parameters.

The eight faders accept dual functionality, and are 'flipped' using the Fader button to their right. In its initial state, each fader controls the book of individual drums — kick, snare, hats, and so on. Pressing the Fader button switches the faders to control the level of the iv Aux inputs, Percussion sounds in the sequencer, the sequencer Backing and the Click. Although in that location's an LED at the summit and bottom of the fader grouping to show which 'mode' you're in, I did, on occasion, find myself trying to adjust the level of a drum and realising that I was in the wrong mode and fader moves were having no effect.

To the correct of the LCD are 4 cursor buttons for navigation around the screen. A large value wheel is provided for information entry, forth with two slightly oversized '+' and '‑' buttons, which are corking for pushing (gently!) with the butt end of your stick to alter kits or parameter values.

The 'Pulsate Kit' group of buttons gives direct access to the furnishings and pad edit functions, while a useful large illuminated Kit push takes you lot back to the main screen. This allows for very quick and easy editing of the kits 'on the fly'. There are also transport buttons for controlling the internal sequencer, and a Preview button so that you can edit even without having pads connected.

All the volume controls are grouped together, with individual controls for Master output, Headphones and Mix In. The headphones socket itself is conveniently located on the front edge of the unit, alongside a Compact Flash carte du jour slot for saving and loading user memory settings.

Playing The Kit

The TD20X sound module is at the center of the setup, and is able to mimic nigh any blazon of kit and in whatever 'infinite' you intendance to place it in.

At the risk of spoiling the anticipation and getting to the betoken also early, I take to say that the TD20KX SX is stunning to play. The combination of the drum‑like experience of the mesh pads and the realism of the preset kits is fantastic, and so much so that after a while it'southward easy to believe you're playing a well‑miked acoustic kit rather than a gear up of electronic pads.

The preset kits cover a huge spectrum of drum types and styles, and almost without exception audio fantastic. The first kit you're presented with when turning on the TD20X is the TD20X kit. Co-ordinate to the manual, this kit 'Allows you lot to explore the expressive capabilities of the 5‑Drums'... and information technology's not wrong. The dynamics achievable are amazing, with even the quietest grace note being accurately reproduced. Equally you hit the snare drum harder, the sound opens out, with a beautiful ringing overtone. Hit the rim and the head together produces a smashing rimshot, which changes depending on exactly where you strike the head. The sound of the snare even changes equally you lot move from the centre to the border of the head. You lot can also play cross‑stick parts, and fifty-fifty play with brushes.

The toms and kick drum are equally impressive, springing to life when you striking them, and sounding very natural. Tapping the rims of the toms gives a highly realistic audio, and every bit you tap harder, the drum begins to 'resonate'.

Acoustic cymbals and hi‑hat are ever going to be tough to replicate electronically, just the TD20KX SX does a very creditable chore, particularly with the hi‑hat. A lot of playing is washed on the hi‑lid of a kit, and much of that is repeated hits, so a poor hello‑chapeau is going to stand out a mile, simply the TD20KX SX doesn't autumn short. Closed howdy‑lid, edge accents and loose, half‑open up sounds are all reproduced faithfully, with the sound changing in a completely smooth way from closed to fully open up every bit you move the pedal. Even the force per unit area of the two cymbals closing tighter volition provide slight changes in the nuance of the sound, just equally with an audio-visual hi‑chapeau. Moving gradually between the bell of the ride cymbal and the edge produces an equally impressive result and, once again, the dynamics are reproduced perfectly. The crash cymbals, although only dual‑zone, do a corking job, to the point where even a splashy cymbal roll tin exist performed pretty convincingly.

This outstanding playability and realism is duplicated beyond all the preset kits, with plenty of acoustic examples from the swing and jazz kits of the '40s and '50s, through to '90s stadium rock and, it seems, everything in between. Roland accept as well plundered their own pulsate athenaeum, in the form of TR808 and 909 kits. Some of the TD20X'south impressive 'box of tricks' manifest themselves in the class of melodies and loops that play when y'all strike a pad, and toms that change pitch when you open and close the hi‑hat, along with a host of processed sounds and special effects. The 100 preset kits would potentially exist enough for anyone, but that's really just scratching the surface of what the TD20X brain can practice.

Under The TD20X Hood

The rear of the TD20X is where nosotros find connections for all the trigger inputs and audio outputs, as well as MIDI I/O and a socket for the internal PSU.

The TD20X is based around Roland's CMOS Variable Drum Modeling Technology and features 920 dissimilar instruments and sounds, all of which can exist edited in the most exhaustive way.

Selecting a kit and pressing the 'Inst' button takes yous into a earth of shell materials, caput types and damping options that would make whatsoever tech‑caput drummer drool. Here you lot can edit existing kits or construct from scratch most whatsoever kit yous can dream up. Information technology'due south similar someone'south given you lot the keys to the drum mill!

As you hitting a pad, an epitome of the virtual drum (or cymbal) appears on the LCD. You can either whorl through the 920 preset instruments and assign ane to the pad or press the Edit soft key and start to dispense the drum itself. Snare‑drum materials vary from wood through brass and steel, and you lot can change drum depth from one inch to an outrageous 20 inches. Toms vary from shallow to deep, as does the kick drum, and you can even choose clear, coated or pinstripe heads. Muffling is in the form of virtual gaffer tape, 'doughnuts' or even a blanket in the boot, all with graphic representations on screen (when y'all tune a drum, a little drum key turns!). The cymbals have similar editing flexibility. I had not bad fun creating a xl‑inch ride cymbal complete with sizzle rivets! Every bit if that'southward not enough, you tin can fifty-fifty vary the mic position for each drum and cymbal. There are some nice touches that add to the realism of the audio-visual kits, such as the ability to make the snare drum 'fizz' when other drums are striking and the toms resonate when the kick drum is hitting hard.

You can assign any voice to any of the trigger zones in a pad or cymbal, and in addition to elementary voices, it's also possible to assign an internal sequence to whatever of the pads. These can so be triggered by hit the pad, which really does open up some possibilities.

A comprehensive palette of effects includes pinch and EQ, which are available for each private pad, while Ambience and Multi Effects are applied to the kit as a whole. An additional Master Compressor and EQ can also be applied to the terminal output stage of any kit. The compressor, EQ and multi effects are much equally y'all might expect from Roland, with the usual selection of loftier‑quality modulation effects, delays and distortions, while the Ambient settings allow you lot to edit room type, size, and shape, together with wall fabric and mic position. Striking the Mixer push button brings up a great little virtual mixer that uses the faders and makes it very uncomplicated to adjust the send level of each drum to both Ambience and Multi Effects.

The only criticism I have is that there doesn't announced to be an edit buffer. While running through some of the editing parameters, I happily fabricated random edits to the preset kits, non realising that I was permanently irresolute them, without being asked if I wanted to 'Save' or 'Make changes'. The simple reply is just to re-create preset kits to user locations before yous showtime to edit them.

Conclusion

Roland's Five‑Drums have pretty much become an industry standard, and having lived with the TD20KX SX for a couple of weeks, I tin hands run across why. It'southward the closest thing I've experienced to playing an acoustic kit, and wouldn't be out of place in almost whatever blazon of session. The list of well‑respected drummers using the TD20KX SX in the studio and live includes artists such as Karl Brazil, Omar Hakim and Steve White, which underlines what a truly professional person piece of equipment it is.

This is, of course, the absolute top of the range V‑drum kit from Roland, and the toll tag does reflect that. At £5999 $6999, it does announced expensive, but as I have said before, a good acoustic kit with a set of cymbals, hardware and microphones isn't going to give you much change from six seven thou either. In fact, in one case y'all introduce a few additional kick drums, snare drums, and acoustic and electronic percussion for the more specific requirements you may have, it would be easy to far exceed this amount. (There are alternative kits from Roland and Yamaha that will set up you back slightly less and may be more suited to your requirements; come across the 'Alternatives' box.)

Factor in the ability to create almost any kit yous tin dream upwardly and place information technology in about any audio-visual space and all of a sudden I can feel myself wanting to reach for the phone to call the bank for a loan. (This reviewer and Sound On Sound mag do non in whatever way endorse over‑reaching yourself financially in lodge to obtain whatsoever piece of equipment, regardless of how much you actually, really want it!)

Alternatives

As an culling to the TD20KX SX, you could consider the Roland TD20K S or TD12KX, or the Yamaha DTX950K. The TD20K S is nigh identical to the TD20KX SX and would accommodate all but the almost enervating of players. It uses a slightly different rack system and includes the smaller 12‑inch boot pulsate pad, while the brain module is the unexpanded TD20 (without the boosted features of the TDW20 expansion board), so some of the editing features and kits available on the TD20KX SX are missing. Although the pads and cymbals are the same size and work in the aforementioned way, you don't have the luxury of silvery cymbals or the selection to change the drum shells. The TD12KX offers a meaning saving but does utilize a different brain module, the TD12, and smaller, lighter pads.

Yamaha'due south offering is their flagship DTX950K, which pitches in at a like toll. This is a fantastic‑sounding kit, and although it doesn't offering quite the aforementioned level of drum editing as the Roland kit, it does include a number of unique features. The DTX900 module is the only sampling drum module on the market, so for playing the drum sounds from your album live, it's the perfect tool. In the studio, the DTX950K likewise boasts tight integration with Cubase, giving the ability to command many of the sequencer's parameters directly from the kit.

The Sequencer

The encephalon's on‑board sequencer provides 150 preset and 100 user patterns and is organised into six 'parts': Pulsate Kit Part, Melody Part, Bass Part, Backing one and Backing 2 parts, and a Percussion part. Preset patterns are provided, which can't exist recorded into and are simply there as demonstrations of what the TD20X is capable of. Alternatively, they could be used as play‑along practice tools. When playing dorsum the preset sequences, yous can easily mute any of the parts, using the soft function keys, and adjust the level of the backing, percussion parts and individual drums, using the faders. Enabling the click or the visual blinking tempo push button and muting the pulsate tracks makes it the perfect practice partner.

A total of 62 backing instruments are available if you lot want to create your own backing tracks, although y'all need to connect a MIDI keyboard to the TD20X to exercise this. They cover a wide range of sounds and are fine for creating practice patterns, loops and melodic sequences. A express number of edit functions are available, merely if you were looking to do annihilation other than a relatively elementary sequence, I imagine you'd be employing a calculator and DAW.

Outside The Box

As a stand‑lonely system, the TD20KX SX is a truly awesome piece of hardware, and its internal sequencing capabilities open many interesting possibilities. Typically, though, nigh people will exist using the TD20KX SX along with some kind of DAW. In my example, that'south Logic on a Mac.

Unlike the Yamaha DTX900 brain module, the TD20X doesn't have a USB connexion or directly communication with the computer or sequencing software, it simply connects via standard MIDI In and Out sockets. Equally the pads are triggering the sounds locally, you need to ensure that MIDI Local is turned off in the unit of measurement. This means that the sounds in the TD20X are only triggered via MIDI and non directly via the pads besides, which would result in a double trigger. The drum voices in the TD20X are accessed via MIDI aqueduct 10, with the additional internal GM voices accessed via channels one to 4 (for creating bankroll parts in the internal sequencer). Recording into Logic is unproblematic, with each pad's dual trigger zones of head and rim having their own note number. With more complex triggers, such as the hi‑lid, a MIDI Controller number and value are too transmitted. Of course, the caste to which you can edit a MIDI part surpasses conventional sound editing, and once the pulsate part has been edited, you can record the drum voices as sound via the divide outputs of the TD20X.

The drum sounds in the TD20X are some of the best I have heard, and their comprehensive editing capabilities somewhat negate the need for programs such as BFD. Having said that, such programs do offer an actress dimension, with the option to load your own custom kits. BFD includes a number of keymaps for unlike input devices, and the TD20 is included in the preset list, which means that all the pad trigger zones are mapped perfectly to the BFD kits. All the subtle variations in the how-do-you-do‑hat are replicated by the BFD kits, forth with rim shots and cymbal dynamics. The TD20KX SX along with BFD and Logic would certainly embrace all the bases when it came to creating pulsate tracks.

Pros

• Plays and looks like a real kit.
• Fantastic sounds.
• Awesome editing capabilities.
• I want one!

Cons

• Re-create kits before you edit them, every bit all changes are terminal!
• No hi‑chapeau and snare stand included.

Summary

The TD20KX SX really does blur the boundaries between acoustic and electronic drums. It plays beautifully, sounds amazing and offers a level of editing that would satisfy even the most demanding drummer or recording engineer.

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Source: https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/roland-td20kx-td20sx

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