The #1 complaint of electronic drum users is the lack of feel, compared to an acoustic drum kit.

The quietest of notes and slight differences in hitting are what give a groove its soul, yet they don’t register on electronic drums because of a combination of 3 reasons:

Sample “Gunning”
 Even the most expensive e-drum kits work on the basis of triggering samples, which are pre-recorded audio files with fixed tone. The way drummers hit them isn’t really taken into account, so it sounds like the “play” button is repeatedly being pressed on an audio file. In the case of the newest electronic drum system, Pearl Sensory Percussion, it can sense where you’ve hit a drum (“zones”), but the sounds it produces is too artificial and doesn’t process the raw audio of your hits. As a result, there’s a disconnect between what you do and what you hear, making it hard to use them on stage and with a band. This is especially true in live genres like Jazz and Indie. 

Screen and Button-based Interaction
All e-drums, including the latest Pearl system, rely on a drum “brain” to process the triggers and turn them into sounds, tying the drummer to tinkering with small buttons disconnected from the actual drums they’re hitting. They lack the visceral control over sound that acoustic drums give, making it hard to engage with the effects that those modules have to offer.

Rudimentary Materials
E-drums are all made of plastic and rubber, with the exception of Hybrid kits, which use very simple sensors. These materials feel far from acoustic kits, and they don’t have much acoustic characteristics to use. As a result, they feel like a typological mimics of the real thing.
 




Relevant Historical Context

Pre-1900s — Before electricity hit instruments and sound reproduction in the past century, our musical instruments were highly manual, requiring dexterity from musicians, and sound was experienced in a spatial way, originating from the instruments themselves. Of course, concert halls distributed sound across rooms in a supposedly even way, it was still clear where the sound was coming from and the musician was fully immersed in the making. Enjoying music used to be entirely through performances, and since the advent of recorded music audiences have had control over what they listen to and where they listen to it, and have been able to remix the sound to create entirely new work.


Post-1900s — Musicians started learning how to record full tracks, and could record them in pieces, layering sound in ways we never could before. Electronic instruments gave us new ways of making music, with much of it being "sequenced", giving musicians the power to compose by arranging notes and designing the sound of their instruments, like never before. Modern sampling has also reached maturity, with sample libraries like Splice giving us access to almost any sound imaginable. We've opened new avenues for our minds to make music like never before, and we now have almost infinite options for production. Most recently, software synths which generate sound through different scientific and creative methods have opened up new ways to collaborate with technology. All of this was mainly catalysed by the rapid development cycles of software, which means we could innovate quickly in sequencing, production and sound design fields.


But one thing has been forgotten: the body. Modern music technology is creatively dense, but designed around static bodies and samples — the sound does not reflect what’s happening in real life. I want to change that.



Critique on Modern Instruments

Most new music instruments, sequencers and production boxes — such as the Akai MPC, Electron Digitakt, Teenage Engineering OP-1, and Yamaha SEQTRAK — are based around a desk-based production style with limited body movement, and all of the interfaces look the same — with square and circle knobs, sliders and pads.

The consequence is that you have to really know your instrument to get the most of it, and they’re quite static experiences requiring us to be bend down and barely move our bodies to play them. The amount of sensory and spatial immersion is limited - both in how we use our body to control their parameters, and also in the spatiality of the sound.




There have, of course, been attempts at more engaging bodily electronic instrument experiences. Since the 90s, Roland and Yamaha, among others, started releasing interfaces that tried to emulate physical instruments, like e-Drums and MIDI Wind controllers. But this will never truly be achieved — acoustics, movement and materiality are incredibly nuanced. Replicating reality is a futile journey. In this area, I say “truly” as this is very subjective to subcultures, instruments, and ways of playing.




Products Worth Mentioning


Electronic Drums (Most of them)
Fundamentally, these are sample-based, meaning that they sense when a surface is hit and play a pre-defined sound file. With the aim of making these a “neighbor-friendly” alternative to acoustic drums, the pads are made of rubber — yet, they produce a clicky sound which many drummers complain about.


These instruments differentiate from each other in terms of sensitivity, but not much else. The best ones, which cost thousands of pounds, are still far off from the control which drummers are capable of with an acoustic drum kit. The form replicates an acoustic drum kit with the aim of catering to the muscle memory of drummers, but the nuances of the sound are not captured.The sound of these, although ample and “realistic”, requires a separate electronic device (a “brain”) in order to work, and modifying the materials and typologies doesn’t change the sound, because it is sample-based.

The sound of acoustic drums varies very precisely across the drums and with different drumsticks or tools. Replicating such a nuanced instrument is futile, as it will always sound different, but not artfully so. 



Evans Sensory Percussion (an electronic drum product)
This was just released, and it is an iteration on the standard electronic drum triggers (sensors), which sense where on the drum head the drumstick landed. However, this demonstrates that sample-based drum experiences have hit maturity, and struggle to give the organic, physical experience of an acoustic, or electroacoustic instrument:

  • Sensor-based, so the way the instrument is hit is not directly related to the sound.
  • The sound of the instrument on its own is not useable.
  • Involves heavy laptop interaction to change sounds.
  • Relies on Evans' proprietary products to work, while electric guitars can easily be modified and new pedals are constantly made.
  • The pack costs £1500, inaccessible for most, unlike an electric guitar.


ATV aFrame
This is a hand percussion instrument with sensors much like the Evans Sensory Percussion, which know where the instrument was hit, which influences the nature of the sound coming out.

I like this, and believe that experiments with different typologies and subcultures would be great to see.

However, it is still electronic, and the sound of hitting the device is not directly linked to the sound coming out. The raw sound is not usable in recordings, as it is very plain on its own.

It also relies on proprietary technology of ATV, and would be difficult to modify and play around with like a platform.

It is also priced at £1500, which is too high for a single device.


Software Synth Plugins, controlled by USB MIDI Keyboards
These get released with incredible interfaces and visualisations, but their interactions get reduced to moving a mouse, trackpad or mapping controls to generic knobs on a MIDI keyboard. They have a lack of permanence and physicality, as they depend on a laptop with a screen, and don’t work unless all the software is running.


Drum Machines and Beat Boxes
These are designed as an evolution of the drum sound, and have an incredibly wide palette of new textures, opening up the compositional abilities of producers and musicians. However, they require sequencing and looping through a device or computer in order to make music with them, lacking the real-time, physical, performative experience of the drum kit.


Noise Boxes
These are simple boxes with contact microphones which amplify the vibration of every tap and hit and rub, making for a highly visceral experience. They tend to contain springs and other metal accessories.

These show that small sounds have the power to evoke much larger instruments when amplified, and have the compatibility with the world of guitar effects pedals, as well as an easy connection to synthesizers through triggers.

These are mainly used in the DIY and experimental ambient sound communities, with some being sold on eBay and Etsy by hobbyists.

As a category, these are a strong foundation top start with. It would be great to see these applied to specific performance environments and subcultures.


Hardware Synths and Pedals
Great array of sounds, and new ones get released all the time, yet they all feature the same knobs. They look the same and not intuitive. It's hard to learn them and remember what they all do. Many have the same standard effects parameters like delay, reverb, flange and EQ, and that could be made more physically engaging.

Important to note that they have been designed with the piano interface in mind, rather than the drums, and all iterations since the inception have been on top of this base.