Reviews Used Roland Td20 Module Electric Drum Module

The TD20KX is Roland'south flagship electronic drum kit — only how does it measure out up confronting other big hitters?

Over the years, Roland have become almost synonymous with innovative pulsate 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 pulsate kit market, 1997 saw the introduction of the V‑Drum system, which has since joined this band of celebrated products.

The electric current top‑end kit in Roland's all-encompassing V‑Drum range is the TD20KX SX, which certainly cuts a dash with its five 5‑Pads featuring interchangeable shell 'wraps', substantial new V‑Kick and new argent‑coloured V‑Cymbals and V‑Hi‑Hat. Sound generation is taken care of by the powerful TD20X module.

The Hardware

This is a 6‑drum kit comprising ii 10‑inch rackmounted toms, two 12‑inch rackmounted toms and a complimentary standing 12‑inch snare and 14‑inch bass drum. Three cymbals are supplied with the kit (ii xiv‑inch crash and i 15‑inch ride), and a pair of 12‑inch hi‑lid cymbals completes the set up.

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 artillery to the rack. Those of yous practiced at counting will take noticed that that's plenty clamps for 4 toms and 3 cymbal arms. This is because either two of the cymbal arms or tom arms (depending on how you cull to gear up the kit) are mounted directly into the rack legs. The tom arms themselves are, again, pregnant pieces of hardware and use a adequately standard brawl and socket system to enable the pads to be easily positioned exactly where yous want them. This works very well and gives the whole system a very solid feel — although for my money the hex‑rack system employed on the Yamaha DTX organization seems more than suited to a kit at this level and price point.

The wiring loom that connects the pads to the module fits neatly inside the rack and can be accessed via condom grommets at the various points where the system connects together. Little black cablevision clips fitted to each tom arm and cymbal stand help proceed the whole thing not bad and tidy, and the silver‑coloured cables assist it all blend in. This is a very elegant solution to the obvious cabling problems an electronic kit will ever have over an audio-visual ane, 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 similar a lot, as it allows a great bargain of freedom in setting up the kit exactly as you would an acoustic ready. The only disappointment is that the TD20KX SX doesn't ship with either a snare or hello‑chapeau stand. I have diverse stands around that were perfect for the job, but in a top‑stop kit I was surprised that they were not included. Roland, notwithstanding, say that this is because the professional players at whom the TD20KX SX is aimed will already take their own stands and preferences for stands.

The Pads

The PD25XS snare pad features a mesh head adult in co‑operation 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 you'll get. They are constructed almost exactly like an acoustic drum with a very shallow shell. The caput sits on the crush and is held in place by a regular rim/hoop, consummate with tension lugs. The rims have a roofing of black rubber to reduce the acoustic dissonance when you're playing rim shots.

All the pads utilise the Roland mesh heads that have been an integral role of their electronic drums for many years now. Adult with probably the all-time-known drum-head manufacturer in the earth, Remo, the Roland mesh heads behave in near exactly the same way as a regular drum caput would, but produce very little acoustic noise. The multi‑layer mesh heads tin be 'tuned' to give you exactly the tension yous want on each drum, just as y'all would wait on a real acoustic kit. Of course, turning the tension lugs doesn't actually alter the pitch of the drum, just I can honestly see that happening in the not too distant future! All the pads, autonomously from the boot, take dual‑zone triggering, so can exist struck on the head or rim (or both, giving a true rim shot).

Although they're mayhap not the quietest pads on the marketplace, the mesh heads are an absolute joy to play, and being able to suit the tension of each individual pulsate brings a huge caste of realism to playing the kit. Another unique feature of the pads is the ability to change the drum shells. The TD20KX SX comes with a brushed aluminium‑style shell‑wrap, but red and blue variations are also available, should you 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 nearly took two people to lift it out of its box! This weight, combined with a couple of substantial legs, means that you lot tin actually lay into this pulsate and it feels as solid as a regular kick.

The whole kit is certainly eye‑catching, and the new Five‑Cymbals add to this with their unique silverish colour. It gives them the appearance of a regular acoustic cymbal, and although this is purely visual, it's a dainty touch and fits in perfectly with the wait of the kit. The cymbals feature two trigger zones — the edge and the bow — and can too be 'high-strung' past grabbing the edge. The ride cymbal adds a third trigger zone by way of the bell.

The hello‑hat comprises two cymbals, silvery once again, and fits on a regular hi‑lid stand up, in much the same way as its acoustic equivalent. The two cymbals are continued together by a small-scale jack‑to‑jack cable to allow triggering information to pass between them.

Brain Work

At the heart of the TD20KX SX kit is the TD20X module. Physically, information technology'southward the same equally its predecessor, the TD20, but at present 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 option of jack sockets. Across the bottom of the rear panel are pad inputs for kick, snare, the four toms, cymbals and hi‑hat. Four additional 'Aux' inputs are provided to connect actress pads to the kit, and the loom thoughtfully includes iv extra cables for exactly this purpose. There is an unbalanced Left /Right master output and an S/PDIF digital output, along 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 individual outputs, so information technology'south very quick to become an individual feed from each drum to, say, a mixing desk or sound 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 to connect a CD player or audio source to play forth to. The rear panel is completed by MIDI In and Out and an IEC mains socket rather than an external PSU connection, which adds to the professional feel of the unit of measurement.

The front console has rather a lot of knobs, faders and buttons, simply they are grouped together in well‑labelled sections, making navigation pretty easy. A large LCD displays the currently selected drum kit and relevant parameters when editing, and a bright LED display to the left shows the current kit number. Five 'soft' part buttons nether the LCD represent with whatsoever is displayed on the LCD. An LED ladder shows the trigger level on any pad beingness hit, which is particularly useful when setting up some of the trigger parameters.

The 8 faders have dual functionality, and are 'flipped' using the Fader push button to their right. In its initial state, each fader controls the volume of private drums — kick, snare, hats, and and so on. Pressing the Fader button switches the faders to control the level of the four Aux inputs, Percussion sounds in the sequencer, the sequencer Bankroll and the Click. Although there'due south an LED at the top and bottom of the fader group to testify which 'style' y'all're in, I did, on occasion, observe myself trying to adjust the level of a pulsate and realising that I was in the wrong fashion and fader moves were having no event.

To the right of the LCD are iv cursor buttons for navigation around the screen. A large value wheel is provided for data entry, forth with two slightly oversized '+' and '‑' buttons, which are not bad for pushing (gently!) with the butt end of your stick to change kits or parameter values.

The 'Drum Kit' grouping of buttons gives direct access to the furnishings and pad edit functions, while a useful big illuminated Kit button takes you back to the primary screen. This allows for very quick and piece of cake editing of the kits 'on the fly'. There are also transport buttons for decision-making the internal sequencer, and a Preview button and then that you can edit even without having pads continued.

All the volume controls are grouped together, with private controls for Principal output, Headphones and Mix In. The headphones socket itself is conveniently located on the front edge of the unit, alongside a Compact Wink menu slot for saving and loading user memory settings.

Playing The Kit

The TD20X sound module is at the heart of the setup, and is able to mimic virtually any type of kit and in whatsoever 'infinite' you care to place it in.

At the gamble of spoiling the anticipation and getting to the point too early, I have 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 then much so that afterward a while it's easy to believe yous're playing a well‑miked audio-visual kit rather than a set of electronic pads.

The preset kits cover a huge spectrum of drum types and styles, and nearly without exception audio fantastic. The first kit you're presented with when turning on the TD20X is the TD20X kit. According to the manual, this kit 'Allows you to explore the expressive capabilities of the 5‑Drums'... and it's non wrong. The dynamics achievable are amazing, with even the quietest grace note being accurately reproduced. As you hit the snare pulsate harder, the sound opens out, with a beautiful ringing overtone. Striking the rim and the head together produces a great rimshot, which changes depending on exactly where you strike the head. The sound of the snare fifty-fifty changes as you move from the centre to the edge of the head. You can as well play cantankerous‑stick parts, and even play with brushes.

The toms and kick drum are as impressive, springing to life when y'all hit them, and sounding very natural. Tapping the rims of the toms gives a highly realistic sound, and as you tap harder, the drum begins to 'resonate'.

Acoustic cymbals and hi‑hat are ever going to be tough to replicate electronically, but the TD20KX SX does a very creditable task, particularly with the howdy‑hat. A lot of playing is done on the hello‑hat of a kit, and much of that is repeated hits, so a poor hi‑hat is going to stand out a mile, merely the TD20KX SX doesn't fall brusque. Closed hi‑hat, edge accents and loose, one-half‑open sounds are all reproduced faithfully, with the sound changing in a completely shine manner from airtight to fully open equally you move the pedal. Even the pressure of the two cymbals closing tighter will provide slight changes in the nuance of the sound, simply equally with an audio-visual how-do-you-do‑hat. Moving gradually between the bell of the ride cymbal and the edge produces an equally impressive result and, again, the dynamics are reproduced perfectly. The crash cymbals, although only dual‑zone, do a peachy job, to the point where fifty-fifty a splashy cymbal ringlet tin can be performed pretty assuredly.

This outstanding playability and realism is duplicated across 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 also plundered their own drum athenaeum, in the grade of TR808 and 909 kits. Some of the TD20X'southward impressive 'box of tricks' manifest themselves in the form of melodies and loops that play when you 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 plenty for anyone, but that's really just scratching the surface of what the TD20X brain can do.

Under The TD20X Hood

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

The TD20X is based around Roland'south CMOS Variable Drum Modeling Technology and features 920 different instruments and sounds, all of which tin can be edited in the about exhaustive style.

Selecting a kit and pressing the 'Inst' button takes you lot into a world of beat materials, head types and damping options that would make whatever tech‑caput drummer drool. Hither you can edit existing kits or construct from scratch almost any kit you tin can dream upwards. Information technology's like someone'south given yous the keys to the drum factory!

Equally you striking a pad, an image of the virtual pulsate (or cymbal) appears on the LCD. You can either curlicue through the 920 preset instruments and assign ane to the pad or printing the Edit soft key and outset to manipulate the drum itself. Snare‑drum materials vary from wood through brass and steel, and you can change pulsate depth from one inch to an outrageous 20 inches. Toms vary from shallow to deep, as does the kicking pulsate, and yous can even choose clear, coated or pinstripe heads. Muffling is in the form of virtual gaffer record, 'doughnuts' or fifty-fifty a blanket in the kick, all with graphic representations on screen (when yous tune a drum, a niggling drum primal turns!). The cymbals have like editing flexibility. I had great fun creating a 40‑inch ride cymbal complete with sizzle rivets! As if that's not enough, yous can even vary the mic position for each drum and cymbal. There are some squeamish touches that add together to the realism of the acoustic kits, such equally the power to make the snare drum 'buzz' when other drums are hit and the toms resonate when the kicking drum is hit hard.

You can assign any vocalism to any of the trigger zones in a pad or cymbal, and in addition to elementary voices, information technology's also possible to assign an internal sequence to any of the pads. These can then be triggered by hitting the pad, which actually does open up some possibilities.

A comprehensive palette of effects includes compression and EQ, which are available for each individual pad, while Ambience and Multi Effects are applied to the kit as a whole. An boosted Primary Compressor and EQ can as well be applied to the final output stage of any kit. The compressor, EQ and multi effects are much as you might expect from Roland, with the usual selection of high‑quality modulation effects, delays and distortions, while the Ambient settings allow y'all to edit room type, size, and shape, together with wall material and mic position. Hitting the Mixer button brings up a groovy piddling virtual mixer that uses the faders and makes it very elementary to adjust the transport level of each pulsate to both Ambience and Multi Effects.

The only criticism I take is that there doesn't announced to be an edit buffer. While running through some of the editing parameters, I happily made random edits to the preset kits, not realising that I was permanently changing them, without beingness asked if I wanted to 'Save' or 'Make changes'. The simple reply is just to copy preset kits to user locations before you start to edit them.

Conclusion

Roland's V‑Drums have pretty much get an industry standard, and having lived with the TD20KX SX for a couple of weeks, I can easily run into why. It's the closest affair I've experienced to playing an acoustic kit, and wouldn't be out of identify in well-nigh any blazon of session. The listing 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 piece of equipment information technology is.

This is, of form, the accented elevation of the range 5‑drum kit from Roland, and the price tag does reflect that. At £5999 $6999, it does appear expensive, but every bit I have said before, a adept acoustic kit with a ready of cymbals, hardware and microphones isn't going to give you much change from half-dozen vii k either. In fact, once you introduce a few additional kick drums, snare drums, and audio-visual and electronic percussion for the more specific requirements y'all may accept, information technology would be piece of cake to far exceed this corporeality. (There are alternative kits from Roland and Yamaha that volition set you dorsum slightly less and may be more suited to your requirements; come across the 'Alternatives' box.)

Cistron in the power to create most whatsoever kit you tin dream up and identify information technology in about any acoustic space and suddenly I tin can experience myself wanting to reach for the phone to call the bank for a loan. (This reviewer and Sound On Audio magazine practice not in any fashion endorse over‑reaching yourself financially in order to obtain any piece of equipment, regardless of how much you really, really want it!)

Alternatives

As an alternative to the TD20KX SX, you lot could consider the Roland TD20K S or TD12KX, or the Yamaha DTX950K. The TD20G S is almost identical to the TD20KX SX and would accommodate all simply the most demanding of players. It uses a slightly unlike rack organization and includes the smaller 12‑inch kick pulsate pad, while the encephalon 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 same way, you don't take the luxury of silver cymbals or the selection to change the pulsate shells. The TD12KX offers a pregnant saving simply does utilize a different brain module, the TD12, and smaller, lighter pads.

Yamaha'southward offer is their flagship DTX950K, which pitches in at a similar price. This is a fantastic‑sounding kit, and although information technology doesn't offer quite the same level of drum editing every bit 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 anthology live, it'due south the perfect tool. In the studio, the DTX950K too boasts tight integration with Cubase, giving the power to control many of the sequencer'southward parameters direct from the kit.

The Sequencer

The brain's on‑board sequencer provides 150 preset and 100 user patterns and is organised into half-dozen 'parts': Pulsate Kit Part, Tune Role, Bass Part, Backing 1 and Bankroll 2 parts, and a Percussion part. Preset patterns are provided, which can't be recorded into and are only there equally demonstrations of what the TD20X is capable of. Alternatively, they could be used equally play‑along practice tools. When playing dorsum the preset sequences, you tin easily mute any of the parts, using the soft part keys, and adjust the level of the bankroll, percussion parts and individual drums, using the faders. Enabling the click or the visual blinking tempo push button and muting the drum tracks makes it the perfect do partner.

A total of 62 bankroll instruments are available if y'all desire to create your own backing tracks, although you lot need to connect a MIDI keyboard to the TD20X to do this. They cover a broad range of sounds and are fine for creating practise patterns, loops and melodic sequences. A express number of edit functions are available, merely if you lot were looking to do anything other than a relatively unproblematic sequence, I imagine y'all'd exist employing a computer and DAW.

Exterior The Box

Equally a stand up‑alone system, the TD20KX SX is a truly awesome piece of hardware, and its internal sequencing capabilities open up many interesting possibilities. Typically, though, most people volition exist using the TD20KX SX along with some kind of DAW. In my case, that's Logic on a Mac.

Unlike the Yamaha DTX900 brain module, the TD20X doesn't have a USB connectedness or straight communication with the computer or sequencing software, information technology merely connects via standard MIDI In and Out sockets. Equally the pads are triggering the sounds locally, you demand to ensure that MIDI Local is turned off in the unit. This means that the sounds in the TD20X are only triggered via MIDI and not directly via the pads equally well, which would result in a double trigger. The drum voices in the TD20X are accessed via MIDI aqueduct 10, with the boosted internal GM voices accessed via channels one to four (for creating backing parts in the internal sequencer). Recording into Logic is simple, with each pad's dual trigger zones of head and rim having their own note number. With more circuitous triggers, such as the hi‑lid, a MIDI Controller number and value are also transmitted. Of course, the degree to which you can edit a MIDI role surpasses conventional audio editing, and once the drum office has been edited, you can record the drum voices as audio via the separate 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 equally BFD. Having said that, such programs practice offer an actress dimension, with the option to load your own custom kits. BFD includes a number of keymaps for dissimilar 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 hi‑hat are replicated past the BFD kits, along with rim shots and cymbal dynamics. The TD20KX SX along with BFD and Logic would certainly encompass all the bases when it came to creating drum tracks.

Pros

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

Cons

• Re-create kits before you edit them, as all changes are final!
• No hi‑hat and snare stand up 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 nigh demanding drummer or recording engineer.

information

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

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