The first 3 points are probably some of the essential drumming topics and are worth your time to investigate more or learn more about them from your instructors. What we are referring to here is the feel and the rebound of the drums and cymbals. Electronic drums and practice pads have come a long way. There have been many proprietary products out there that companies had spent vast sums of money doing RnD to develop. These include mesh heads, rubber pads, or even foam pads. The drums' feel and rebound have drawn closer to the real thing than ten years ago, but you will notice the difference after long periods of playing.

The drums' actual air movement is hard to replicate, so are the movement of the cymbals with varying sizes and weight. These are all contributing factors to why even if we remove the sound aspect, you will still feel uncomfortable being on the acoustic drums after a prolonged practice on pads.

-> Find out other ways practice without a Drumset

Dynamics, in short, is the varying contrast of loudness. It is probably one of the essential topics most people will talk about when selecting electronic drums. One of the significant difference between high end and low-end electronic drums are their dynamics or sensitivity. The factors that affect this area in the drum module itself. You will realize that a considerable part of what you are paying when buying electronic drums is for the drum module. That is where all the magic happens.

Even with the advancement of modern electronic drums, you can get a pretty close range of sensitivity to acoustic drums, but it will never be the same. It is especially crucial if you are doing exercises that have varying degrees of extreme dynamics in it.

The most significant point would probably the tone. Even though you are playing on electronic drums at home, which pretty much sounds like the drums you hear on records, the tonality of the acoustic drums is still unparalleled.

To understand this better, we first need to understand how we achieve electronic drums sounds. When you hit the electronic drum pads, the pad sends a signal to the module (the brain of the drum), and the module triggers a sample of the drumset that you have selected. This sample, for the most, is recorded from actual drum kits. However, more often than not, these samples then go through a process to refine the sound.

When you play on both electronic and acoustic drums, you will realize that the sound from the electronic drums resembles more to the drums that you hear in records rather than what you hear while playing the acoustic drums itself. It is because the drums that are mixed and mastered in the records go through a very similar process in the post-production stage.

When you play on the acoustic drums, you get to feel the full spectrum of tones. You also get to experiment with different sounds when you play on different part of the drum heads. This is something that you cannot replicate on the electronic drums.

One of the critical things that a drummer should learn is to tune up the drum. To understand the relation between the batter and the resonant drum head and understand how different drum heads affect the tone of the same drum. It takes years of practice and experimentation on acoustic drums to grasp this vast topic.

However, if you are in it for the long run, you will find that this knowledge is indispensable and will contribute to your ability as a drummer and musician. The tuning significantly affects your tone and ideas that come out of the drums when you reach a much higher level; this is especially true during improvising work or songs that requires a sensitive touch.

We will be exploring correct tuning methods in future articles, so please check back periodically for more updates!

The worth of a drummer, as with any job or task, is not just executing. Your value as a drummer increases when you are versatile and able to resolve problems on the go. These problems, often that you will find around acoustic drums in live shows, revolve around hardware issues. We are not even talking about finding your optimal settings for your best performance; we are talking about having a functional drumset.

Most venues (at least here in Singapore) use a common drumset that bands have played on for years and years. They are not always in pristine condition, and very often than not, you will cymbal stands failing, thrones not being able to adjust to height, kick drum moving backward (sometimes even with a carpet), the list goes on and on. It is also why you would see many drummers bringing their hardware (pedals or even thrones) down to the venue for their set.

Even if the venue provides a fully functional set, your ability to adjust to fine-tune your settings is essential as very often you would find that you do not have a lot of time for setup and soundcheck during back to back shows.

-> Learn about the different kind of practice pads here

Having a set of acoustic drums is definitely the ideal choice for every drummer out there, and we would recommend it for every student with us. However, the reality is that not all of us can have the luxury, considering our surroundings. The electronic drums in this situation are the ideal alternative for a lot of us. Although there is still a difference between the two, the gap has drawn close over the years.
However, this does not discount the need to practice on real acoustic drums, and we recommend our students get their hands on acoustic drums at every chance they have.

For our students who want to play on acoustic drums but have nowhere to go, we are currently working in line with Bozzworkz practice studios to provide a discounted rate for all our students.