Electronic Drum Sets For Beginners

An electronic drum set can be a great way to start drumming. You get the ability to practice on your schedule without disturbing the neighbors. You also get great features that only an electronic drum set can offer:

Preset Drum Patterns that you can play along with and learn from.
Built in metronome to help you learn to follow the beat.
Audio input so you can drum along to your favorite songs.
Many different built in drum sounds so you can have your choice of drums to play. These can either be arranged in preset kits, where the factory has selected the sounds for each of the drums, or in user kits, where you get to select which sounds will be triggered by each pad.
Pricing on par with entry level acoustic drum sets.

If you are serious about learning to play drums, you want an electronic drum set that is durable and designed to give you a realistic drum set experience. Three brands have distinguished themselves in this arena, Roland, Yamaha, and Alesis:

ROLAND HD-1 V-DRUMS LITE: The entry level model of the distinguished V-Drums series, the Roland HD-1 V-Drums Lite kit is designed to fit in a small space like a dorm room or small apartment and is very portable. The Roland HD1 set has five drums and three cymbals. The HD-1 comes loaded with 108 sounds in 10 preset kits with 5 user kits. There are 40 patterns but no user pattern function. The snare drum (the one you’ll use most often) has a mesh pad, so it feels more like an acoustic snare drum than a practice pad. Best of all, you can get Roland’s DT-HD1 Drum Tutor software to learn to play on your computer. With that, you can download songs from Roland’s website to practice with and you can jam online with other Roland drummers using the Roland V-drums social network.

YAMAHA DTX500K: Yamaha’s lowest priced electronic drum set is the Yamaha DTX500K. Although this kit only includes rubber trigger pads, the kit is compatible with the acclaimed Yamaha’s DTX-PAD line of professional electronic drum pads and you can upgrade whenever you want. The kit is configured like a traditional 5 piece drum set with Snare Drum, Bass Drum, 2 Toms, Floor Tom, and cymbals including Hi-Hat, Ride, and Crash. The DTX500 gives you 427 drum and percussion sounds in 50 preset kits with 22 user kits available. Since Yamaha is one of the great names in drums and percussion, you know that you are getting some really great drum and percussion sounds. DTX500 also gives you 63 preset songs and 20 user spots for storing your own song arrangements. The DTX500 module includes loads of “groove tools” to make practicing fun.

ALESIS DM6: Long known for the great sounds of its professional drum machines, Alesis offers some of the greatest values in a beginner electronic drum set. The DM6-Performance kit is configured like a traditional 5 piece drum set with cymbals and has a 2 zone snare pad that lets you play traditional sounds on the head and realistic rim shots (or any other sound you want) on the rim. For those with a very tight budget, the Alesis DM6 USB Express kit uses the same sound module, but has only 4 drum pads and 2 cymbals (expandable to the full 5 piece 3 cymbal kit). The DM6-USB Express is priced competitively with some children’s kits, but offers you a true professional quality set of drums. Both sets use the Alesis DM6 drum module with 108 sounds in 10 preset kits and 5 user kits. The kit helps you learn with 40 preset music tracks and a built in metronome.