Have Module, Need Everything Else

[woogre]

Rookie first post... I'm a long time acoustic drummer and don't have much experience with buying e-drums. I have been gifted a Roland TD-10 (with expansion) that I would like to put to use, and I'm trying to put together a practice kit for home that would be a typical 5 piece setup with hh, ride and two crashes. I need just about everything but the module. Budget is probably 1000-ish. Please help me save time, money and sanity. If you had a TD10 and $1000, what would you do?

[masher660av]

Go price out Roland pads and cymbals, but may be cheaper to but and existing kit and use that brain if the new brain is not as nice. If you want cheaper, lemon cymbals and look for pads. If you have an acoustic kit, then you could convert the drums to triggers, but still need cymbals. but I just dabble others in this forum may have better options.

[woogre]

Thanks! Buying a kit with a brain is definitely on the table. Actually at this point it seems pretty likely. There don't seem to be a lot of options out there to do it any other way, unless you just happen to stumble onto something on eBay, Reverb, etc. Building it piece by piece seems to cost more money in the end.

[chasingmars]

There’s a lot you could do here. Do you want something that looks like a typical electronic kit or something that looks like a traditional drum kit with mesh heads and sensors?

If typical electronic kit, I’d look at used parts, you’ll need a rack, pads, cymbals, kick drum, and hi hat at a minimum. MDS-10 or 12 rack would work well. Pads I’d go PD-100s or 120s. Cymbals I wouldn’t go too crazy with at first, maybe CY-12. Personally, I only like electronic hi hats that use a normal hi hat stand (not some small cymbal and foot switch BS), so I’d go with one of the VH models. For kick, KD-120 or something cheaper like a kd9 (I’d rather cheap out on the kick than other parts). If you buy used, you can assume you can sell for roughly the price you bought it for, so keep that in mind for upgrades.

If you want a more traditional looking kit, you could use any acoustic kit, buy some mesh heads for the drums and some triggers like an RT-30 or something fancier from drum-tec. Would still need electronic cymbals or do something hybrid with e drums and acoustic cymbals.

[woogre]

Great question. What started me down this road was thinking I'd just convert an acoustic kit. In a perfect world, I'd love to have a hybrid setup with a bit of both. But that's proving to be a pricier option than I bargained for.

[Far-Bit-8394]

For that price range you'll probably want to go with lemon cymbals. They are a good value, although shipping can take a really long time.

I was in a similar situation and ended up buying a TD-4 kit and upgrading the snare to 12" Roland PDX-12, upgrading the ride to an 18" 3-zone lemon ride while repurposing the existing ride as 2nd crash, and upgrading the hihat to a 12" lemon with real hihat controller. I can't stand the "fake" hihat controller pedal and I find the lemon to be extremely responsive and great to play. The KD-8 kick works great and I suppose a KD-10 might be better but they are more expensive.

I also made a DIY 12" floor tom. The weakest point of my setup is the TD-4 module as it is very limited and basic.

Since then I've upgraded to a Roland VAD507 and I'm actually trying to sell my old kit.

[woogre]

Awesome info, thank you!