Roland V-Drums

V-Drums is a variety of electronic drums, drum brain modules, and related electronic percussion product manufactured and trademarked by Roland Corporation.

The primary V-Drums products are complete electronic drum kits. These vary in price and complexity, ranging from a few hundred dollars to approximately US$7,499 (MAP-Minimum Advertised Price). Components such as additional pads, cymbal pads, triggers, mounting hardware, and modules are also sold individually to augment an existing kit.

Like most electronic drum modules, V-Drums drum modules are MIDI-capable. This enables the player to use a V-Drums kit to control not only the kit itself, but other MIDI-capable instruments, such as digital samplers. MIDI also allows V-Drums kits to be controlled by other MIDI-capable instruments. V-Drums, like most electronic drum kits, can output to an amplifier, recording device, or headphones.

Each V-Drums kit is composed of the following:

V-Drums trigger devices are of four major types: mesh-head drum pads, rubber pads, cymbal pads and acoustic drum triggers. Mesh-head pads look very similar to acoustic drums, and attempt to emulate their feel. The simpler, more generic type is a rubber pad, which is less expensive, but also looks and feels less like an acoustic drum. There are several models of cymbal pads (also called V-Cymbals). The more expensive ones attempt to emulate the physical properties of acoustic cymbals of various types (e.g.: hi-hat, crash, ride), while the simpler, less expensive cymbal pads are less realistic. Acoustic drum triggers can be used to provide trigger signals from standard acoustic drums.

From an electrical point of view, trigger pads can be of the following types:

Round rubber pads were introduced with the TD-7 drum module in 1992 (previous Roland pads were polygonal) and were universally used as trigger pads for drums and cymbals. Since the introduction of mesh-head drum pads and cymbal-shaped trigger pads, standard rubber pads are only used as tom-tom and (until recently) bass drum trigger pads on Roland's less expensive drum kits. More expensive kits don't include any rubber pads at all any more.

The downsides of rubber pads are their less realistic rebound and their relatively high ambient noise level (compared to mesh-head pads), but their lower price, and increased durability, still makes them a better choice in some cases.

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