Roland V-Drums/TD10

First previewed at the NAMM show in January, Roland's first foray into the world of drum modelling is now almost ready for release. Nicholas Rowland brings you an exclusive preview from the official launch party.

Wherever the V‑Drums go, they raise a smile. It seems that many people just can't believe what they're hearing; electronic drums were just not meant to sound this good. These emotions were in evidence at January's NAMM show, where the system was first unveiled. Though not fully functional, the system showed sufficient promise to put broad grins on the faces of the many top drummers who heard them. In late September, the grins were also to be observed among the impressed audience at London's Rock Garden, where Roland launched the production V‑Drums in the UK during a day of highly impressive demos from drummer, singer and songwriter/demonstrator Tommy Snyder. Tommy, whose pedigree with Roland electronic percussion systems goes back more than 10 years, proved an ideal salesman for the product. Not only was he able to show off the V‑Drums in a musical context, he is also the man who has been more closely involved than anyone with the V‑Drums' development, working with Roland's software team to develop the hardware design, the system's architecture and its user interface.

The System

There are two components to the V‑Drums system: the V‑Pads (of which more below) and the TD10 Percussion Sound module, which contains all the processing power necessary to physically model the drum sounds, and acts as the 'brain' of the system. The pads have been developed to work with the brain, but contain nothing radically new; they are essentially piezo‑based trigger pads. The TD10 is where the action is, so much so that it will actually work as a stand‑alone, MIDI‑triggerable module. Lurking at its heart is a COSM software‑based engine (Composite Object Sound Modelling, Roland's take on physical modelling), as already seen in the likes of the V‑Guitar, VK7 V‑Organ and indeed the effects expansion board on the VS880 multitrack recorder (reviewed in SOS May '95, July and May '97 respectively). On the TD10, the lion's share of on‑board COSM power is devoted to 'virtually' modelling what drummers would tend to regard as the most important instruments — in other words, the snares, kicks and toms. With the snares in particular, the TD10 offers considerable potential to customise your own sound. You can change the shell material of your 'virtual' drum (wood, steel, brass), shell depth, drum tuning, and even release the snares or try different types of drum heads. And just like in real life, overtones can be damped with virtual pieces of gaffa tape or mufflers. For that matter, you can even stuff a virtual blanket inside your bass drum. But Roland says the point about COSM is that it is concerned not just with modelling instruments, but the entire audio/recording chain. So, having 'virtually' tuned and tweaked the individual drums, you can then customise the ambience of the virtual environment in which these sounds are heard. For example, you can use different types of virtual mics for each drum and also experiment with the ambient mic types and virtual placements for the kit as a whole. You can then change the apparent size of the space in which your virtual kit is sitting and even change the type of wall coverings! A couple of preset kits show off nicely the extremes to which these acoustic treatments can be taken. The Next Door kit, as its name suggests, sounds like a drummer neighbour heard through a party wall; while the stadium kit is pure U2 in Sarajevo. Add to all this a virtual mixing desk equipped with compression, reverb, delay and 3‑band parametric EQ, and you begin to appreciate that the TD10 is not so much a box of triggerable drum sounds, but a drum room in a top‑flight studio with a vast stockpile of drums, cymbals and percussion from which to build the kit of your dreams.

The Feel Deal

Of course, all this sonic sophistication would be to little avail if the system didn't actually feel right to play. Drummers are always quick to make comparisons between the feel of electronic kits and acoustic drums. Having been let loose on the V‑Drums for an all‑too‑brief session, I can assure you that they really do deliver 'the speed of response' and 'expressive natural feel' promised in the brochures. This is down to the all‑new V‑Pads, designed in partnership with acoustic drum manufacturers Remo. The main pads are the 10‑inch PD100 and 12‑inch PD120, the latter with an extra trigger in the rim. There are others (a hi‑hat controller and kick pad, for example), but lack of space means I'll have to save the description of these until my full review of the system. The new pads are not only highly sensitive, they enable you to trigger sounds with different timbres according to where you hit the pad. One TD10 preset kit even allows you to play the pads with brushes in traditional jazz style. What's amazing is that this is achieved from a single piezo pickup in the centre of the head (the secret here, I'm told, is a combination of a special widget that is able to detect the position of a hit from the vibrations of the head, plus the sophistication of the COSM software in the TD10 itself).

Other features that should whet your appetite for our forthcoming full sticks‑on review include a built‑in 8‑track sequencer with real‑time phrase recording capability and the ability to trigger sequences from pads. There's also a fully featured metronome section with adjustable time signature. And of course, the whole thing syncs swimmingly with other MIDI devices.

Finally, a word about the TD10's user interface. One area where much of the development work has been concentrated is in making the whole system extremely easy to use. As the TD10 bristles with dedicated knobs and sliders, I really can believe Roland's claim that the main functions are literally but one push of a button away. What's more, all editing actions are visually represented on the TD10's generous backlit LCD. Slap some virtual gaffa tape on a snare drum as damping and, sure enough, a little tape icon appears on the drum head depicted on the TD10's LCD. The more I saw the system in action (despite Roland's own description of the interface as 'drummer‑friendly', which rather under‑sells its capabilities), the more I liked it. After all, why deal in abstruse parameter names when all you want to do is replicate the sound of a bass drum stuffed with a blanket?

Conclusions

If first impressions count for anything, the V‑Drums system should be a winner. It offers stunning sounds, an excellent user interface, and first‑rate playability. What will prove interesting will be to test out Roland's claim that, as a stand‑alone unit, the TD10 will be of as much interest to producers as drummers. In the meantime, the good news is that not only are the V‑Drums coming off the production line, but they are on the shelves of the eight V‑Drums dealers across the UK. The bad news is that they will not stay there long, given the long list of back orders. And this is mainly from drummers who have only seen the advance specification sheet! Having experienced the demo, played the kit and even got the V‑Drum T‑shirt, I think these early buyers will find their faith has been well rewarded. As usual, expect a full SOS review as soon as we get a production model to play with.