Triggering Acoustic Drums with roland eq.

[yz125racr10]

Has anyone here ever triggered their acoustic drums with Roland triggers?  How does the sound compare to a full Roland electronic set?  Is it worth it to go through the process of installing triggers and mesh heads on the acoustic set for silent practice?  What are the variations between a triggered acoustic and a full electronic set?  Does the cost/quality of trigger make a big difference?  Thanks for the input.

[Scheming Demon]

I have a little experience with this.  The sound is identical as long as the brain is the same.  It doesn't matter to the brain whether the sound is coming from an electronic drum or a trigger.  You can trigger a paper plate and it will sound exactly like the electronic kit.  I wouldn't recommend that however, the bounce isn't so great.

The quality of the trigger is ALL important.  With lesser quality triggers you start running into issues like false triggering, mis-triggering and all that.

I have tried Roland triggers and had quite a time fidgeting with all the parameters trying to eliminate the above issues and never fully succeeded.  I switched to Ddrum triggers (not the redshots, the ones with XLR output) and they worked much better.  

Triggering acoustic drums is it's own challenge.  Fully insulating the drum and installing mesh heads will help quite a bit.  You will be turning your acoustic kit into an electronic kit because you will be totally eliminating the acoustic sound.

I haven't gone that far, I only trigger kicks but there are others that have done this.  The only disadvantage to triggering an acoustic kit over an electronic kit is the sympathetic vibrations going on which have to be compensated for to eliminate over or non-triggering.

[dkraut]

so given that info, one has to ask, why reinvent the wheel that Roland has already invented?   ???

You can get their top of the line TD20 kit for around $4,500.  I've got a mint set of Roland V-Custom's with a TD8 brain that I'd sell for around $1,500.    

[chefdoug]

I never used the Roland Triggers, but my Pro Ddrum triggers work great on my home brew E-kit with mesh heads. I use a Roland TD-8 brain, everything works great. I even have homemade cymbal triggers, the whole kit cost me about $700, rather than the 2 grand it costs for a TD-8 kit, and it looks very unique and cool ;D