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The Roland HD-1 V-Drums Lite Electronic Drums is Roland’s entry-level electronic drum set.
It gets a 4.5 user rating by Amazon (from 6 users), but how good is it really, and how does it compare to similar products by other companies? . . . let’s find out! First a couple of comments from people who’ve bought and used this drum-set . . . “Quality is excellent {snip} . . . and the pads and very nice and responsive.” . . . read more (by K. Lin, at Amazon). |
Read the rest of the review below . . .
Contents:- Features, Pros/Cons, Alternatives, Summary.
“This kit is near-to-perfect for someone who finds their acoustic kit has become too loud, too big, too difficult to transport, and too time-consuming to set up. {snip} . . . The voices are sampled and really sound incredible” . . . read more (by GCH, on Amazon).
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Roland HD-1 V-Drums Lite Features
The features of this Roland HD-1 drum set are many (click here to learn more about electronic drums) . . . The HD-1 is equipped with an external input for connecting CD-players, iPods®, and the like. Jam along with your favorite songs, and control the blend of music and your live drumming through headphones or an amplifier.
The kit Configuration is Kick Pedal, Snare, Hi-Hat, Hi-Hat Pedal, Tom x 3, Crash, Ride Drum Kits. It has 10 patterns, metronome, output and headphones, mix-in (so you can very easily jam along with your favourite tracks), and MIDI-out (so you can record your playing or use it to control external samples). You can get 0% interest financing from Amazon if you wish.
Roland HD-1 V-Drums Lite Pros/Cons.
Pros.
One of the most important features of this Roland HD-1-Lite drum-set is the MIDI-out. Several customers who reviewed it said that they would have liked more sounds, however, this is easy enough using the MIDI-out and additional equipment, such as a laptop or drum-machine, and effectively increases the range of possible sounds to infinity, which is just one of the huge advantages of electronic drum sets. One way to use this feature would be to practice at home with the built-in sounds, then when going into the recording-studio with the band, use the MIDI-out to make full use of the studio’s library of drum sounds, including individual effects for each sound as needed, limitless tweaking etc. The latency was also said to be very low by one user, at around 9ms.
Cons. One of the customer complaints from several users was that the pedals are not of great quality. Other limitations mentioned include the lack of detailed configuration settings, and small range of adjustability in terms of mechanically positioning the different drums.
Some users are unhappy with the cymbals, but other users said that they are OK. A few users consider this kit a little over-priced for what it does.
The overall user feedback is that this is a decent practice or beginners kit, but as you’d expect, not the same quality as others costing much more. See below for the alternatives to the HD1, and see our other product reports on the right, for more professional Roland electronic drum sets.
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Roland HD-1 V-Drums Lite user feedback
Here’s some more user comments from consumer reports by people who’ve used the Roland HD-1 V-drums Lite in practice . . .
“I LOVE this drums. {snip} . . . ecstatic with the sound quality. ” . . . read more (by Caro Smart “Caro S, Amazon).
“Overall it’s a great practice kit {snip} . . . Overall I can say I’m quite content of the kit.” . . . read more (by HB., Amazon).
“this has been great for my needs. It has 10 kits but at least 4 are very useable. ” . . . read more (by mxbmx930, Amazon).
“work great. The cymbals are great also. {snip} . . . Great purchase. no buyer remorse what so ever!! ” . . . read more (by Kuppy, Amazon).
“I really like how small this drum set is {snip} . . . The snare drum on this is really nice- good response and velocity.” . . . read more (by Icubus2112, Amazon).
“I used this drum set and the software to play along with the lessons in the software, and plugged in my iPod to play along with songs. It is completely amazing. Nothing short of a miracle. ” . . . read more (by K. Lin, Amazon).
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Alternatives to the Roland HD-1 V-Drums Lite
As for comparison, there are three main competitors to the Roland HD1. These are the Alesis DM6 Kit Performance Electronic Drumset and the Yamaha DTXPLORER Electronic Drum Set, and the DD-502mkII Digital Drum Set.
The Yamaha is (at the time of writing) priced the same as the Roland HD-1, with the Alesis and the DD a bit lower priced.
Comparing these drum-sets, the DD gets a 4.5 rating by users on Amazon (same as the Roland), but the snare is only single-zone. The Alesis has a dual-zone snare, and a USB interface to computer (which saves spending a few dollars on a MIDI to USB converter), one big advantage is that you can make up your own sets of sounds. The Yamaha has more sounds and kits available, and gets good user feedback too (no reviews on Amazon yet, but what’s being said elsewhere is good). So, as usual, to some extent you get what you pay for.
In summary, overall the Roland gets good feedback from those who’ve used one, with the Yamaha getting good comments too. The Alesis and the DD are a bit lower priced, and have some good and bad points each. Of course, the DD is not a well-known brand like the others, so who knows if they’re going to be around in the future for spares and support etc. There is no obvious winner here between these different electronic drum sets, so it is really up to the individual to compare features and see what fits their preferences most exactly. Going with user ratings alone, it would be the Roland that wins, or the DD if one cannot afford the Roland.
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Roland HD-1 V-Drums Lite Summary
In summary, users generally agree that this is a great drum set for beginners, but not as professional as much more expensive electronic drum sets, as should be expected.
A final thought is that a lot of people who buy these electronic drum sets complain that some of the sounds that come with it aren’t suitable for the type of music they like (while most people do mention that a few of the drum-kit sounds are great, too). This comment makes little sense as it is very easy to connect the MIDI-out (or USB-out even easier) to an external sampler, or computer, and have whatever sounds you like most (from the unlimited numbers available). For example, the Reason software has a large range of really excellent drum-sets for many different music genre’s, all offering extremely easy use as well as total programmability. The huge advantage of an electronic drum-set is that it is so easy to use it with any of millions of sounds available, (which is impossible with an acoustic set), so there is really no excuse for anyone complaining about some of the sounds that come with these electronic drum kits . . . that’s missing the point of what these electronic drum kits can do.
So, why not check the current Amazon price of the Roland HD-1 V-Drums Lite
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