ATV Needs To Make A Comeback (and soon) 

Thanks for the video, the feedback is appreciated. A few clarifications on the ASPR mesh heads. You are correct in that the ASPR by ATV heads are only available in Black and in 10", 13", and 18" sizes. However we can get the ASPR heads in both Black and off-White ( Cream ) from 8" to 22". We are about to place the order for those and we are taking feedback now on how many to order. Comment here or let us know through live chat if interested.

I see it this way. ATV corporate was stagnating. The engineers and manufacturing partner wanted to move forward, so EFNOTE was created. EFNOTE products are effectively the new ATV product lines, just under a different business entity.

if ATV were to make a new module, they should DEFINITELY include support for tom rims; their pads already support it! it's a good way to add sounds like cowbell, tambourine and stuff without taking away from the rest of the kit

I love my ATV Artist but ended up pairing it with a Mimic Pro.

I decided on buying an ATV drum set last year thanks to this channel. Now that you are bringing up the subject, I realized that ATV stopped sending me update and tutorial mails a while ago.

when the full atv kit dropped i was really exited about it, the 3 cone triggers was something new and the big cymbals also were nice, I ended up buying the 18 inch ride and i enjoy it, the module also had incredible realistic sounds and if it dropped in price or second hand i would totally buy to check if in person they sound also so good. Its a shame they didnt evolved from that time.

I was 50/50 on a ATV or a eFnote 3x last January. The ATV offered larger drums but I had to an additional tom and cymbal to match what I got out of the box with the 3x. In the end, I decided that, the 3x was the better value and the amount of inforI got from Mike Bednar sealed the deal. The kit sat in my living room ever since I bought it. I was just too busy. My son was playing my old dxtreeme iis in the basement. He finished welding school and has moved away. He came back home for his birthday and I gave him my kit. I'm going to try and get some money back out of the old girl as it's way more than the standard iis. The end of this year, I'll get my bonus (but I'm not planning for a pool) so I'll have have a redux.

I’ve owned my ATV Artist series kit for about 4 years. It works very well for me for practice - i want that experience to be as close to acoustic as possible. I run it through a digital mixer which I use to add to reverb to the sounds which are otherwise too dry for my taste. Plus I also use a Porter & Davies Gigster which adds further to the sense of realism. For this purpose it may still beat those artificial sounding Roland sounds. And the drums and cymbals feel good. I bought all the sounds from the ATV sound store but the fact is that 90% of the time I just use one kit that combines my favourite instruments. And really I only ever vary the snare and cymbals. And I’d love to record the kit but the module is really just too basic by modern standards. 2 outputs might be less of an issue if I trusted it as a really robust front-end for triggering e.g. Superior Drummer… but I don’t. And here’s the thing: I’ve stayed loyal to ATV while watching their products and release of sounds, and it feels like a series of missed opportunities and undelivered promises. Even the promised collaboration with Canopus came to very little really. It just feels like a company that has stagnated and is now just milking the last breaths out of its line and the R&D done before their engineers quit. I would really love to be wrong but I have seen nothing in the past 2+ years that suggests any “vitality” left in the company… e.g. nothing saying “hey folks, we’re still here and working on great new stuff coming soon”. No, all I see is a company attending the trade shows with basically the same products over and over. I’d love to stay loyal to ATV, but as things stand they have lost me really. As I said above my kit works great as a practice kit but when it eventually starts to fail I’ll almost certainly be looking at other brands that are showing better evolution, longevity and commitment to their customers.

Killer changes to basically everything camera angle and quality wise mate!

I agree and this makes sense. I never thought about products going stagnant and people forgetting about companies, but this really does happen.

I watch this channel because it is so informative and keeps me in touch a little with the drum world. I really miss the print days of the top drum magazines. I've never heard of ATV drums, perhaps if there was an ad running in a magazine I would have. In this age all you ever see is ads for things you search for in your browser. You tube channels are the best at getting info out to potential customers but only if the end user stumbles upon it.

11:16 I agree I need more cowbell

I have like 5 ATV cymbals out of 17 in which one is a secondary hi hat in td50x & strike modules setup. They are durable and very responsive 🥁

I own EXS-5, tbh I was pretty sure that atv is dead and all the engineers moved to efnote...

I was actually really interested in the exs-3cy or exs-5….

Thanks Justin for sharing with us new drum material. All the best.

Thanks for another great video as always (:

I have several ATV cymbals. I watched your review on several of them and decided that they are a good option to expand my set. I like them, especially the chinas, splash, and 14" hi-hat.

The ATV aFrame is a very cool instrument. Definitely worth checking out. Seems very unlikely it will ever be updated. Fundamentally the eDrum market is very dysfunctional in that there is not much interoperability so one is buying in to a specific brand way more than one should have to. The question is how the market can move vendors toward building a better ecosystem. Having components work together would allow companies to focus on developing really good products that can be sold to the entire market rather than churning out a stream of new kit/brain products where everyone is underwhelmed by most of them.

I bought the aDrums Expanded set a few years ago, when I thought they had a lot of potential. I even talked to some of the guys there about the long-term plans for their modules because I knew I wanted to expand my kit even more. Ultimately, I went with the Pearl Mimic Pro because I've gotten burned too many times and I don't buy promises anymore. And, it looks like that was a good idea. They said they weren't coming out with an expansion for their module, but it never happened. I really want ATV to succeed. If for no other reason that my wish to not have a frankenkit whenever sensors start going out and I need to buy new drums. My hi-hat cymbal already died, so if they go under, I'd end up having to buy another company's cymbal to keep going. It's all very frustrating.

I remember when they were going to release the hybrid kit that could also be played as an acoustic that was going to be a game changer imo. I think they got purchased by a different company around that time so it never came out or something but I wish they would make that kit. I can't even find a reference video of the kit any more. They had some cool snare and wood finish ideas. Oh yeah watching this while writing and seeing now it was the Artist kit you mentioned.

I am wondering for a while now why ATV does not even bother to release a 20" Ride like the EFNote 20" Ride, especially when the tech is said to be "identical" or coming from the same "roots" as EFNote's.

There seems to be a ridiculously high number of bad decisions made by ATV that shines through in the comments as well.

Look at alesis. They hadn't released much either. I bought this beautiful 6 piece acoustic ludwig at a discount price and CONVERTED it to an electronic set and I'm loving it!!! I use plywood to make the center piezo holder. Then I bought 50mm piezos to make sure it covers the whole drum and use simple Styrofoam cones. Put on some remo silentstrokes, lemon cymbals and it not only sounds great but it looks gorgeous! I tried putting white 1mm foam under the silent stroke heads, looks great but too noisy. I wire up the set using bass guitar jacks into the air vent and plugging it into my strike pro module. As long as the module will take the sound of a basic piezo, all should work. This is the way to go because you can convert a beautiful kit electronic cheaply. I don't need to buy one.

I'd be surprised if ATV has any engineering staff at all any more. It doesn't take an engineer to re-brand heads and hardware. I also believe the handful of Canopus sounds that were released were recorded prior to ATV US going bankrupt, hence no new sounds since then. I think Scott or Mike said near the "end" that the company got sidetracked in the A/V market for some reason and lost their focus on edrums. I still have an aDrums/aD5 kit and love it but I'm not holding out any hope of ATV rejuvenating sadly.

I would be great if they had a distributor or agent in Australia. We can't buy ATV here.

Interesting presentation. Have to say it's news to me that customers in this space are "fans" of a brand who look out for news from their favorite manufacturer. In my experience, I buy for the functions I like at a price I can afford. I'm a "fan" of Roland and Yamaha because they made kits that work for me, but I'm much more interested in new functionality or innovative products like the Edrumin 10 than in whether Roland is going to release a cowbell-shaped piezo holder. This is partly because any shaped drum is just another piezo holder, and partly because if they did, it would cost $350. Relatedly, one aspect of the industry I don't think people focus on enough is the difference between the drum hardware aspect and the console/processing aspect of the business. They should be two 95% independent businesses but we think of them as one simply because electronic drum hardware was historically sold together with a console. But that model is outdated and is eroding - why would someone pay a premium for hardware from a brand like ATV, when there's not really any basis to believe it's better than Lemon or Millennium or whatever, and their console is 80% indistinguishable from industry standard? It makes much more sense to either go entirely Alibaba or start with Roland, which has been around forever, has a massive network of users, and an established ecosystem of replacement parts, knockoff accessories, and used components.

I really like my exs-3cy. I would like a bit more room for expansion though.

ASPR is an abbreviated name for Asapra.

I appreciate your channel and advice. I have an ATV ad5 module. I'm using it with one of the factory kits a Yamaha 9000. Somehow several of the factory kits are missing. If you can, please tell me if I do a factory reset will the original kits come back? I don't want to loose the sound sample I have. Also, can you tell me if the process is easy or complex? Thank you.

This is why I prefer Roland. I dont feel like they might just disappear one day.

have you ever tested a TDA-700 v drum amp?

I have an XD3, and they could at least release some new sounds.

Hey Justin! My setup is: Acoustic kit with Remo Silent Heads > Roland RT30K, RT30HR, RT30H > Roland TD-50 Upgrade Pack (Digital Snare,Ride and Module.) I hardly use the in-built sounds and use this setup as a glorified MIDI Controller to triggers my VSTs (SD 3..). I like the RT line because I can take them on tour and make a hybrid setup (Roland SPD-SX Pro) as well. Now in 2023, Do these triggers still hold up? I am at a point where I want to buy a fresh set and get rid of the old ones because they haven take a beating on the road. Would you recommend buying the Roland RT line again or should I look at other options? Thank you :)

I was looking to buy a new cymbal but the price and quality issues I have read about turned me off. Ended up with the Roland thin ones.

I have a 13" ATV kick. I think it was a reject from quality control because the kick pedal mount is about an inch too short. I have tried three different pedals and none fit correctly. Wasted my money.

A drum is a drum. Marketing the enemy of common sense.

What does the 65 in your name stand for?

Oh what make are your black heads?

ATV is dead. I have the artist series kit with the AD5, have had it for years and I've regretted it since the honeymoon period ended - a few weeks after I bought it. They haven't brought out anything anyone actually wants, they don't seem to listen to user feedback, their support is completely unresponsive and their kits and module are showing their age. We still don't have the module expansion, that we were promised years ago. I'm now stuck with an expensive kit that probably holds a fraction of its original value, so I'll have to start again to replace it with something equivalent. It's affected my passion for drumming, and makes me completely uninterested in playing. I can't wait to get rid of it, it's making the place look untidy. If I were ATV, I'd bring out a new flagship module and give existing owners an upgrade by way of apology for the piss-poor support we've had and the false promises that never happened.