EFNOTE Pro First Impressions 

@N - Roland makes kits at all price points. People don’t have an inalienable right to top-of-the-line everything at rock-bottom prices.

@N the price of this kit gets you the 5 piece vad706 with two baby crash cymbals.

If they start making digital offerings then I’m all in

This EFNOTE PRO kit looks amazing and the cable stage DI box is a great feature. I play a 2box Drummit 5 ekit that has a 64Gb SD card nearly full of multilayered samples. I have sampled my own acoustic Sonor kit and being able to play my drums with the heads and tuning I like on a ekit is amazing. Please consider adding the ability to import your own multilayered, roundrobin samples to your modules. Maybe keep the ambience & reverb+ comp+ EQ but have 3 adjustments available, effects on each instrument, effects on the main output (save different scenes for different live venues, studio and practice) and different effect on the headhones output.

@@sammcdouall4849 Thank you for this feedback, Sam. The approach to the PRO system is to let the FOH be the engineer and send them exactly what they need to do that, so there wont be any synth/modeled verbs in the module. This is needed at the pro level to solve the stage volume issue without compromising the sound with less than great verb coming from the module. These drums were recorded so well for this module, there is natural stereo ambience in the samples, the FOH mixer in me loves them to death. Love the Drummit 5 BTW, and what you're doing with it! I've been a proponent of adding sound loading since the beginning but understand more now the balance of what spends the memory and drives up the price, vs what is really needed for the pro level. You can run another module or multi-pad through this module to the house with all of your own samples. Thanks for adding to the convo with this request, it will be considered!

@@ArtesiaProNorthAmerica But suppose you wanted a reverb _effect_ that was specific to a drum, like a Phil Collins-style compressed room sound on a snare? I feel like there's a baby-bathwater issue here.

@@flanger001 Thanks for your input. Effects like that would be be done at front of house, where they can actually be tuned to the room they're being played in. The concept we're using is sending FOH clean, clear samples to be processed professionally on the spot. All of our other modules have 8 types of reverb, but for the PRO we want to let the the engineer do their gig and the drummer do theirs. This allows the engineer to push (and compress if needed) real air in the room they're mixing. In the super rare case that internal module ambience is needed for a live gig, a much better option is using USB from the module to trigger SD3, then just send it back through the module straight to the house on channels 11-12. The kit is really made for a pro application, where the drummer is part of a production. team. I'm sitting in a venue lobby now listening to the kit being sound checked with this exact application, and it sounds incredible.

@@ArtesiaProNorthAmerica I hear all of this but I think this is both a) being a little obtuse and b) doubling down on what I and many other people (including the video creator) think is a questionable design decision. In a perfect world, drummers would just drum and engineers would just engineer. But we both know that this drum kit will be sold to more people than just those with pro teams, and it will be used by people in more contexts than just live no matter how many times you say "this is a live kit and a live kit only", and removing the ambience options just to suggest a $400 VST seems like a weird hill to die on.

Hey thanks man! The mimic would work with everything here except for the EFNOTE hihat. It uses an uncommon connector type.

I was just thinking to myself this guy and his videos are straight professional!!

​@@65Drums Did you get to try ddrum's new NIO multipad?

@@Mr-Keyes Theres alot of information about it elsewhere if youre interested. That product isnt exactly new, its just an OEM'd product that goes under Gear4Music DD90, dbdrums nPad and HXW PD-705 (maybe more even) I know eDrum Workshop has a couple videos about them

@@Mr-Keyes I saw it and talked to the ddrum guy, but I didn't play it. I've played the original multi pad the NIO was based on years ago. It's a re-skin of existing hardware

Lol. Not being broke would be dope.

@@chadbartlett5922 if I wasn't broke I'd have a little home studio dropping some heat

If you had 10G and bought this, you would then be broke,, and with all of its great features, there are still too many shortcomings as outlined in this video, for this price point...

Yeah 10k is overpriced i see it more in 7.5k range. But even that is way too expensive for me

Pay in 4 once again

Yes i agree that was the reason to go for efnote 3.

Exactly. In fact I wouldn't even use a TD 30 or 50, because FOR Me, that too much gear. I like small compact kits coz a lot of venues you hardly even fit a kit on the stage - even a small one. Some venues I've played, a SPD - 30 would be perfect.

@@IansDrumsandBass Not sure how the TD30 is too much gear. We toured with it for 8 years. Two rolling bags and the frame. Sets up in minutes. Sounds great without any effort.

@@DMDvideo10 Its huge in comparison to a TD - 11KV, or a TD - 17. Even those are a bit big for some venues I've played in.

@@IansDrumsandBass We also carried a portable 5x6'x1 drum riser that sets up in minutes. That's a pretty small footprint for a drum set. I've done gigs in people's living rooms and on small decks. In the 80s my drummer need a minimum 8x8' for his 13 piece Tama!

Any problems with anything yet? Trying to get a handle on reliabilty because they look and sound great.

@@johndef5075 So far, everything is holding up really well. The kit honestly looks brand new after having it for a year (particularly love how clean the cymbals still look with a complete lack of stick marks!) I did have an issue with one of my crash cymbals vibrating a bit out of the box, but EFNOTE took care of me with a swift replacement. In fact, Michael Bedard (seen playing at the start of the video) is the customer facing rep who was a big reason for me taking the plunge after being a loyal Roland user. He is super responsive and helpful and is always there if any issues do arise. Highly recommend the product and the brand. Always some risk being an early adopter of a new product, but for what it is worth, I do not regret my purchase and, if anything, am looking to further expand my kit with more EFNOTE products. Hope this helps!

limited preset kits, but definitely not limited sounds. There are a ton of instruments in the module, and literally all of them are usable. I agree with the Ambience going away, I always haver to remind myself that this is for Pro level players specifically, who do not need it, so it goes on the chopping block for more important things, like the expansion of the library. It's all a compromise and balance to fit the right tools into the box. There is no modeling in this kit and the 8 ambience types on our other modules are modeling. Our founders put the modeling under toy box and not toolbox. Michael

@@ArtesiaProNorthAmerica ah yes, that's what I meant! I like the fact that every sound is usable, unlike other modules with 90% of sounds I wouldn't even consider using.

@@daltonidaho thanks for your feedback, Dalton!

We're asking and listening constantly in just about every platform. There were major leaps forward with this kit that were the direct effect of market/customer feedback. We sent Justin the 5X to shoot that video and are always asking for feedback. We're listening!

@@ArtesiaProNorthAmerica Job very well done. Your teams hard work and dedication is shining through. I’m truly impressed with this new product. Thank you for your kind response and your support of Justin’s 65 drums channel.

@@ArtesiaProNorthAmerica here is a suggestion for you, add a port for an external touch screen. The screen on this looks awesome, but if someone could add an external touchscreen, and then open 2 or 3 seperate sections simultaneously, it would have several benefits. During setups and rehearsals, you could have the FOH mix, headphone mix (and their related pan) windows open on the external screen, while keeping individual drum trigger controls open on the ‘box’ screen. Or if that is too complicated, then the possibility of an external computer (with or without a touch screen, depending on the users wallet), but keeping the ability to open multiple screens at once. The possibilities become multiplied, and suddenly half the complaints about ‘layers of menus’ become irrelevant. Have a look at what was done with the Soundcraft Ui24r. During rehearsals (or even shows), the parameters you need immediate access to are always right next to you, instead of 15 button pushes away. I love the ‘stage box’

@@mattryan6886 Thank you Matt! Justin has such a wealth of knowledge and access to both products and the amazing audience, he's built. We'd be in the wrong to not support!

I thought I may be the only one impressed by that snare roll!

Yeah I was at the booth for quite a bit, and got to ask questions from the EFNOTE guy

Yeah the Hi-Hat is 3 zones.

Totally the same

I hear you about the sample import. You can treat this like an acoustic kit and run a multipad through it to the house, the same way you would on a pop gig with artist samples in an SPD. You can also run a VST through it to the house. There is a lot of flexibility that will come to light soon, but it's brand new so it's time for content creation exhibiting these functions. Also, this is made for pro-level studio work as well, and not just for the stage. There are actually a ton of sounds in this, but the kit slots are just to get started, tons of slots to make custom kits and there will be many sounds added to the library. We're working on them now.

true

Been wondering about this lately... At some point, the growing popularity of non-branded pads and the growing popularity of VSTs are going to run into each other and people will stop buying expensive kits consisting of overpriced pads combined with an overpriced module. Now we just need a reasonable price for the midi interface.

There is plenty of editing capability in the PRO system, but it is geared at the tools more than the toys. Individual bus compressors, tuning, muffling and layering are very useful tools that also let the FOH engineer mix front of house and the drummer drum. It has the capability to route a multi-pad through it and through the stage box, balanced XLR to the house. So it's not really trying to be the "ekit", it's trying to be the drum kit, and can be augmented the same ways you would augment an acoustic kit. It's also meant to be for a pro audience, and that goes for in the studio as well. 12 Channels of XLR to the wall, board or snake, no DI boxes. 12CH USB Audio separated and 16CH USB MIDI simul, or full MIDI by DIN off the stage box. 100% useable, 48K 24bit samples. It's just a different approach, aside from how great this thing feels and responds. It is absolutely aimed at the pro market, but there are Ringo configurations that are much more affordable for home use, practice, lessons etc. Thank you for your feedback! Michael

@ArtesiaProNorthAmerica thank you for breaking that down. I was under the impression from the review that it didn't have the ability to upload sound and audio files. Thank you for explaining this more in depth. I'm now curious again lol.

@@Garage-1881 It does not have sound loading.

Crickets! You asked the most important question! It would have been great to see a demo showing open-mid-closed hats.