Hello Justin! in early 90 s ,russian electronic drums like Formanta ,Mars,and Rockton were very popular in Romania and the only ones you can afford .......and many bands that play at the restaurants had such drums...i 've owned a Mars drumset many years .....
Justin, Love your PD-31 breakdown, I took one of my PD-21's apart to try and fix piezo and tried to peel the rubber away from the wood unsuccessfully! I have a PD-10 with the PD-11 guts that I still use at church with a double kick pedal. I found it DOES work if you use the narrow hard rubber beaters, but regular size won't fall into "zone" to get good even triggering. I've had this set up since 1989 after my Christian metal band split up and I decided to take my kit to church, when I decided for space reasons to go to a single kick with a double pedal instead of using 2 PD-10's with 11 guts. Also you mentioned that the PD-31 rubber surface is hard and will hurt your hands. You are right! That is why I bought 2 pairs of Aquarian X-10 Lites with the red shock grips. These are without a doubt the best sticks ever made for electronic drums with rubber surfaces. They are a sturdy graphite composite with a slight flex and absorb the shock, as I've been playing the same pair ever since 1987 on my PD-21 TD-7 and later TD-6V kit at church. I am a very hard hitting metal style drummer and these have lasted 30 plus years, as well as most of my Roland pads. Best $19.95 ever spent on a pair of sticks. Virtually indestructible, unless you hit the bead against a sharp hard metal object like an angry K-7 child did one day from our Academy. It was then I found out these are actually hollow. So I went to eBay and bought another pair, but I still have one pair over 30 years old I bash on every Sunday! Due to volume issues I've recently acquired a set of Alesis Nitro Mesh pads and once I get them modified to fit the larger diameter Roland hardware, I will probably have to switch to Pro-Mark 5B wooden sticks since the one bad thing about the Aquarian X-10 graphite is, it EATS through mesh like you wouldn't believe. I had a PD-85R snare and quickly had to replace the me$$h head, and the rubber "rim", so I know these cheaper Alesis black mesh heads probably aren't gonna hold up to the graphite to mesh contact abuse. Yes I "can" play with dynamics, but I LIKE to hit hard, plus I'm lead singing most of the contemporary praise music so that's one less thing I have to think about since I'm almost 63!
In the late 80s I played a full set of Simmons SDS9s (including bass drum pad) hooked up to a Roland Octapad. They were miserable to play - it's no wonder drummers abandoned them for their original acoustic drums. It was like playing the kitchen worktop. The Hexaheads were a huge improvement but came too late for me. But I'm back with an e-kit 35 years later... Roland TD27 this time
Wow, this brought back some memories! I was hoping to see my Yamaha PTX-8 kit here. The guts are literally a piezo glued to plywood, much the SDS9. The rubber has long since hardened on the pads, although I'm still using the PTX-8 brain as a midi interface, chaining it through my original malletkat that's still working, lol. God, I'm old! lol
Excellent I have owned most of these . I started with Simmons! They were great . Although I will admit I was disappointed when they arrived back in 1987 pads were harsh and the sounds lacking . However they were ground breaking back then I went on to use Roland forever and also still use DAUZ pads which are great . Dan is still making great pads
One point that could use clarification. Retrobright isn't a product, it's a technique: submerge the piece needing to be brightened in hydrogen peroxide, and hit it with UV light for several hours as it soaks. This can be done by placing it in direct sunlight, or via UV sources such as black light LEDs. for something as large as a drum shell, you'd need a large container and a lot of hydrogen peroxide.
It seems Tama were using a completely different trigger technology in their pad. That is literally a mini speaker, the type you'd find in any cheap pair of over ear headphones. Image search LN005245 for an example. I would not have thought an electromagnetic trigger like that would give a sharp enough signal like a piezo. That's kinda neat. I wonder if their contemporaries were doing similar things or if it was just one coked up engineer at Tama with a busted pair of headphones and an overdue prototype deadline.
You know why Simmons became hot in the 80s? Van Halen was a HUGE band in the mid 80s & Alex Van Halen was using Simmons pads. So a number of Van Halen fans went out & bought them, if not for Alex Van Halen (& his fans) Simmons had almost no shot.
Outstanding video as always. But a big question for you, and I hope you can give me some info. I have the Alexis Command mesh. Maxed out set and top notch set, BUT My question is. I do NOT like how the rim shot on the snare, rubber rim and all, but not happy with the way it works. Sometimes, or should I say a lot of times the snare comes out, and that is not good. So I am hoping that you may know What I can buy as add on, say block or something, to give me that true rim shot sound. If not I understand, if so I will be in debt to you. Thanks and keep the videos coming. John
Should I get a year old, used Roland td-1dmk(bundle 500 euros) or alesis nitro w/ expansion(all together 480 e) or millenium mps-750x(500e without expansion). Might even consider a better alesis one.
If you're into collecting vintage stuff in the late 70s they had this thing called sin drum it doesn't do much but making all that same you know classic noise but it's if you could find one it's good to have in the collection
Its crazy that the only thing that changed, is the cone addition tech-wise. Im really wondering why there are no Chinnesse e drum pads and cymbals for 10$ each at every corner store and gas station. Chinnesse have copied everything we can think of for a 10th of the price of its original counterpart, yet it seems there is some sort of underground shadow deal where noone is allowed to sell some low tech plastic and rubber objects with a high selling value.
Interesting to see the engineering and craftsmanship behind these pads. The internal design of the russian pads looks rock solid like a tank and well engineered while the japanese stuff looks more like cheap trash.
hey, I have a question and I'm pretty sure you can answer it, I have an alesis nitro mesh kit and 2 of my heads are destroyed lol, i was looking around for Roland heads but im not paying 60 bucks for an 8 inch head so then i saw the remo silentstrokes, can I use them on my drum kit or it'll sound weird?
Simmons name was taken and used by Guitar Center after the company folded. Years later(about 3-4) Dave decided to take Simmons back as he was not happy with what Guitar Center had done with the brand.
As someone who was born in communist era Czechoslovakia including schematics in electronic products in that era was pretty common. Not sure why that is but I remember that some older radios even had a sticker with schematics glued inside the shells. Maybe do that repairs can be carried out at home easily. Also, flathead screw were a standard in communist countries for some reason (maybe because Phillips was a company from the "rotten west"). I can't tell you the amount of screw heads I tore while trying to unscrew a stubborn one.
what's inside vintage electronic drums? a bunch of mega cheap components and materials that they marked up 100x+ to the consumer. No doubt what's in every single electronic drum up till today.
