Roland has become one of the most highly regarded manufacturers of electronic drum sets, due to the fact that they have consistently offered innovative equipment with excellent sounds and all the features that a drummer could want. Their kits have evolved with time and many of them feature mesh-head pads as well as simpler, more intuitive interfaces that even beginners will find addicting.
The Roland TD9SX V-Tour is a perfect example of this trend. The set is powerful enough for most users, but abstains from pro-level features that would overwhelm newbies with needless complexity.
The Roland TD9SX V-Tour, an upgraded version of the TD-9S, comprises of the TD-9 module and five drums that have black shells and mesh heads: three dual-trigger tom pads, one dual-trigger snare pad, and one bass-drum pad. Like acoustic drum heads, the tension of the mesh heads can be adjusted to suit the player, from a loose floor tom to a tight snare drum.
All players that play mesh heads know, they dominate rubber pads that don’t let your stick rebound as quickly. Roland claims that the mesh heads offer a feel that is similar to what you get from playing a real drum, they are very comfortable to play and are a great choice for drummers with repetitive stress injuries.
Many of the drum kits are set-up so that you will get rim-shots or cross stick sounds when you strike the edge of the snare pad. Similarly, the dual-trigger toms have separate head and rim zones, with a number of rim-shot sounds prerecorded for you. Obtaining consistent sidesticks or rim-shots can be challenging because of the Velocity sensitivity, and the TD-9SX manual suggests a playing technique for achieving these reliably.
In the cymbal department, you get one dual-trigger hi-hat with foot pedal, one three-zone ride, and one dual-trigger crash. The cymbal zones give you separate bow and edge sounds, as well as the ability to choke the cymbal by grabbing the edge. The ride cymbal adds a zone at the bell for a more enjoyable playing experience. All of the cymbal pads have enough weight to feel realistic.
All in all, the drum pads are bouncy and responsive, with great Velocity sensitivity. Even when played lightly, they respond just like an acoustic instrument would.
The system includes four pad-mounts, a hi-hat arm, two cymbal arms, a rack, and all the necessary cabling. You’ll need to provide a throne and bass-drum pedal to complete the kit.
The TD-9SX V-Tour rack has four straight legs, which provide extra stability compared to Roland’s less expensive kits. I like the heavy-duty ball clamps that offer speedy snare and cymbal positioning, and the hi-hat and cymbal arms have short booms to help you find your optimum position.
Utilizing your sounds
The TD-9 comes with 522 sounds that include a wide range of acoustic drums and cymbals, orchestral percussion, electronic drums (including the Roland TR-808 and TR-909), world percussion, and special effects. Like older V-Drum modules, the overall selection and quality of the sounds is top-quality, with natural sounding drum kits, realistic cymbals, and lots of practical percussion. The multiple of choices will definitely keep new and seasoned users satisfied and entertained.
There are 50 kits in the unit covering a wide range of uses. Some of my favorite kits are the V-Tour Kit, the Acoustic Kit, the Brush Kit, and the Double Bass kit, which cleverly uses the hi-hat control-pedal as a second bass-drum pedal. Dedicated double bass-drum enthusiasts will want to use a double-pedal with the kit and the kick pad’s playing surface is large enough to accommodate one.
The Roland TD9SX also offers 50 backing tracks built from recorded sounds and loops rather than cheesy sounding instruments. The songs are useful and fun to practice along with and can help you learn to play unfamiliar styles of music. You can mute the drum track in each song using the Mute button if you want to focus on your own playing. You can also mute the percussion, the bass, or all other instruments using Edit mode.
Quick Record is an option which will let you record yourself playing to backing tracks or even just by yourself freestyling. You can add a click track to hone in on the tempo or mute the click track when recording free-form solos.
You can use the TD-9’s USB port, located on the top side of the module, to store to a portable drive your Quick Record performances (up to 100) as well as 50 additional User kits. Of course you can also change instruments within a kit and rename any of the 50 Factory kits. The USB port can be used to transfer songs as 8-, 16-, or 24-bit WAV files from your computer to the TD-9. Although with the TD-9 its almost easier to just play along with music from a CD or MP3 player because it has a audio-input jack.
Speedy edits
The TD-9 is relatively intuitive to operate, whether or not you’ve worked with electronic drum modules before. Although many of the dedicated buttons and sliders from the pricier Roland drum modules were removed in order to shrink the unit’s size, you still get easy access to the most common features. But fewer buttons on the module means you’ll do a bit more menu scrolling to reach the deeper parameters.
The module has a brightly lit LCD screen that displays the kit name and number, while the function buttons below access different editing menus. For example, F3 lets you easily switch between a rim-shot and a cross-stick sound on the snare. In the center are four cursor arrows and a large scroll knob for selecting and changing parameter values.
Besides the power button, the left side of the TD-9’s faceplate has Quick Record and Quick Play buttons, for recording and playing back your performances. The Song and Start/Stop buttons control song playback, and the Mute button removes the drum track from the mix. The right side has dedicated buttons for Click, Setup, Exit, Shift, Kit, and an especially useful feature called Scope.
Scope mode shows whether you are playing ahead or behind the click. By seeing where your notes land in relation to the beat, you can improve your drumming no matter what your level of skill is. If your looking for something thats going to give you a more exact alalysis than Scope, Roland has the Drum Tutor DT-HD1 for Windows Vista or XP. The software bundle includes a USB MIDI interface and cables so that you can use your PC to get an even more brutal analysis of your playing.
Routine edits like kit copying and renaming, changing the instruments in a kit, or reassigning the MIDI note number to an instrument is straightforward. To tell the truth I didn’t look at the manual much at all during this review, this proves the Roland TD-9 module is very well designed.
Size and shape counts
Roland uses its COSM (Composite Object Sound Modeling) technology to physically model some of its sounds, and even some of the environments included in their Ambience settings. One advantage that COSM technology has over samples is that it lets you radically alter the shape and size of an instrument. For example, you can specify a cymbal diameter of 1-inch to 40-inches—perfect for creating sound effects or for giving your virtual instruments some attitude.
Also, your TD-9 will quickly let you dampen the decay of any instrument or quickly change its pitch. Deeper editing features are available to those who want them, although the capabilities are not as extensive as in the TD-12 and TD-20.
The TD-9 features icon-based editing, so you won’t inadvertently change parameters on the wrong instrument. For example, hit the kick drum and a picture of it is shown on the screen, as well as the options for Pitch and Decay. Select Decay to dampen the drum with up to three pieces of tape, with a blanket, or, for the most muffling, a blanket and a weight. The icon changes to reflect your selection. This kind of visual feedback makes editing more enjoyable than simply changing a parameter number. You can choose one or two O-rings and tape on your snare muffling options. The Pitch parameter lets you tune the drums up or down several octaves, and you can further alter the drum tone using a 2-band semi-parametric EQ.
The Ambience setting let’s you place the drums in the room of your choice, whether it’s a cave, a locker room, a studio, or a theater. Choose your mic position: High or Low, select from: Wood, Plaster, or Glass as your wall material, and the size of space: Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, or Huge. And never fear: your edits are always automatically saved.
The ins and outs
Besides the pair of 1/4-inch outputs and the DC power-supply input, the TD-9 includes a 1/8-inch stereo input so you can jam along with music from your favorite media player. (There is no volume knob for this input, so you’ll need to control the audio level from the attached device.)
The MIDI In and Out/Thru ports allow you to incorporate the TD-9SX V-Tour in a studio environment, which is especially useful for composers who want to use the kit to create realistic drum patterns. A 1/4-inch stereo headphone jack is conveniently located on the bottom of the sound module.
Roland included two addition pad inputs on the TD-9, so you can expand your kit with an additional tom and cymbal. Just don’t forget to budget for the extra hardware necessary to attach them to the rack. To keep the cables neat and make them easier and quicker to connect, Roland added a multipin DB-25 connector to one end of the cable snake. The length of the snake is designed for a conventional set up mounted on the Roland rack: If you want to use the drum module on other hardware or set up the pads around an acoustic kit, you may need 1/4” TRS extension cables.
Ready to shred
Being packed with a variety of sounds and backing tracks, as well as the great feel of the pads, the TD-9SX is a pleasure to play. The TD-9SX is ideal for less rigorous situations, such as use in a personal studio, a school, or a house of worship. And because the TD-9 is so easy to use, it is suitable for the novice as well as the more experienced drummer.If you want to take a closer look at buying one of these great drum sets, you can get free ground shipping in the US! Just click the link to my site and thanks for reading my Roland TD9SX review.
