Best Affordable Electronic Drum Kits

 The market for Electronic Drum Kit is vast and it really is a hard choice for a drummer (especially if you’re planning on buying your first kit) to make. You have heavyweights such as Roland, Alesis, Yamaha, DDrum and Pearl. Though not everyone could afford the new Pearl hybrid drum kit yet the manufacturers do have enough resources for the beginner drummers. The demand for Electronic drum kit skyrocketed  in early 21st century and the manufacturers utilized the moment and began rolling out new flagships for the people to buy. As of now, more people are using electronic drum kits compared to 20th century which was single-handedly dominated by Acoustic drum kits.

Before we get into the list of affordable drums kits, it is important to go through the reasons why I personally opt Electronic drum set. I started out drumming on an acoustic kit which was honestly hard and really unproductive. Since my learning curve was slow and the way I learnt was making up my own grooves and fills, as a beginner performer – my drumming was sloppy and I received complaints from my neighbours. That’s why I consider e-kits to be crucial – helping effectively in your learning curve, especially if you’re a beginner.

When it comes to the leading manufacturers of electronic drum kits, Alesis is right at the top along with few other quality companies. The thing I like about Alesis is that they consider those who are starting out and slowly getting into drumming. Their products are not insanely priced and the most affordable electronic kit that they offer is the new Alesis Nitro Mesh kit which actually is the variant of their flagship model, Nitro. The drum heads are mesh instead of rubber pads hence you get the real feel of drumming.

The module itself is really good for this price. With quality number of built-in kits and a few more slots for the users to customise the sounds, Alesis Nitro is indeed the best electronic drum kit to choose if you need a practice kit or if you wish to start drumming.

Announced and released this year, Alesis Nitro Mesh kit comes with the same module as that of it’s predecessor Alesis Nitro, which has a user-friendly interface with nothing really complex to deal with. So if you are completely new to electronic drum industry , you will not encounter any problem with understanding the basics of tuning and choosing between sounds. So that’s a huge plus as well! Yet another important yet criminally overlooked section of any electronic drum kit is the MIDI In and MIDI Out ports. For this price, none of the other quality drum kits offer MIDI ports. MIDI Ports are essential in developing or expanding your drum kit. If you wish to add in more cymbals then MIDI ports come into play. So, there’s that. Overall, Alesis Nitro Mesh is indeed the perfect beginner’s electronic drum kit at an affordable price.

When it comes to attracting drummers on the basis of brand royalty, Roland tops the chart with a humongous fan base. Every drummer wish to own a Roland kit. Considering the fact that Roland used to release models starting at $700, it was hard for drummers to get their wish granted. Although, it wasn’t until this year – Roland announced their expansion of their TD 1 flagship and not any other variant but a full mesh kit with wider kick pad for the inclusion of double bass.

TD1 is Roland’s starting range of electronic drum kits and most of which had beginner level features. With small modifications costing extra $100 or more, Roland came up with TD1 DMK to quench drummer’s thirst for having affordable yet quality drum kit. The price to product ratio is insane. This electronic drum kit has all mesh pads hence the name TD1 DMK(Double Mesh Kit). The module is same as that of the TD1 module but with this time the module offers a special added feature of in-built training function.

This feature is crucial for any beginner drummer. Very much helpful in getting your tempo correctly and sound professional while practising. Those days of playing random rudiments for practising are long gone, next generation of online training is here and is up for grabs. The demand for the same is high these days, especially if Roland is manufacturing it. If you are planning to purchase the entry-level series of Roland, this is the one to opt for as the TD 1K is less professional and doesn’t come with a kick tower which is a key feature that a beginner drummer must have while starting out because as you start practising on Acoustic drums on future, you would be having hard time switching from a kick “switch” to an actually kick pedal.

Yamaha has always been an active participant when it comes to Musical instruments. With a strong hold on various instruments, Yamaha does have a firm foot on the electronic drum industry as well. With a quality as equal as Roland and a Price to product ratio as good as Alesis, Yamaha is one among those manufacturers who constantly mingle with the audience in determining what we need in our electronic drum kit.

Yamaha DTX 402k is the entry-level electronic drum kit which is made of rubber pads. Even though I wouldn’t recommend using Rubber pads on a normal day, but in the case of Yamaha DTX 402k its all about the quality of rubber used. With a promising durability, rubber pads are designed in such a way that the user gets an approximately equal rebound from the pad compared to a normal drum kit.

The feature that I really love about the Yamaha Flagships are the sophisticated software features. . Moreover, if you wish to record drums and are an active drummer trying out an electronic drum kit then go for this model. The easy Rec’n’Share app allows you to record your rudiments and instantly giving you access to share around and save it.

Closing the list with the electronic drum kit that I love the most within this price range – Alesis Surge. Tunable Mesh kits, A sophisticated drum module with more than 250 sounds…- these are the two among the tons of reasons why you must choose if you seek to buy an electronic drum kit at a reasonable price.

The key feature about this drum kit is that it almost looks like an actual acoustic drum kits. With tunable drum heads and a proper spacing between drum heads – you would get the same experience as drumming on an acoustic drums. Moreover the biggest problem that any electronic drum kit owner faces is the trouble while shifting from Electronic drum kit to an acoustic kit. As in, for instance if you own a smaller drum kit with less drum spacing then, when you move to an acoustic drum you would probably find it hard to hit the drum heads properly. Moreover, in some cheap electronic drum kits, the drum heads are not properly arranged. As in, they are not arranged in a way a normal acoustic kit is arranged.

Solving all the problems faced by a drummer, Alesis Surge is surely an electronic drum kit that offers quality and professional services at a relatively lower price. If Roland were to manufacture the same kind of electronic drum kit, they would have at least priced it for $1000 or more. So Alesis proves to be the best electronic drum manufacturer to opt if you wish to get quality services for an affordable rate.