Review of the Roland TD6K

This is my own kit so I feel ideally placed to review it for you and give you the good and the bad. See here for a picture of the kit. I have had a Roland TD6K for 3 years and it has done me great service.

I would recommend them to any drummer to help them play better by helping to more readily facilitate practice as I will explain below:

1) Because they are quieter than a real kit you practice longer without upseting other people.

2) You can play CD's from say a little CD player into the drum brain as it has an audio in line and so play along to the music you love.

3) You can record yourself and play it back and hear how you are playing. Click here to read what Greg Bissonette has to say on the importance of this.

4) There is 110 built in songs in every style going for you to play along to help you play other "styles" if you have a gig coming up that demands that or you are doing grade exams or just expanding your drumming ability.

4a) For each of the songs you can change the tempo to help you learn by being able to go slower. Or alternatively go faster when you are better

5) There is an in-built "click" to help you "internalise" time and get comfortable with a click.

PS the Click can be one of about 7 sounds Cowbell, claves, etc or a good old voice which is my favorite.

PSS You can play any of the songs with the click and the drums muted. Every great drummer now advises on all drummers to be able to do this if they want to make a living from drumming!!

6) You can attach any sound to a pad like a piano note say C or a guitar riff and then you have a melodic instrument. I have been playing around with this alot later and it is great. The Drum brain allows you to attach loops say a guitar riff that you can then trigger with say you bass pedal Cool or what!!!

7) You can change a host of environment setting such as room, delay, decay and pitch.

8) You can change pad sensitivities and velocities. i.e hit really hard but only get a quite sound or vice versa.

9) As the drum brain is a basic MIDI sequencer and if you have a computer, you can download any MIDI file of songs you like and then download them into the brain for you to play along with and then record you own drum parts

For example I love Wonderwall by Oasis and love the drum part. I found a MIDI file of the song downloaded it onto my computer "muted" out the drum part and then recorded the song to the drum brain.

And then you can do as I say in 3 above and then you can upload back to you computer and then the internet for the world to hear you playing. This is what I have done to get MIDI files on this site!!!

PS You need to get a MIDI lead to connect to your computer. Best to get a MIDI to USB connection.

10) If you play in a band the TD6K is a great way to help develop drum parts and then record them for future editing and development. My drum teacher has just recorded his band new album's drums using a TD8K which is the next Roland Kit up in this way.

Well that is all I can think of at the moment, so to also help you here is the full details of the TD6K from Rolands site (with my explanations in bold to help you understand the "tech" speak and to give you my views on their advertise blub)

The New Standard in Affordable Electronic Drum Systems.

The TD-6K Compact Drum System arrives as Roland’s most affordable electronic drum set (well at about £800 in the UK), bringing the world’s leading drum sounds and acclaimed playability to a new price point. (Fair comment)

This expandable set is based around the all-new TD-6 Percussion Sound Module (that's a drum brain to most people it is the blue box in the left of the picture above), newly developed rubber drum pads, and new dual-trigger cymbal pads with choke capabilities (you hold them and the sound is stopped) , giving you the power to sound and play your best.(Yes as the TD6K allows you to practice for hours without annoying lots of other people!!!)

Affordable new electronic drum system based around TD-6 Percussion Sound Module and new drum and cymbal pads.

The TD-6 Percussion Sound Module offers TD-8 derived 64-voice polyphony (that means the drum brain will play 64 sounds at the same time), 1,024 high-quality drum sounds (the brain holds this number of sounds split into all the sounds of a kit e.g. snare, kick toms, lots of cymbals, cowbells congas and loads of other sounds too like old school 808 drum machine sounds, melodic sounds like a slapbass, weird sounds like Dogs Telephones and many many more

262 backing sounds (Piano, Clavi, Percussion, Strings, Bass etc)

99 kits (this is the grouping of the sound above grouped into kits. Kits include Rock, Jazz, Funk, drytight, popkit, TR909, 808, DrumnBass, lastly a user kit where you can set up you own. Also, you can change any of the kits to suit you taste)

and a 6-part sequencer (the drum brain has a channel for the drums, one for the percussion and then 4 others eg bass, piano, rhythm guitar etc. This is how the kit has 110 songs for you to play along to. You can play along with the drum part or mute it)

Five PD-6 8.5" rubber pads provide durable, reliable triggering (Yes absolutely, you hit them and they play a sound. I did have some problems with cross trigging (getting a sound playing when you don't what it) with a cymbal but I just changed the sensitives on the pad and that fix it

Two CY-6 12" cymbal pads yield natural dynamics and "choke" capabilities. (I someting use the CY6 as the hi-hat to get a more authentic hi-hat feel and they have two trigger on the bell and the edge and so you can have two hi-hat sounds. All the hi-hat sounds come with two sounds per hi-hat for the main part of the hat and the edge. There are 37 hi hats to chose from)

9 trigger inputs on TD-6 accommodate up to 11 pads and cymbals, including acclaimed Roland V-pads (I added a TD80R pad to act as my snare. It is a mesh headed drum and has two triggers that is two sounds can be assigned to play one sound from the mesh head and one for a rim shot)

Includes hi-hat pedal, kick drum trigger, stand and all connecting hardware (I can understand why they don't put in a bass pedal ? But you have to buy one yourself, maybe they think this will always be a second kit )

TD-6 module and complete system designed for easy setup and intuitive operation (Agreed, if you have some intelligence, spend some time reading the manual, you can put this kit together quickly and get a lot out of it. Alternatively email me and I see if I can help!!)

Incredible Sound and Power at a Great Low Price.

Never has so much Roland electronic percussion power been this accessible!

(For pure vestability of kit sounds well that is true. From a sound power point of view, you will have to get an amplfier as well if you don't want to just play with headphones)

With the TD-6K Compact Drum System, drummers get the all-new TD-6 Percussion Sound Module with some of Roland’s best drum and percussion sounds, responsive new rubber pads for drums and cymbals, new hi-hat pedals, a kick trigger, and a time-tested hardware and stand design. (The stand is very strong and stable never had any problems)

And thanks to the TD-6 module’s additional trigger inputs, this drum set has got all your bases covered—now and in the future. (I bought my kit 3 years ago and all the new roland kit they are making is all compatible still)

An Intuitive Module that’s Jam-Packed with Sounds At the heart of the TD-6K is the new TD-6 Percussion Sound Module.

This easy-to-use tabletop module gives you 1,024 of Roland’s best drum and percussion sounds, 262 backing sounds and 64-voice polyphony. Sounds are arranged into 99 drum kits and can be processed with a 2-band equalizer and an Ambience effect.

The TD-6 also sports a 6-part sequencer with 150 Preset songs—perfect for practice—plus room for up to 100 User songs which can be recorded in real time.

A Full Array of Pads and Controllers The TD-6K set includes five 8.5-inch PD-6 single-trigger pads for playing snare, tom and hi-hat sounds—plus two 12-inch CY-6 dual-trigger cymbal pads with cymbal choke for the crash and ride.

The TD-6K is the only electronic percussion set in its price range to offer cymbal choke capabilities, and what a difference this makes! Rounding out this system is a new hi-hat controller (You get pretty much the same senstivies on opening and closing a hi hat pedal) and kick trigger, plus all the hardware and cables you’ll need.

Expandable Design Though the included PD-6 pads are single-trigger, the TD-6 module offers 6 inputs for optional dual-trigger pads like Roland’s PD-7/9 and acclaimed mesh-head V-pads.

This gives you the ability to easily upgrade your TD-6K system to a full 11-pad set. (As I said above I use a RD80R as my snare and so the extra pad I have set up as a china cymbal on my favourite kit)

* *Six out of the TD-6K's nine inputs are for dual-trigger pads.

Eleven inputs are available in total by using an optional "Y" cable. (There are two inputs that can have two pads attached to them to trigger two seperate sounds)

Well if my words of advice have convienced you to buy a kit please think about buying through my link below as a way of saying thank you. If you are not sure and want some more help and advice drop me an email at Rob@learn-to-play-drums.com with the words "not spam" in the subject and somthing like TD6k drums in the subject and I'd love to help out

Cheers and happy drumming

Rob

TD-6K SPECIFICATIONS

Maximum Polyphony 64 Voices Instruments

Drum Instruments: 1,024.

Backing Instruments: 262

Drum Kits 99

Effect Types Ambience, 2 Band-Master Equalizer Sequencer

Preset Songs: 150.

User Songs: 100.

Parts: 6.

Play Functions: Oneshot, Loop, Tap. This is the way the songs playback Oneshot means once through and stop, loop means play until you press stop and Tap means the song starts when you hit a pad)

Resolution: 192 ticks per quarter note.

Recording Method: Real-time

Maximum Note Storage: approx.12,000 Notes (This is OK but if you record alot this is a bit limiting. As explained above I connect the brain to my computer and upload the stuff I record)

Display 20 characters, 2 lines (backlit LCD)

Connectors Trigger Input Jacks: 9 (11 Inputs). Hi-Hat Control Jack.

Output Jacks (L(MONO), R). (The large basic normal connector)

Phones Jack (stereo mini).

Mix in Jack (stereo mini). (Basic normal stereo connector)

MIDI Connectors (IN, OUT/THRU)

Output Impedance 1.0 k ?

Power Supply AC Adaptor (DC 9V)

Dimensions 266 (W) x 199 (D) x 75 (H) mm. 10-1/2 x 7-7/8 x 3 inches Weight 1.1 kg / 2 lbs 7 oz (Excluding AC Adaptor)

Accessories Owner's Manual, AC Adaptor, Screws x4

Options Pad (PD-120, PD-100, PD-80, PD-80R, PD-9, PD-7, PD-6). Cymbal (CY-6, CY-15R, CY-14C, CY-12H). Kick Trigger Unit (KD-120, KD-80, KD-7)