Unlike traditional versions, electronic drum sets stand out through the multitude of sounds and effects they can deliver, thus providing a musical tempo for virtually any style of music. All this is done without the need to capture the drum kit’s sounds via a microphone, which also makes it easier for users to record their music in a timely and effortlessly fashion. In this respect, these drum kits are a lot more practical than standard models, along with being a bit more versatile overall.

Seeing how electronic drum sets can be quite tech-heavy, you’re gonna need to do some serious homework if you are to figure out which version would best meet your needs. We say this because not all electronic drum sets are built to the same standards, with some being definitely better than others. To give you a good idea of what’s out there, we put together a list of the ten best electronic drum sets the market has to offer at this point in time.

Best Electronic Drum Sets – Reviews

10PicassoTiles PT50 Educational Electronic Music Drum Kit

Ideal for those who are training and learning how to play drums, the PicassoTiles PT50 Flexible Roll-Up Educational Electronic Digital Music Drum Kit is easy to use and helps learners enhance their musical skills in no time. Crafted with a unique roll-up design, the kit is easy to store and extremely portable. Equipped with 7 different drumming styles, it comes with a variety of demo tracks that allows you to play along. It also features 7 different tones enabling you to create your own style. Made from durable materials, it comes equipped with an inbuilt speaker as well as a headphone jack, so as not to disturb others when using it.

9Carlsbro Electronic Drum Set

The Carlsbro Electronic Drum Set is an 8-piece portable kit that is ideal for learning how to drum at home. Thanks to its silent operation, this drum kit can be used in dormitories, apartments and living spaces where noise should be kept to a minimum. Featuring a wide range of functions and modes including a 3 digit LCD display screen, easy to use controls, 250 inbuilt drum and percussion sounds, 20 pre-recorded kits, and 10 customizable user kits, this drum set comes with 20 additional play-along tracks with a convenient feature that can mute out the drum sound. It also features a handy metronome click and comes equipped with recording and playback functions.

8Roland V-Drums TD-4KP Portable Electronic Drum Set

The Roland V-Drums TD-4KP Portable Electronic Drum Set is a premium grade device that is popularly known for its exceptional sound quality and portability. Crafted with a convenient foldable design, it can be easily detached and disassembled for quick and easy storage and transport. The kit comes with 8 pads including a kick, hi-hat, snare, crash, 3 toms, and ride cymbals. It also comes equipped with a TD-4 percussion sound module that is pre-loaded with tones, a coach/record, and play function and an FD-8 hi-hat controller. Made from high-quality materials that are durable and sturdy, the snare and tom pads come with padded rubber surfaces, giving you that natural drumming experience.

7Yamaha DTX400K Compact Electronic Drum Set

The Yamaha DTX400K Compact Electronic Drum Set is a high-quality musical instrument designed for amateur drummers and ideal for small studios and apartments. Unlike most electronic kits, this one can be easily paired with iOS applications allowing you to import tracks, take part in training programs and customize your compositions. Featuring 297 pre-installed sounds, it comes with 10 customizable kits and a variety of inbuilt lessons. Made with premium grade genuine Yamaha parts, the kit comes equipped with an HH65 remote hi-hat that produces pedal and splash sounds when half-open.

6RockJam Mesh Head Electronic Drum Kit

The RockJam Mesh Head Electronic Drum Kit is a heavy-duty 8-piece drum set that is both compact in size and easy to assemble. Equipped with 4 mesh head velocity sensitive pads, it produces a natural response and offers a great drumming experience. Featuring 3 rubber toms made from high-quality materials, this drum kit comes with bass and hi-hat control pedals that are impressively durable and efficient. Thanks to its USB, aux and midi connectivity, it allows you to easily connect to a variety of devices and gadgets to help enhance your experience. The kit also features a unique drum module that includes 30 drum kit voices and a list of demo tracks to play with.

5Eoncore Portable Mini USB Interface Digital Drum Pad Kit

Equipped with nine durable pads that include a bass drum, tom, i-hat, snare, crash cymbal and more, this electronic drum set from Eoncore is the ideal portable kit to help kids and amateur drummers enhance their skills. Made from premium grade materials, it produces the original sound of drums and provides you with a realistic drumming experience. The drum kit also comes with a footswitch pedal and drum sticks to enhance the overall experience of a real kit. Powered by batteries, it features a convenient audio input and output interface and can be used with a speaker or headphones.

4Roland TD-11K Electronic Drum Set

Another great product to make it to our list is the Roland Electronic Drum Set. Featuring a high-end supernatural sound engine that was carefully boosted to give you a natural and expressive drumming experience, it is uniquely designed for practice and performance purposes. Equipped with a wide range of tracks and professionally recorded songs from different genres of music, it helps you enhance your drumming skills and practice. The practice feature also includes quick record and play function along with a ‘Coach’ function that helps drummers brush up on their drumming no matter which level. Made from high-quality materials, it features a large LCD display screen and an easy to use UI.

3RockJam Portable Electronic Roll Up Drum Kit

Uniquely crafted with a foldable, roll-up design and construction, the RockJam Portable Electronic Roll up Drum Kit is a versatile instrument that produces realistic, non-electric drum sounds. Featuring 9 drum pads with 2-foot pedals, it can create a range of different sounds and tones. Made from durable materials, the drum pad is thick and easy to roll, making it easy to store and carry. The kit also comes with drumsticks and a power supply adapter. Unlike others, this drum set does not come with inbuilt speakers but includes an output that allows you to connect your headphones.

2Alesis Drums Nitro Mesh Kit

Providing you with a natural feel and realistic drumming experience, the Alesis Drums Nitro Mesh Kit is the perfect device for learning and enhancing your drumming skills. Crafted with 8 pieces that include an 8-inch dual-zone snare pad, three 10-inch cymbals, an 8-inch kick drum with pedal, a ride cymbal, a hi-hat with pedal, three 8-inch toms, and a crash with choke, it comes with everything you need like drum sticks, cables, drum keys, and a power adapter. Featuring a heavy-duty 4 post aluminum rack, it provides optimum stability and can be detached and stored quickly and easily. The kit also comes with a nitro module that includes a metronome, a recorder, a sequencer, 60 inbuilt tracks to play along to, and an aux input to connect other device and play along to.

1Alesis Nitro Kit | Electronic Drum Set

Known for its premium quality and brilliant performance, the Alesis Nitro Electronic Drum Set is one of the best electronic drum sets out there. Producing a powerful, dynamic response, it comes equipped with high-end comfortable pads that give you a natural feel and responsive touch. Including 8-inch drumming pads made from high-quality rubber, it features a dual-zone snare and 3 single-zone toms. The kit also comes with a kick-pad tower and a bass drum pedal along with 10-inch cymbals that include a hi-hat, crash with choke, and ride cymbal. Crafted from quality materials, the kit comes equipped with 4 post racks made from solid aluminum that provide optimum durability, flexibility, and stability.

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What To Look For In An Electronic Drum Set

Although most electronic drum sets are fairly compact and light in weight, some also benefit from a wide range of additional features intended to help you master your craft. Depending on how much you’re willing to spend, these features can boast anything from common sound effects to fully adjustable timing settings along with a vast array of sounds and percussive options to choose from. To ensure that you’re getting the right quality, you should take the time and learn as much as you can about what makes a good electronic drum set in the first place.

Drum Modules

One way to categorize electronic drum sets is according to drum models. This refers to the inner systems of the device, the ones that determine the special effects, the toms, snares, kick drums, and cymbals that the drum set can reproduce. With just the push of a button, you can usually switch between the myriad of different sounds and effects these kits incorporate. At the same time, a decent set will also help you improve your drumming skills by virtue of how responsive these devices can be.

  • Sounds – We should point out that high-end drum sets deliver not only a wide range of sounds but at an impressive quality as well. Not just that but they also offer different percussion instrument sounds like bells, wood blocks, special effects along with non-percussion instruments effects for good measure. It also needs to be said that these modules also boast the capacity to incorporate further sounds that you can download straight off the internet.
  • Presets – A good drum set should also have plenty of presets to choose from, presets designed to fit each individual module. This will not only be useful for beginners but will also enable experienced drummers to develop their craft further. In this respect, let’s point out that most of these presets use short two-bar patterns or drum parts related to specific styles in order to give the drummer a certain amount of creative freedom.
  • Fidelity – You should expect good drum sets to deliver the sensitivity and velocity your style requires. To some extent, you want the electronic set to deliver the same standards of an acoustic set and then some. This is achieved through the help of various ambiance effects designed to improve the overall sound of the kit. At the same time, the kit is supposed to nuance your style with the help of ambiance sounds and quality presents that you can choose from.
  • Connectivity – The connectivity issue is one of great importance for many modern instruments, not just drum sets. This is because many artists wish to expand their repertoire and the instrument of their choice needs to always keep up. With electronic drum sets, for instance, you often get a USB port that lets you transfer MIDI data to external devices and to import various additions to the set’s modules if needed. Not just that but some of the good ones will also enable you to export files to multiple devices at the same time.

Drum & Cymbal Pads

Seeing how far these instruments have come over the years, it would make sense for you to expect them to be not only responsive but versatile as well. It just so happens that good sets are equipped with trigger pads and electronic cymbal pads. These features perform similarly to acoustic cymbal pads, with the added benefit of providing better swinging motion, inertion, and the capacity to choke the cymbal if you see fit.

Mesh Heads

Another important component is the mesh heads that many of the good electronic drum sets out there seem to possess. These heads enjoy a somewhat firm woven construction, meaning that they respond to percussion roughly the same way acoustic heads perform. They do so with a more enhanced rebound which makes them much easier to play when compared to acoustic drums. You can also tune them to your desired tension with a drum key for more accurate response and increased sensibility.

Trigger Pads

These pads usually incorporate up to three sensors which have the purpose of interpreting the percussion as accurately as possible. A single sensor head triggers a single sound while the other two heads trigger secondary and third sounds based on what part of the drum is being hit. Needless to say, the exact accuracy of these trigger pads tends to differ from one drum set to another, with the best ones being used by high-end sets.

Amplification

If you are an experienced drummer or on your way to becoming one, you should know by now just how useful it can be to have the option to boost volume when needed. Now, it needs to be said that top-shelf drum sets are capable of connecting to all sort of auxiliary devices including amplifiers and monitoring systems. For that to happen, you might want to attach the drum set to a mixer or amplifier via an audio cable. At the same time, you want to have access to monitor speakers for an accurate representation of what you sound like.