Roland V-Drums HD1

In case you want to read the product specifications please click on the following: Roland Specifications

What kind of a drummer am I?

I have been drumming for ever and love percussion. Not officially trained, but I do have a strong sense of rhythm and have played in a few bands back in college. For the pas few years, I had stopped practising due to lack of a  drum kit, space and time. I completely get the difference in good vs bad sounds and clarity and finer details matter a whole lot.

Why did I pick the Roland HD1? 

I had a new apartment which was not sound proofed and I wanted to get back to drumming. I live in India where trying out electronic drums are not easy. I had a trip to the US lined up and wanted to save some money and bring back my drums from there. I did a lot of reading on the web and decided that if it was not an acoustic drum kit, I should atleast get a basic electronic one which felt like a drum kit.
Key considerations:

• Playing at home - no sound proofing
• Size as I had to ship it back from the US
• Cost
• Mesh Snares
• Roland since the hardware is known to be much better than the others
• Ability to plug in songs and play, ability to send the output to a computer was necessary
• Ease of use

What has my experience been?

Pluses

• This is a basic drum kit, easy to fix, easy to move around and store
• The mesh snare helps in giving you the feeling of playing on a real snare
• I can easily plug in iPod and play with it with a simple aux cable
• I can connect it to my amp and listen to it loud and play along when others are singing
• Cleaning is easy and I have not had any problems with it so far
• Space is not at all an issue.

Minuses

• The base is rather weak and does not really give you the sense of what drumming feels like with a pedal.
• I just heard the higher end pads and trust me the output of HD1 feels rather weak in comparison. 
• The Yamaha sounded better especially in the base for a lesser price
• The size of the Toms and the hi-hat feels a bit small when you want to practice some fast movements
• I have not tried the midi and mixing capabilities as yet due to lack of the necessary wiring.
• The sound on the head phone is far better than the sound on the amp
• The Aux out seems a bit lose and hence does shake a lot when playing sometimes leading to distortion.
• I have not tried the midi and mixing capabilities as yet due to lack of the necessary wiring.
• The sound on the head phone is far better than the sound on the amp
• The pedal and detailing of the hi-hat is surely not up to the mark. Gets a little clunky
• You cannot alter the distance around the pedals as they are in-built

Final Verdict:

• This kit is expensive and buy this if you are a learner and never intending to becoming a pro
• For every drummer, I would recommend playing on the acoustic at some point before fully getting used to any particular electronic drum kit. Else one never gets the feel and the control needed when playing on a real beast.
• This is value for money if you practice indoors. 
• If you do a lot of recording and want to mix different sounds. The basic from the kit is not amazing. However, if you have a midi out and can connect to a computer you can try interesting things.
• In retrospect, because I bought this in the US and got a good price on it, I dont regret buying this kit. However, now I do want to get rid of it and move on to bigger and more close to real drum kits (if electronic)

What will I buy next?

• I moved to London and tried out the Rolad TD-9X series and it was awesome. I will spend a lot more on my next kit since I realized that I play a lot
• I will invest in a good acoustic drum kit and probably will sound proof my house as that is what will allow me to learn better
• In the meanwhile, I will continue to enjoy the HD1

Hope this review was useful.