Introducing Some Recommended Electric Percussion!

Hello everyone. Nishino here, head of the electronic drums department.
Electronic drums have been evolving rapidly in recent years, and are now used in a variety of settings, from home practice to live events and contests.
Among electronic drums, sampling pads and drum pads are used in a wide range of venues, such as by various artists in music production and by incorporating them into their drums.

In this article, I will introduce some of my recommendations for those who are considering sampling pads and electronic drum pads.
Even if you have never touched electronic percussion before, please take a look at them to broaden the scope of your future performances!

PLAYTECH / PSD200

First up is the PLAYTECH PSD200, which has the look and feel of a sampling pad! The most attractive feature of the PSD200 is that it has 592 built-in tones and 9 built-in pads, all at an affordable price. The PSD200 is ideal for performances for its sampling and looping functions, or for incorporating into a drum set to expand the range of fill-ins and phrases. If you are in doubt, why not consider this one first?

In addition, there is another product I would like to introduce along with it!

PLAYTECH / PSD400

This percussion pad contains 1577 realistic tones and 70 preset kits. Since you can assign your favorite sounds to the pad and play them, this single unit can fulfill a number of percussion roles. It can also be connected to stands such as the “PSD200ST” introduced earlier, giving it a high degree of freedom in setting up.
It also has several built-in effects such as reverb, delay, and chorus, so this single unit can reproduce multiple sounds of your choice!
It is also compatible with kick pedals and hi-hat control pedals for electronic drums, making it a great choice for all kinds of situations.

Next, let us introduce you to simple electronic percussion.

SHADOW / SH Stompin Bass

SHADOW's Stompin Bass is a tool that makes it very easy to add bass sounds to your playing. In addition to its simple construction with only one output, it folds up for easy portability. This electronic percussion instrument is recommended not only for percussionists but also for guitarists.

ROLAND / SPD::ONE PERCUSSION SPD-1P

Next, here is another simple percussion pad, but I recommend this one for incorporating percussion-based sounds into drum sets, congas, and other percussion devices according to musical genres and settings. It’s designed to be used not only with sticks, but also with hand tapping or foot stomping in various settings, so it can be set up freely according to your preference! Even if you want to change the sound depending on the song, you can easily adjust the effects and volume with the knobs.

PEARL / EM-1 malletSTATION

Next, I want to introduce the malletSTATION, an electronic percussion instrument with a slightly different shape.
This is the EM-1 from Pearl Instruments. The malletSTATION is a MIDI controller that can be played using mallets that are played on keyboard instruments.
The malletSTATION, which can reproduce not only percussion sounds but also synth sounds and looped sound sources with a feel that’s similar to keyboard instruments, may be expected to go beyond actual marimbas and vibraphones.
The 3-octave, 43-key specification is equipped with a USB 2.0 port, and can be edited with a high degree of freedom on either Mac or Windows by utilizing the malletSTATION Editor software. The malletSTATION Editor software allows for highly flexible editing on both Mac and Windows!

KORG / MPS-10 Electronic Drum Pad

This last one is Korg's high-end sampler drum pad, the MPS-10. There are 2,530 different instruments that can be freely assigned to each pad, making it a high-performance sampling pad that meets the demands of drummers and live performers. 10 pads light up in various colors as shown in the image to intuitively grasp the assignment status.

TThe following knob, which can be used to change pages during EDIT, lights up with LEDs as shown in the image, making it easy to see which page is open.

What do you think?
There are amazing electronic percussion instruments that can expand the range of performance for drummers and percussionists!
If you are interested in electronic percussion after reading this article, perhaps give it a try!