# In case you were wondering... (An honest review of Aerodrums)



## JPhoenix19

If you're like me, you have a painful relationship with the drums. You love them, but you either don't have the space, money, or living situation to own one. I've yearned for years to own a drum set I could play, practice, and record with. E-kits are a great concept, but the better ones cost a a great deal of money.

Enter Aerodrums, a system the promises a realistic drumming experience while drumming in the air. Yes, you read that correctly- *Aerodrums is basically a software-based invisible E-kit!*

Seeing the youtube video teaser for it the first time, I thought "this must be too good to be true." But the more I looked into it, the more I realized that it wasn't. The proprietors of Aerodrums are very open and honest about its strengths and drawbacks. They also offer other videos to address concerns people have raised about the system. Since those videos are easy to find, I'll only mention a few of the concerns I had and what I found out about them now that I own Aerodrums.

*How Aerodrums Works:

*The first thing you need to know about Aerodrums is how it works. Aerodrums is actually a program that runs on your PC/Mac. The program uses a Playstation eye camera and an proprietary attachment (included when you buy Aerodrums) to track the movements of Aerodrums' sticks and foot markers. The sticks are, in fact, just cheap light drumsticks with the silvery ball on the end (you could make a pair of Aerodrum sticks from your own sticks if you wanted), and the foot markers are small foam wedges with a reflective pad. When you set it up correctly (emphasis on this), and sit down and "air drum" with the foot markers on and the special sticks, Aerodrum uses the hi-motion capability of the PS eye and it interprets your movement in relation to a virtual drum set. So when you go to hit where a snare drum would be, it triggers a snare drum (and so on).

*Yeah, but drumming in the air?!*

I know what you're thinking- I thought the same thing. *How well can Aerodrums really work without any physical objects to hit?* My honest answer to that is "surprisingly well". The creator of Aerodrums actually has a video addressing this issue, so I won't go too far into the weeds. Suffice to say, for all but the most inhuman styles of drumming you can remedy the lack of physical surfaces with a slight modification in your stick grip to "simulate" rebound. So far, I've personally found it to be a benefit since it stresses accuracy and forces me to concentrate on dynamics (I'm a hard hitter naturally).

*Does it trigger midi, and can I use it for my VSTs/DAW?

*Yes, yes, and yes- but you'll need an additional (free) piece of software to trigger other programs. This is another concern that the Aerodrums creator addresses with a detailed video, so I won't go too far into detail. I can confirm, however, that I currently have it configured to trigger Studio Drummer via midi and it works perfectly with no noticeable latency.

*Ok, so what's the catch?

*Let me just go to the pros/cons to address this:

*Cons:
*
- Lighting in the room you set it up in is a major factor. For example, you cannot have anything brighter than the markers within view of the camera (i.e. lamps, windows with daylight, or bright reflections).

- Initial setup can be a pain. While there's clear instructions and videos out there to detail how to set it up, you still have to get things just right for it to work as it should. For example, your seat (and your body) needs to be in a certain position in relation to the camera.

*Pros:

*- It's highly customizable. You can add/remove individual drums and cymbals, as well as tweak the volume and velocity sensitivity of each piece. You can even "place" each piece by telling it where you want to hit to trigger it. If you get real crazy, you can get into the .ini file for a set and tweak it right down to the X- and Y-axis and midi cc!

- It sounds great. The included samples sound convincing even without triggering external VSTs. The velocity dynamics are convincing. Add on external VSTs, however, and you open it up to sounding like whatever you want.
- It's relatively cheap. The Aerodrums software/hardware is $160, and the PS Eye camera goes for about $10 on Amazon. So *$170* gets you the whole shebang. Compare that to an acoustic or e-kit for $170....... you won't get much at all.

- It's virtually silent. Drumming at "don't wake the baby" volumes is now possible with Aerodrums. Enough said on this point.


*The Takeaway

*I'd _highly_ recommend Aerodrums to anyone who is limited on funds, space, or simply can't have a full drum set where they live. You get a lot of features for what you pay, and once you get over the learning curve and configuration you get a very responsive and intuitive "drum set" to play and record with.


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## Fretless

That's pretty awesome! Not something I will be getting, but something I will definitely share with people who I know would be interested! Thanks for letting us know.


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## crg123

Hmm this would be great if they were able to give it some haptic feedback when you "hit the drum" and have that vary depending on what your suppose to be hitting (vibration frequency versus actual feeding rebound). That way your body is responding to a physical feeling without the guess work.

For the price its at right now its not too bad thought. Definitely would be fun to mess with.


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## jbab

There's two things I'm wondering:
- How well would it work for double bass stuff, i.e. can you switch your left foot between hi-hat pedal and bass drum?
- Would this be suitable for beginners? It would be great for people like me who'd like to learn the drums but don't have the money/space for it, but learning on this will probably result in negative training.

EDIT: I just re-read the first post, it seems like double bass would indeed work.


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## JPhoenix19

jbab said:


> There's two things I'm wondering:
> - How well would it work for double bass stuff, i.e. can you switch your left foot between hi-hat pedal and bass drum?
> - Would this be suitable for beginners? It would be great for people like me who'd like to learn the drums but don't have the money/space for it, but learning on this will probably result in negative training.
> 
> EDIT: I just re-read the first post, it seems like double bass would indeed work.



As you surmised, yes double bass works. You can add a second bass drum to a custom kit, or do as I have and simply move your foot close enough to trigger the single kick twice.

Being only a novice drummer myself, I can't comment on whether or not it'd be good for an absolute beginner with no experience on the drums. I suppose if you were to get Aerodrums _and_ a practice pad to work on rudiments you'd be fine.



crg123 said:


> Hmm this would be great if they were able to give it some haptic feedback when you "hit the drum" and have that vary depending on what your suppose to be hitting (vibration frequency versus actual feeding rebound). That way your body is responding to a physical feeling without the guess work.



This can be addressed, though I didn't get too far into detail in the OP. Using a relaxed German grip, you can simulate rebound with the butt-end of the stick bouncing against your wrist. It's not perfect, I know, but it is effective.

EDIT:

Here's the video where Richard addresses the rebound issue, and shows various techniques to counteract it.


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