# Remo silent stroke and Zildjian L80 vs Electric Drums



## TedEH (Jun 1, 2016)

Did a quick search but didn't find any discussion about these- I'm looking into buying a drum kit and putting remo silent stroke heads and zildjian L80 cymbals on it, as a replacement for a cheap electric kit (Alesis DM5, with just the plain rubber triggers).

Some youtube clips make it sound like these are ridiculously quiet (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3f0M-ccFPA), almost moreso than what I'm using right now. The e-kit I have right now is ok, but I find hitting the plastic can still be pretty loud, it breaks down pretty often (wires breaking, the frame coming apart from the vibrations, triggers not staying in place, etc), and I do know the neighbor can hear it, which I think is a matter of how I'm literally just stomping on a bunch of plastic things on the floor- all that energy is getting transferred right into the building. (He says it doesn't bug him, but still, if I can be less annoying to people, then why not.) I have no idea if hitting a mesh head would maybe transfer less of that thud noise into the floor. I'm really curious how these products compare to an e-kit for quiet/apartment use.

Does anyone here have any experience with these? Are they really as quiet as that youtube video suggests? Are they possibly more quiet than a non-mesh e-key? Any recommendations on cheap/starter kits I should look for or avoid?

Edit: another video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlDX6buKfu0


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## TedEH (Jun 2, 2016)

I've started the process of drum shopping- found a few decent deals for either shell kits with some hardware and stands, or whole kits with cheap cymbals I can replace. Sent some messages, waiting on replies....

Anyone have any opinions to throw in before any real money is spent?


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## bostjan (Jun 2, 2016)

Those Zildjian low volume cymbals are expensive as hell. I came across a pair of hihats at a store a few weeks ago and I thought they were really nifty. I was going to pick them up, since they were on blowout and the price tag looked nice. Then, when they rang me up, they informed me that the price tag was missing a zero on it (which, my wife's smartphone revealed to be a much higher price than MSRP). Still though, they are not silent. They sound like hihats, which is nice, but if you are looking for silent, they aren't going to get you there. If you are fine with non-silent operation, silencing mats or plastic cymbals are much much cheaper.


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## TedEH (Jun 2, 2016)

L&M has sets (hats+crash+ride) of the L80s for around ~$300CAD, which doesn't seem too bad to me. I'm not super concerned with being "silent" per-se- realistically, I'd prefer to hear something that sounds like it's supposed to- as long as it's not drive-the-neighbors-crazy loud. If anything, I kind of like the idea of having an acoustic sound that I can mic up and mess around with, even knowing it won't sound quite like a standard kit. I live alone, and I've only got the one neighbor who doesn't mind the noise, it's more of a respect/principle thing really.

I'm already using some big plastic vaguely cymbal-esque looking triggers on the Alesis kit, and playing those doesn't feel anything like real cymbals- which leaves me at a disadvantage when I switch to a real kit, cause the skills aren't super transferable. You can't learn the feel for the real instrument with those plastic things, IMO. And they're still surprisingly loud in the room if you play with any amount of effort/enthusiasm/etc.


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## Aso (Jun 7, 2016)

I have Silent Stroke heads and the L80 cymbals on my drumkit and I live in an apartment. The mesh heads are pretty quite and can be almost drowned out by the L80 cymbals. You will still get transfer to the floor with your kick or floor toms but I haven't gotten any complaints yet.


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## TedEH (Jun 7, 2016)

Soooooooooo I made some impulse purchases the other day. 

I was dropping someone off and realized I was near Dave's Drum Shop and had never been in there, so I took the opportunity to stop in. I started talking to the guy working there and he pointed out that they had some dirt cheap shells (old beat up Westbury) that included a snare for $100, and they had a set of the L80s for cheaper than they had them at L&M. Soooo now I have that kit at home- the only thing I'm missing is the mesh heads, which they didn't have in stock at the time.

I find the L80s are about as quiet as I expected- if anything, it's the stands that might need some kind of quieting. When I hit one of the cymbals, the whole stand vibrates audibly. It might be a non-issue, but once I have everything I'll need to test somehow to see how much noise is really leaving the room.

I really want those mesh heads to show up soon cause now this kit is in my apartment and I can't play it yet.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Jun 9, 2016)

Keep us posted, I've wanted to believe in this setup so bad but the prices are a bit steep to drop the coin just to try it.

Looking into buying a condo and reaaaalllllly don't want to have to spend just as much as my down payment on a Roland kit.


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## MrYakob (Jun 9, 2016)

I'm so glad you posted about these, I was just about to pull the trigger on an E-Kit! I'm still weighing the pro's and con's though because it would be nice to be able to record via midi for demoing ideas and stuff. I guess I'll have to go in to Dave's and see just how quiet this setup really is.


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## TedEH (Jun 9, 2016)

^ Realistically, having just the cymbals right now, I can say that they make a bit more noise than hitting a cheap rubber trigger- but 90% of the noise leaving the room from the hats and cymbals comes from the vibrations carrying down the stand and into the floor- which isn't much different from what you'd get with an e-kit anyway. I suspect that putting something under the stands to isolate them a bit from the floor would fix that problem pretty quickly. (Maybe building one of those tennis-ball-supported-platforms or something?) I'm in a situation where I can get away with the bit of extra noise moreso than other apartment situations, but if I was in a high rise building or something with thin walls, I think it would be enough for complaints (but than an e-kit would also probably be enough for a complaint in those places).

If you're near Dave's, they had a snare setup with one of the silent heads on it, near the entrance. Without the other head or the snare wires, it makes pretty much no noise at all. My plan, once I get the heads in, is to experiment a bit with the difference the reso heads make. Without them, I expect it's practically silent, but I have no idea how much sound you get if you leave them on.


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## TedEH (Jul 19, 2016)

An update for anyone following:

I got most of the remo heads I was looking for (I'm missing one of the toms, so I just took it off the kit for now). With the reso heads still on, it's still got some volume to it. People in the next room will hear you. Neighbors will also probably hear some of it. For me, it brings the volume down enough that I can play and not bother anyone- but it would still be too much for your average apartment building with thin walls (or picky neighbors), IMO. With the reso heads off completely, it's about the same as an electric kit- you'd probably make more noise just taking all the skins off and hitting the shells.

I experimented a bit with trying to mic the kit and the results weren't stellar per-se, but it's enough that you could get creative with it and pull off a demo or two:

https://soundcloud.com/somethingunnamed/find-acoustic-preview/s-oCTrC

I used a 57 over the snare, a 58 in the middle of the kick, and a CADm179 in the middle of the room (cause that's all the mics I have right now), then blended in some stuff from Superior because the kick sounded awful and the snare was wimpy. Snare is about 50/50 mic vs sample, and the kick is almost entirely triggered, but has the tiniest bit of the mic left over in it. I'm pretty sure there's some spots where the triggers were way off, but for the sake of an example, who cares.


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## Underflow (Dec 30, 2018)

Sorry for reviving an old topic but I was wondering if you could give us an update 2 years later? Have you been able to mike the drum and/or play some gigs with your setup?

I’m currently following the same thought process and I’m heavily leaning towards building a “quiet” acoustic drum using Remo Silent Strokes + L80s. I live in a house so I care more about bringing the noise to a reasonable level for my neighbors / wife and kids while preserving the feel of an acoustic drum. The hi-hat in particular is *very* important to me and I just can’t justify spending $3K+ on a high end Roland Edrum such as a used TD-30 (TD-50 is clearly outside my budget). 

Merci


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## TedEH (Jan 1, 2019)

Hah, so much has changed since those posts....
I've now got my acoustic kit setup in a room I have access to at any time as long as I'm willing to go for a bit of a drive, so the silent setup has become less relevant. I still think pretty highly of the L80s and the silent stroke heads, since they make apartment jamming possible -> I can play them and my neighbor doesn't hear it at all, although there's a brick wall between us. The loudest thing with this setup is the contact noise / vibration of stands (my hat stand in particular sent a lot of noise into the floor), and the drum rims that are still pretty loud when you hit them. The skins are about as quiet as you could ask for, but you can't do anything about stick-on-shell noise.

For reasons-a-plenty that aren't super relevant, I don't have this setup put together right now, so I'm going off of memory, but-

Pros:
- They are actually pretty quiet. I also had an acoustic kit with those foam mutes for a while - if a full kit is 100% loud, and the mutes make it 50% loud, the L80s and Silent heads are maybe 15-20% of that loudness.
- I really like the feel and sound of the hi-hats. They don't sound like starter hats or toys or anything, they make a pretty satisfying sound to play just on their own. I've been debating trying to find a way to incorporate them into something, maybe as part of a stack on the real kit.
- You get the choice of keeping or taking of the reso skins - the tradeoff being some volume vs some of the natural tone of the shells.

Cons:
- The hats withstood everything I threw at them but the other L80s I had eventually cracked apart pretty badly. I've definitely was a hard-hitter and have learned to stop doing that as much, but they weren't able to take the beating at the time. A better drummer than me probably wouldn't have this problem, but I was a bit disappointed at how they didn't last that long (maybe a year).
- If anyone is directly below you, or the walls are thin, they'll absolutely still know you're playing. It won't be shouting-over-the-noise kind of a thing, but I could see it bothering a neighbor below you, or right next door if the places aren't well isolated. I just happen to be lucky in that regard.


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## klimbo (Feb 11, 2019)

TedEH said:


> Soooooooooo I made some impulse purchases the other day.
> 
> I was dropping someone off and realized I was near Dave's Drum Shop and had never been in there, so I took the opportunity to stop in. I started talking to the guy working there and he pointed out that they had some dirt cheap shells (old beat up Westbury) that included a snare for $100, and they had a set of the L80s for cheaper than they had them at L&M. Soooo now I have that kit at home- the only thing I'm missing is the mesh heads, which they didn't have in stock at the time.
> 
> ...


i think for 100 dollar it is very cheap lol


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## TedEH (Feb 11, 2019)

They certainly weren't mind blowing drums (that post was almost 3 years ago), but entry level shells have served me well for the past while. Through a bunch of not-super-important events, I ended up using a kit made up of those entry level d2 shells, a Japanese made yamaha snare, a whole collection of mismatched cymbals, some dw pedals, etc. While I really want to upgrade stuff on some level, the cheap shells continue to get the job done. When I started this thread years ago it was because I wanted to just noodle with drums at home, but I've since joined a group as a proper drummer, so context has changed a lot. But the fact that I'm using cheap drums has not.


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## Jethyyyy (Sep 5, 2019)

Hey maaaan! I'm thinking of buying the same setup as yours (L80s and Silenstrokes) to replace my old Alesis DM6 E-Kit, since some parts like, kick and cymbals are messed up.. Im living in a small apartment building here in UAE and have some roommates, thats why noise is pretty much my concern.
Which would you prefer should I stick with my Alesis DM6 and replace the parts or should I go for the Silentstroke and L80s? Are the rubber pads louder than the Silentstroke when hitting hard?

I'll be buying those items through Amazon that's why Im asking for your opinion.


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## Jethyyyy (Sep 5, 2019)

And I also have some cymbals.. should I buy cymbal mute instead, than buying L80s?


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## TedEH (Sep 6, 2019)

In terms of volume -> The silent strokes still end up being louder than most of those rubber e-kit pads. Especially if you're hitting the rims (which you're likely to with the snare). The L80s are way more quiet than mutes on real cymbals though.


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## jco5055 (Sep 6, 2019)

I have the RTOM Blackholes and L80s on my kit at my apt, I am lucky that my apt naturally has very good soundproofing, but I also bought some sound reduction foam/carpet and put my drum carpet over that for the vibrations.

I'd say they sound wise people like studying if you had a roommate etc would be distracted but overall very good.


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