I’m just under 18 months into learning drums on an e-kit (e-kit drummers hate the word “real” drums, but I was reluctant to use the word acoustic drums and couldn’t come up with a better alternative to “real”!). Learning curve starting to flatten so thought I’d give finger drumming a go. Part of my motive is to help me with my e-kit drumming so I want to put some thought into my pad layout. Can anyone share their pad layout with the above in mind? Thanks peeps!
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I basically always use the thumbs on the kick pads, unless I want to hit a cymbal and a kick, then I use my index and ring fingers mostly. In the layout on this page you can see that this nicely lines up. For cymbals B and C that is.
Indeed, using thumbs will help a lot with independence. Also when you hit a soft hi hat pad and a loud kick pad with the same hand at the same time.
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Welcome to the world of finger drumming! I have a few set ups, but when I’m specifically trying to replicate playing on a kit I use this layout
Here’s a clip of how it plays, with the rides and crashes swapped (forgive the super sloppy quads lol) Login • Instagram
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Thanks for that! Just curious why you have retained the reverse tom orientation if part of your goal is to replicate playing on a kit?
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Hey, I’m not necessarily copying the ergonomics fully but rather the ability to easily play the same patterns in a different context, this way just felt more natural on pads for me although YMMV. It takes a while to work out what’s best for you, if I’m playing more hip hop oriented stuff then I move hi hats up to pads 11-12 etc, this just feels like the most natural set up for me when playing rock/funk/Perdie shuffle oriented stuff, i looked at a lot of set ups when I started out and settled on something similar to others but tweaked to my specifics, I’d advise you to try a few set ups for different playing styles as you would with smaller or larger acoustic kits, in brief, it’s not essential it’s just a quirk of how I like things set up, I rarely use that many toms so they are often switched with electric sounds or a few cowbells etc/ the bottom leftmost Tom is usually an extra closed or pedal hi hat
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That makes sense. Very much appreciate your valuable insight.
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I do a little bit of drums playing (my son is really the drummer in the family). With finger drumming I tend to use the quest for groove layout, though I do tend to reverse the position of the hi and lo toms so that they go hi to lo from left to right, the same as a drum kit
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