If you’re searching for a high-quality electronic drum kit to buy, look no further than Roland’s V-Drums. They have a reputation for being expensive, which may have convinced you to look elsewhere. This is where the TD-1DMK comes in.
The Roland TD-1DMK is one of Roland’s more affordable drum kit options. It’s a fantastic little kit that offers high value, excellent playability, extended durability, and an overall sense of amazing quality.
While it’s advertised as a beginner kit, it’s more than suitable for most drummers, making it a strong budget option to consider.
In this review, we’ll look through everything regarding the TD-1DMK. You’ll get to know the good, the bad, and everything in between. Let’s jump in.
The most notable feature of this kit is its small size. It’s incredibly compact, allowing you to move it around a room quite easily while all the pads are still plugged in. This makes it an ideal option for drummers with limited space available.
The kit has four drum pads, three cymbal pads, and a kick pad. The snare pad is 8,” and the tom pads are 6”. All of them are mesh pads, making them feel very realistic to play on. The kick pad is small and fits onto one of the rack legs. It can accommodate a double pedal.
The cymbal pads are all 10”. They feel very responsive and solid, and they’re mounted onto ball-and-socket joints that make maneuverability favorable.
The whole kit is run by the TD-1 Sound Module. It’s an incredibly simplistic drum module, but it has enough sounds and features to keep most drummers interested. The sound quality is excellent, which is to be expected from a Roland module.
The pads are held together by a 4-post rack, and a hi-hat trigger pedal is included that connects to the hi-hat pad.
When it comes to electronic drums, Roland kits always tend to come out on top in terms of quality. They last the longest, have the highest resale values, and they often feel the best to play.
We’re happy to say that it’s no different with this TD-1DMK drum kit. While it lacks many features that experienced drummers may want, it nails the basics, and that’s sometimes all that you need.
The drum module only has 15 stock drum kit sounds:
Standard
Rock
Funk
Jazz
House
Fiber
Light
Coated
Heavy
Acoustic
Drum ’n’ Bass
TR-808
Electro
Reggae
Percussion
While that’s a relatively small number of kit options compared to many competitor electronic drum kits in the same segment, all of those stock kits sound brilliant.
The downside of this module is that you can’t edit the sounds like you can on higher-spec Roland modules. If you’re a beginner drummer, that won’t bother you at all. Some experienced drummers may find themselves wanting as much customization as they can get, and the limitations of the TD-1 module will be frustrating.
The construction quality of the Roland TD-1DMK is immaculate. This kit is built to last, making it an excellent first drum kit to get. You’ll be able to play it for years without anything going wrong.
The kit is very small, but it feels solid to play on, thanks to the sturdy rack and durable pads.
The drum pads are highly adjustable, allowing you to feel as comfortable as possible with your setup. They’re also tunable, meaning you can change the tightness of the mesh head to feel as tight or loose as you want it to.
This is the biggest strength of Roland’s mesh pads, as you can dial in the ideal settings to get the most responsiveness out of them.
The one downside when it comes to construction is the kick drum pad. It mounts onto one of the rack’s legs, making it fairly difficult to position as comfortably as all the other pads.
Since the legs of the rack can’t be moved, you have to structure your TD-1DMK setup around the bass drum pedal. It can feel a bit uncomfortable at first if you’re not used to having a bass drum pedal in this position.
It also feels very hard when you hit it with a bass drum pedal. It’s a noticeable difference compared to Roland’s mesh head kick towers from their higher-end kits. For beginners, this won’t be a problem. Experienced drummers may find it to feel quite stiff.
The bass drum pad is our biggest concern, but it’s not one that new drummers will need to worry about. If you’re an experienced drummer and it becomes an issue, you can always upgrade it to a higher-quality kick drum tower at a later stage.
It feels amazing to play the Roland TD-1DMK. The pads feel great, and the drums are very responsive to dynamics. Even though you don’t have many kit options, all the preset kits play quite musically.
Mesh heads have become a must-have when it comes to electronic drum kits these days, and the Roland mesh heads never disappoint.
When you hook this drum kit up to an amplifier, the drums will sound very large and present. They also sound incredible when played through headphones, so the performance factor is definitely there.
You can choke the cymbals, which is an excellent feature to have. Many entry-level electronic drum kits don’t allow you to do this.
There are a few things to note, though. Since this is an entry-level electronic drum kit, there are a few missing features.
Firstly, you can’t play cross-sticks. When you put your stick across the snare drum to play one, you won’t get the desired sound.
Secondly, you can’t play a ride bell sound with all the kits. You get it on a few of them, but the sound is triggered by playing the edge of the ride, which is a bit weird.
These issues can be solved if you upgrade the TD-1 module to something better from Roland. The pads will still work, and you’ll get better performance from the kit.
The price of the TD-1DMK will be the biggest selling point for most potential buyers. You get the famous Roland quality in a kit that costs less than $1000. This makes it ideal for beginner drummers.
It also makes it a good kit choice for experienced drummers who need a reliable and affordable electronic drum kit.
However, there are a few other options on the market that are cheaper and offer more. The Alesis Nitro Mesh is the most popular beginner drum kit on the market, and it costs $200 less. It has a more extensive drum module, but the sound quality isn’t as good.
The Alesis Surge is another alternate option with larger pads and a more extensive drum module. It has a very similar price to the Roland TD-1DMK.
Compared to competitor kits, we’d say the price-to-value of the TD-1DMK is excellent. You’ll spend a bit more money on it than the other kits, but you’ll get superior sound quality and playability.
Also, you can always upgrade the module and pads at a later stage to boost the kit’s overall performance even further.
The Roland TD-1DMK is an excellent affordable electronic drum kit. It’s one of Roland’s most affordable kits, allowing you to get many of Roland’s sought-after features at an attainable price.
It’s most ideal for beginner drummers, but more experienced players can find good use with it as well.
No, the Roland TD-1DMK doesn’t come with a kick pedal. It doesn’t come with a drum throne or sticks either, which many of its competitor kits come with.
So, you’ll need to buy a throne, sticks, a kick pedal, and headphones to be able to play and listen to the Roland TD-1DMK. You can also use an amplifier instead of headphones.
Here’s a list of affordable bass drum pedals to consider:
PDP PDSP310
Tama HP30
Yamaha FP 7210A
Pearl P530
Roland V-Drums are amazing. They’re the most predominant line of electronic drums on the market, and they’re often seen as the top choices at every budget and price point.
There’s an amazing sense of overall quality that comes from every kit in the V-Drums line. Roland has been at the forefront of electronic drum kit innovation for years, and they were even the company that invented the mesh head.
V-Drums have amazing resale value, allowing you to hold onto them for years and then get your money back when you’re looking to upgrade.
The downside of Roland’s V-Drums is that they’re quite expensive compared to many other e-kit options out there. However, their quality justifies their high price tags.
While the Roland TD-1DMK isn’t something anyone would use in a professional studio, it’s a great option to use for recording at home. The module makes it incredibly easy to record, as you simply need to plug a USB cable into your computer.
From there, you can track MIDI notes into a DAW. The onboard sounds are more than good enough for recording most tracks, but you can also use a VST to get better sounds if you want to.
The responsiveness and musicality of the drums make home recording work very well. The drawbacks, as mentioned previously, are that you can’t play cross-sticks and it’s very difficult to play bell notes.
If you’re a professional drummer who wants a cheap electronic kit to use to easily record demo tracks, the Roland TD-1DMK is an excellent option for you.
If you find yourself in a situation where you need to use an electronic drum kit at a live gig, the TD-1DMK will work fairly well. Its small size makes it amazing for transporting. It will easily fit into the trunk of your car, making it much easier than transporting a full acoustic drum kit.
When it comes to playing on stage, the stock drum kits from the module sound great when run through a PA system. They’re beefy enough to sound effective, and they’re authentic enough to sound decent within a band context.
The downside is that the kit doesn’t look too appealing on a stage. Larger electronic drum kits look a lot better, and this one looks almost toy-like due to its size.
To wrap things up, we’d say that the Roland TD-1DMK is one of the best electronic drum kit options out there for beginner drummers. With regard to sound quality, durability, and resale value, you won’t find anything better for the price.
It’s an okay option for more experienced drummers. The drawbacks may be enough to chase you away, but you also have the option of upgrading certain parts to make the playing experience better.
If you’re a professional drummer and you buy this kit, we suggest upgrading the bass drum pad and hi-hat pads as soon as you can. When you do that, the kit will go from a beginner kit to a mid-level one in terms of the playing experience.
The next step up from this kit is the Roland TD-07. It has a larger snare drum pad and a better drum module. It costs a few hundred dollars more, though. We think the TD-1DMK
Drum Teacher
Brett Clur has a Drum Performance Diploma from Trinity College London has been playing drums for over 20 years. He is passionate about advanced concepts and uses his years of experience to teach his students about them. While he is a full-time drum teacher, he is also working on growing a YouTube channel where shares his insights. You can see him playing there, or on Instagram where he posts daily videos.
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