MODEL NS2 Pro
SHELLS 5", 8-ply Keller maple
AVAILABLE FINISHES Custom Cherry, Natural Maple, Custom Honey, Ocean Blue, Classic Walnut, Mirror Black, and Custom.
FEATURES Cables, Locking Mechanism on the Neutrik Cable Jacks, Velcro Ties, Memory Locks, Multiple Drum Module Compatibility

On the surface, it might seem as if the market for electronic drum sets is all but locked up by one or two big, international corporations. The reality is, potential purchasers of this endlessly entertaining instrument have more options today than ever before. In the June, 2006 issue of DRUM!, we pointed out in the “Electronic Drum-Set Buying Guide” that there are almost 40 different sets available on the market. And that number continues to grow as new companies look to break into this expanding market.
One of the newer additions in the field of electronic drums is R.E.T. (Rhythm Electronic Technology) Percussion, a company that attempts to blend the look and feel of acoustic drums with the sonic flexibility of electronics. The R.E.T. aesthetic combines real, acoustic heads, real hardware, and real shells with a fully functional electronic brain (sold separately). The result is something fresh and different that offers a much-needed bridge between the realms of acoustic and electronic drumming.

OUT OF THE BOX
The NS2 Pro kit consists of four, Dual Trigger drums (one snare and three toms) and one, Single Trigger bass drum, as well as one pair of 12" Dual Zone hi-hats, one 13" Dual Zone crash cymbal, and one 16" Dual Zone ride cymbal. Each of the drums is constructed from the same 5" x 13", 8-ply Keller maple shells and features a triple-flanged hoop and six bowtie, single-tension casings. The snare is designed to sit in a regular snare basket, while the toms and the bass drum have a post-style mounting bracket attached to the shell for mounting on the rack. The bass drum also has a heavy-duty support plate mounted to the bottom of the drum that serves as a riser and a host for the pedal. Each drum is supplied with an Evans Genera 2 coated head.
To be clear, the NS2 Pro does not come with an electronic drum brain. In order to make any sounds, you’ll need to purchase one separately. Since the snare, toms, and cymbals are all Dual Trigger, you should consider purchasing a brain that reads and responds to Dual Trigger pads to be sure and get the most out of this kit. Of course, you’ll need to adjust the brain to fit both your playing style and the response of the pads. But with a little tweaking, the NS2 Pro drums and cymbals should respond well to any brand and model drum brain or trigger-to-MIDI interface.

THE DRUMS
Inside each shell is a metal bridge that spans between two opposing lugs. By connecting the bridge to the lugs, R.E.T. has eliminated the need to drill additional holes in the shell. The bridge supports a 9" circular sandwich of metal and foam that houses the piezo transducer, while also serving to muffle the acoustic response of the plastic head. R.E.T. claims that the foam cuts stick noise level by 60dB, but you can easily adjust the entire bridge mechanism up or down by nearly an inch in order to increase or decrease the pressure of the disk against the head, thereby altering the muffling effect.
The addition of Neutrik cable jacks is an especially nice touch. These jacks have a locking mechanism that prevents the cable from being accidentally unplugged. It’s a smart, sorely needed addition. The lugs, mounting hardware, and Neutrik connector are all mounted to the outside of the shell with rubber gaskets to help prevent rattling.
On the Dual Trigger drums, the rim trigger is mounted on the side of the shell. It consists of a 1" piezo transducer sandwiched between two rubber blocks inside a metal framework. Both the head trigger and the rim trigger are connected to the stereo Neutrik jack with sturdy cables and solid solder joints. The quality of construction was such that I can’t imagine what kind of abuse these cables and joints would need to suffer to show any real damage.

CYMBALS
The cymbals on the NS2 Pro are made by Smartrigger and are all crafted with a metal playing surface that has a clear, 1/16" plastic layer on the bottom. The plastic dampens the acoustic aspect of the metal, while still allowing the cymbal to feel remarkably natural in terms of feel and response. The crash cymbal features a choke area of 180 degrees, while the ride cymbal senses strokes on the bell and on the bow of the cymbal, and the hi-hats sense strokes on both the bow and the edge.

HARDWARE
The Ultimate Support chrome rack that anchors the pieces of the kit is solid and stable with two curved front arms. The top arm holds the mounted toms while the lower arm holds the bass drum. In addition, there are three extension arms that hold the floor tom, the hi-hat cymbals, and the sound module of your choice, and two cymbal booms, which extend up from vertical support bars. While the booms may not seem to provide the highest degree of flexibility, I had no problem putting the cymbals exactly where I wanted them. The NS2 Pro also comes with a Gibraltar double-braced snare drum stand and all the cables you’ll need to connect the pads to a brain. In fact, once you’ve got your drum brain, all you’ll need to start making noise is a bass drum pedal and a hi-hat controller.

PUTTING THE NS2 PRO THROUGH ITS PACES
For this review, I used the NS2 Pro pads with a DrumKAT to trigger sounds from my computer system, the Alesis DM5 brain, and a Yamaha brain. With all three machines, the kit responded well to my touch, though I did find I needed to perform a little head tuning first. The head tension won’t affect the sound coming out of the brain, but it will affect the way the drums react to your playing, as well as how they interact with each other. The bonus is, once you get all of your settings dialed in, you won’t have to go through the process again.
One point of concern that cropped up was with volume. While the acoustic volume of the NS2 Pro is certainly well below that of an acoustic kit, it’s not nearly as quiet as a mesh-head or rubber-pad electronic kit, at least none that I’ve played. The folks at R.E.T. say that the kit is compatible with mesh heads, but that would defeat the “real head feel,” which is a significant selling point of this set up. Also, since the rims don’t have any type of rubber covering, rimshots increase the acoustic sound of the kit even more. If you’re playing in a venue where the amplification is relatively strong, you’re audience won’t notice these sounds. If, on the other hand, you’re buying an electronic kit to practice at home while the rest of the family is sleeping, you might want to look elsewhere.
The feel of this kit is not unlike the feel of a Remo practice pad. With the heads muted by large foam disks, they can’t react in quite the same way as real, acoustic drums. There’s a little less give to the head and a little less rebound of the stick. However, I really didn’t find this to be too much of a problem. Though it took a little time to adjust to the feel and response of these drums, once the adjustment was made, I could relax and play quite naturally.

VERDICT
For those seeking the expanded options and sound control of an electronic kit, but unwilling to sacrifice the visual appeal of a traditional one, the NS2 Pro comes highly recommended. One word of caution to those planning on taking this bad boy on the road: with bearing edges on the open side of the drum, you’ll need to be extra careful to avoid nicks and dings. Otherwise, it’s difficult to find anything that would significantly improve these instruments in terms of their design and construction. As for feel, which is no small consideration when purchasing an electronic kit, this one is closer to an acoustic drum feel than any other electronic kit I’ve played. But in the end, you definitely need to head down to your local drum shop and try these out for yourself.

All of the drums are set up for dual triggering. The rim piezo trigger mounted to the shell is a custom sized case made exclusively for R.E.T. by the supplier. A very nice high end feature provided by R.E.T. is the Neutrik locking cable jacks. The overall construction and assembly of the drums is top notch, with no visible flaws, even after meticulous scrutiny.

Playability

The NS2 set was connected to a Roland TD-20 module. Now in fairness to R.E.T., the module had not yet been ‘tweaked’ to this NS2 set. It had come from a music store where it was dialed in for another NS2 set. Hence the drum set I was reviewing did not play to its full potential. Any buyer should be aware that your module settings will have to be optimized as the R.E.T. triggering is very sensitive. Fellow edrummer Chris Jude http://www.edrumming.com/reviewpost/showproduct.php?product=71provides a very good overview of the TD-20 playability once properly dialed-in. For the time I did have, I found the NS2 a very competent set and fun to play. It was almost the best of both worlds – acoustic and electronic. R.E.T. sets ship with Smartrigger cymbals, which again requires some proper ‘tweaking’ of the drum module. I recall testing the original NS line connected to a Roland TD-6 a couple years back and was very impressed with the triggering response. The NS2 line has continued with this solid and dependable trigger/module interface.

The ambient sound level of the drums was lower than I would have expected from acoustic heads. The lower pad noise is partially attributable to the unique under foam set-up R.E.T. uses. At the drum set, the pad noise is a tolerable dull thud sound, which is totally lost once headphones or live sound is used. At a distant of 15 feet I could barely hear the pad thuds. The drums are also mesh head compatible should the owner want to change out the heads.

Quality construction, forward looking company dedicated to customer satisfaction, beautiful finish, bass drum rack mount, real drum feel when playing, Neutrik connections, very useful and well laid out website (www.RETPrercussion.us) – worth surfing to!!

Cons

Overly tight rack mounting holders on the shells.

Reviewers Opinions (neither Pro or Con)

With such a beautiful looking set, it’s a shame R.E.T. only produces one shell size – 5” x 13”.
However R.E.T. is looking into a smaller ‘Jazz’ kit using 4” x 12” shells with a Roland TD-3 module. Using the two sizes together in a custom set up would be awesome looking.

Again with a set so good looking, it’s almost a shame to hide the shells partially behind rack tubing. Since this is a custom build operation, it would be nice to see an option to use RIMs mounts and hang the components off of cymbal stands.

No cable maintenance system other than some Velcro straps. Most drummers can easily create their own cable maintenance system which would be aesthetically pleasing.

At this time, no cases are available for these drums.

Conclusion

Although the R.E.T. NS2 series is not for everyone, it fills a very important market void where acoustic looking drums with electronic advantages is needed. Churches are especially fond of the R.E.T. drums.

I would recommend these drums with the TD-20 module for those who have a need for this type of electronic drum.

Reviewer Biography

Thomas Landin is an accomplished novice drummer for the all-original Contemporary Christian band 4given out of central Illinois, with 4 CD’s produced to date. Tom’s equipment consists of a customized original Roland VPro set with a TD-10exp module and also performs using the Zendrum. Tom converted to electronic drums in 1999 after 20 plus years of lugging the acoustics all over the place.

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R.E.T. NS2 Snare Review

 

Gretchen Cawthon of R.E.T. (Rhythm Electronic Technology) Percussion was good enough to arrange sending me out one of R.E.T.'s new NS2 snares to test drive.

The drum arrived well packaged and my immediate first impression upon opening the box and removing the drum was how fastastic the finish on it was/is. The one that I was sent was a sweet 5" X 13" maple, hand stained custom cherry red with a high gloss finish over.

The drum components consisted of a quite nice 8-ply Keller maple shell, six bowtie style single lugs (upper only, the bottom of the drum is open), a standard triple flanged hoop and it shipped stock with an Evans genera g1 coated acoustic batter head. An aestically complimentary Pearl style tom arm mount was also affixed. I'm told that pads intended as toms generally come with these mounts and pads intended as snares can come with or without depending on whether you want to mount on a drum rack or on a separate stand. In any event, the mount, the lugs and in fact everything that penetrates the shell utilize rubber gasket between the part and the outside of the shell.

After admiring the finish a few moments more I noticed that it felt a tad light. A quick trip to the workbench scale confirmed that the whole unit, electronics and all weighs in at a slight 5lbs -10oz, yet the construction is sleek and sturdy and the drum feels tight and cohesive.

The elecronic components were equally straight forward. The head piezo trigger is center mounted and sandwiched between two large thinnish disks of foam on a thin resonator plate which is nestled between the two layers of foam. All of this is compressed a bit and held in place against the underside of the head with a sturdy bridge-like black metal bracket fitted with channel holes allowing for its height adjustment (and accordingly how tight it holds the foam against the head) secured by the screws belonging to a set of two opposing lugs (doing double duty). The rim triggering is accomplished via a second piezo mounted between a small square rubber gasket and a thicker rubber block, all of which is similarly pressed against the shell of the drum by a smaller black metal bracket held by two additional screws through the shell. Both piezos are wired to a Neutrik locking 1/4" female "stereo" jack plug.

The assembly is neat and professional. In fact the only constructive criticism I can come up with in that department is that the lug screws and washers and the nice large and small custom brackets are all a matching gloss black, but the bolts that hold the rim piezo apparatus in place and the screws and washers that hold the mount (tom pads generally come standard with mounts but pads intended as snares can come with or without them) are conspicuously stainless steel. Pretty miniscule detail, but hey, it is an open bottom drum. That said, the finish coat is very neatly lapped over the exposed bottom bearing edge and ends neatly and in a smartly executed straight edge all around the circumference.

I tested the drum triggering identical Roland TD-20 modules side by side with a Hart PRO TE3.2 snare pad and a Roland PD-125 snare pad. I had to use two modules both to test the drums simultaneously and because different pads often need different settings to perform their best. The R.E.T. was no exception.

Because of its use of essentially an otherwise standard (intended for resonating) acoustic drum shell and standard (again intended for resonating) acoustic drum head, the drum is naturally predisposed to resonate significantly even with the absence of a bottom head. For triggering purposes, the ideal scenario when the drum head is stimulated is a registered vibration/impact spike that dies off quickly. Extended resonation can cause complications. The foam pressing against the underside of the head in the R.E.T. is obviously intended to tame the reverberation of the head. And it does that. But I'd also note that it does not fully overcome the resonation characteristics of the drum yet it causes the head to have a slightly less lively feel when played as a result.

So what does that mean? Nothing major really. But it gives context to help understand the comparisons and observations. For example, because the drum isn't dampened or "baffled" other than partially at the head, the remaining inherent resonation that isn't cancelled may require you to adjust up retrigger cancellation a notch or two to obtain optimum results (especially if you have setting in your module dialed in for some of the newer mesh head pads). As for the feel, it is very similar to the practice pads that utilize "real" mylar drum heads. It lacks some of the give and bounce of an unbaffled acoustic drum (particularly if compared to what you'd expect from a snare), but it comes closer to an "acoustic" drum feel than most rubber or mesh pads.

Yeah, yeah. But how does it play?

Once dialed in, it plays fantastic. At the settings for my mesh pads, the pad exhibited some minor "flanging" (close retriggering). Fifteen seconds later I had raised retrigger two clicks and it was triggering perfectly. Fifteen more seconds and I was dialing in scan time to get a great mix of all the head and rim features from the TD-20 just where I want them. The head triggered well across its entire surface and positional sensing (when used as a snare on the TD-20) worked as intended. There was a moderate hotspot evident directly over the piezo as with the Roland. The rim triggered quite well over a full range of dynamics. The full range of rim clicks, rimshots from shallow to deep, etc., were accomplished with the TD-20 just as with the Roland and Hart pads. The rim triggering is however, orientation dominant (the trigger is on one side making one side a touch more sensitive than the other). Simply always face that side toward you for consistency. The rim actually triggers reasonably well all the way around the circumference anyhow and the difference between the trigger side and elsewhere are minimal.

The ambient noise when striking the drum is a little louder than some of the popular mesh and rubber pads. The rims are unprotected (which I think looks great) but striking them produces the commensurate louder metal clack one would expect. Overall of course, the noise is still a shadow of what an acoustic drum might produce, but pad noise is a bigger deal to some than others based on circumstances so its worth mentioning.

Conclusions: Great looks and construction. Quality components and little to break. A decent acoustic-like feel is provided while still delivering on triggering. The slightly more pronouced pad and rim noise and slightly deadened mylar feel might be considerations for some. Nevertheless, both aesthetically and functionally, the R.E.T.s provide an attractive alternative.

R.E.T. Percussion products are backed with a one year warranty and come in a variety of finishes. Even custom colors/custom matched finishing is available (for an additional fee). You can check out the full line of R.E.T. Percussion products at www.RETPercussion.us . R.E.T. kits are now shipping with Smartrigger cymbals.

 

Reviewer Biography

Chris Jude is an acomplished drummer and fellow e-drummer who does reviews for major electronic drum manufacturers. He also is the owner of the best website for anything about electronic drums you would want to know. Please visit his website at www.edrumming.com.

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R.E.T. Percussion: The RET-SNARE & CYMBAL
By Greg Davis | November 2005

R.E.T. is attempting to solve the problem of electronic drums not having the “feel” of acoustic drums. How? By (not surprisingly) making their triggers . . . real drums, and cymbals (albeit laminated in a clear coating), that use real drumheads that let you “tune” the feel just like you would a standard kit. Well did it? I found they worked just as advertised with the cymbal being the more pleasant surprise of the two, doing a very good job of “tricking” me into believing it was resonating, and having a nice, natural stick feel. The trigger was also tough to fault, reacting to changes in stick work just like a real cymbal should with the rimshot response being the high point. And the drum itself? Well, the drum worked well and can be “tuned” to change the feel (this, of course, does not change the sound) like a real drum. Though it never felt as lively as an acoustic drum, I got it very close. Kind of cool.