Roland VQD106, Or How to Make the Drummer Quieter! – Review
4,7 / 5,0 | 
Roland set out to achieve the impossible and make drummers quieter! Does the VQD106 succeed or is this a gimmick? Read on…
Roland VQD106 – The Highlights
- It is actually very quiet!
- Compact
- Ingenious design
- Superb practice kit
- Perfect for apartment dwellers
Roland VQD106 – Review
Can Drums Be Quiet?
The very nature of drums is to make noise. And quite a loud noise too! Since the dawn of the human race, drums have been used to communicate across long distances and large areas. And as far as “pop music” was concerned, it was the last instrument to be electrified and, therefore, be controllable in the volume department.
So even when companies like Simmons, Roland, Yamaha and more decided to make electronic drums, it wasn’t necessarily to make them quieter. It was to increase, or in some cases radically change, the range of sounds available to drummers.
As eDrum kits became more popular, the big changes involved designing pads that felt like real drums and creating sounds like real drums, more than any other aspect of the instrument. And we have certainly seen amazing advancements in those fields.
When I bought my first eDrum kit, a Yamaha DTXpress Mk.1 back in the late 1990s, I wanted something compact with controllable volume and the ability to hook it up to MIDI-based equipment and computers. I soon found out that having it set up on the first floor of my house meant it was not very quiet at all.
Whilst the projected sound of a real, acoustic drum was missing, all of the impact was still there. So was all of the vibration and resonance. It is fair to say that this arrangement didn’t last long! However, playing live, it was a revelation. I could change my tone at the click of a button. I was able to swap from huge rock kits with toms of reverb to a tight, funky kit with a much drier sound.
So when Roland called me and said, “Hey, we’ve got a new V-Drums kit and it incorporates our new ‘Quiet Design’ technology, I had to stifle a giggle. “Sure you have!” was my reply, which was followed by a swift booking in of the VQD106 kit to be delivered to my ‘garage’!
The Roland VQD106 – An Overview
VQD doesn’t stand for ‘Very Quiet Drums’, but rather ‘V-Drum Quiet Design’. Same thing, I guess. So, what do you get in the kit? Well, here’s a breakdown:
- Four-post type rack stand with anti-vibration mechanism
- Pedal Base: NEQ-K (for kick pedal), NEQ-H (for Hi-hat pedal)
- Drum sound module: TD-07
- Kick: KDQ-8
- Snare: PDQ-8S
- Hi-hat: CYQ-12
- Hi-hat control pedal: FD-9
- Tom: PDQ-8 x3
- Crash: CYQ-12
- Ride: CYQ-12
At first glance, the drum pads look fairly similar to the smaller V-Drum pads we’re used to. On closer inspection, they are very much not. More on this later. The snare is slightly larger, to accommodate the rim triggers. But the cymbals are the most obviously different pad here.
The Rack and NEQ-K/H Pedal Pads
The VQD106 rack itself is pretty standard fodder until it comes to the bases of the four poles. Each of these sports a squishy rubber foot. But other than those, it’s the usual stuff. Sturdy with small but strong clamps.
The two pads, whilst having different product codes, look identical. Made from a fairly solid slab of rubber, the top has a carpet-like surface, and the base features 8 smaller tennis-ball-style semi-spheres to give minimal floor contact, but with a good amount of air between the pad and the floor.
On top of these are placed the kick drum pedal (not supplied) and the Hi-Hat controller (supplied). Whilst this does add a little height to them, I didn’t find it obtrusive or that it required me to change seat height at all.
The KDQ-8 Kick Pad
The Kick Pad is an 8″ pad that comes with, and you will have to pardon yet another tennis ball comparison here, a small tennis-ball-like beater pad that is covered in a felt-like coating and is nice and squidgy. Tennis has a lot to answer for with the VQD106! The legs on the kick pad also have air-filled, spherical rubber pads.
The PDQ-8S Snare and PDQ-8 Toms
The snare and toms are all 8″ pads but the snare has a soft rim for rimshots, etc, something omitted from the toms. And now is about as good a time as any to see how Roland have managed to make eDrums quieter.
The first thing you will notice is that there is daylight when you look at the pads. You can see straight through because sitting underneath that mesh is a honeycomb rubber insert, to which the sensor is mounted. You see, what Roland discovered and subsequently tried to eliminate was the cause of the noise of striking conventional pads.
Air. It’s all down to air and letting as much of it escape as possible. By using a honeycomb insert, the air that is moved by striking the pad has plenty of space to go. It is no longer trapped within a confined space. That insert also dampens the impact as well, combining to reduce the noise you make when striking it.
It makes perfect sense when you think about it, but at the heart of this design is a method that simply allows air to move freely. Air is also employed in the pads and feet of the stand, delivering a nice cushion between the drums and the floor.
The CYQ-12 Cymbals
The same honeycomb concept is used on the cymbals, with effectively one half featuring a mesh and honeycomb insert. This takes a little getting used to because the playing surface is somewhat smaller than usual, but there are bow and edge triggers, so overall performance isn’t too compromised.
The TD-07 Drum Module
The VQD106 comes supplied with the TD-07 module. For me, this is the one shortcoming of the kit. I understand that this is less a kit for performance and more about being a practice kit, and having recently come off playing the wondrous V71 module on the TD716, the TD-07 looks, feels and sounds quite weedy by comparison.
I just feel that the VQD106 is a step up from the smaller kits in Roland’s range and therefore deserves something with a bit more physical and sonic heft. Of course, you can hook it up to your favourite drum sample library on your computer or iPad, but I think that this was a corner that didn’t need to be cut.
It features Bluetooth and USB connectivity and has a decent number of Roland’s basic kits (50 in total, with 143 instruments). It also has a coaching mode, a metronome and doubles up as a 44.1/16-bit 2-channel audio interface, so it’s not all bad. Put it this way, I played with it for about 30 minutes and then just hooked up my MacBook Pro running Superior Drummer 3!
In Conclusion
Roland claims a 75% reduction in acoustic noise with the VQD106. That’s a bold claim. And I am delighted to say that, without the use of scientific acoustic testing equipment, it definitely feels that way. I was amazed at how quiet the kit was.
The VQD106 is quite an achievement, and if you’ve been looking for a kit that doesn’t annoy your neighbours or fellow house dwellers, this is it. If your child has shown an interest in drumming and you want to appease him but retain your parental sanity, this could be the Christmas gift you’ve been looking for.
Compared to other entry-level kits, it isn’t cheap, but what price peace? I will readily admit that I was incredibly sceptical about the VQD106 but as I unpacked it and saw the ingenious methods employed by the Roland engineers, that scepticism waned and one I played it, I was sold.
Is this a ‘pro’ kit? No. Is it a great practice kit? Yes. Is this a fundamental way of appeasing the drummer in your house whilst simultaneously preserving the sanity of other inhabitants of your house or apartment block? Absolutely!
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Good build quality
- Ingenious pad design
- It achieves its primary goal of being very quiet!
- Pads feel good to play as they’re V-Drum Mesh Heads
- Kick can accommodate a double beater setup
Cons
- TD-07 module feels a bit basic
- Cymbal pads will take some getting used to, depending on your style of play
- Snare feels too small, causing occasional unintentional rim triggers
- Pad sensitivity is not great – fast rolls didn’t quite work
Pricing and Availability
Our affiliate partner has three options when buying the Roland VQD106. Firstly, there’s the standard kit with everything but the kick pedal and a drum throne for €2,299. Then they do a bundle that not only gets you the kick pedal and throne, but also some headphones and a pair of sticks for €2,349.
Finally, if the prospect of the TD-07 puts you off, or you already own one, you can buy the pad kit without the module for €1,999. Be aware that the supplied cable snake has a custom-fit D-plug, so you will need to source your own cable connections if hooking to something beefier. You will need a module of some variety to benefit from MIDI connectivity, too.
More Information
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