Drum Sets

From time immemorial, music is one of the phenomena that have been influencing man the most. Due to its ability to alter the psychology of a person, music is now deeply rooted into the lives of many and hence music has of late become lucrative rather than just a luxury. Nowadays, as a result of the advent of digital electronics, almost everyone can have a drum kit and start composing music of individual interest. The digital drum kit is a wonderful find and it made music composition a lot easier. The ION IED05 is also one such drum kit that makes it very easy to compose and store music. It gives you a sort of virtual music. This drum kit is available at a very reasonable cost and also is easy to use. Let us discover more about this new Drum Kit, introduced by ION.

Design:

The ION iED05 USB Drum Kit looks like a toy when you look at it for the first time. It certainly is made to look so, only then it would be simpler and easier for the novice users to get acquainted with it. Going a little deeper into the details of the design, there are five pads that are arranged in an order that looks pretty much like the conventional drum kit. It will hence be easy to use it. Each pad can produce different sounds and the acoustics of these pads are designed to produce sounds of different pitch and tone. One can alter the sounds that each pad can produce by changing the settings on your computer using the software.

Fixing and Installing:

Using the guidelines given in the user’s manual, one needs to fix the individual components like pads, rods, wires and plugs. One must also be very careful while connecting the plugs to the ports and do it as it is given in the manual. The rods are of sufficient length so that it can be adjusted according to your height. After doing all this, you need to connect the whole drum kit to your computer. This can be done by simply plugging in the USB cable into the port of the computer. Now, the fixing part of the kit is over.
You will find a CD provided along with the kit and using this, the software must be installed onto your computer. This will be a very simple process, just like the installation of any other software. After installing this software, which is known as the Virtual Drum X, just open the software and you will find the virtual diagram of the drum kit on the computer. There are also options for you to change the settings so that the tone of the music can be changed and then you can customise the settings, save the composed tunes, and a lot more options are in readiness for you. You can save the files in the popular MIDI format.

Composing Music:

Composing music on the ION IED05 Electronic Drum Kit is a very easy process. Using the drum sticks provided along with the kit, just strike the plastic pads just like you strike on the real drum kit. The force with which the pad is struck decides the intensity of the sound. You can see that each time you strike the pad the beat is noted by the software on the computer and after you complete the beating process, you can save the composition as an MIDI file. Then, you can alter the already saved tunes according to your taste and the composition can be changed partly or wholly to produce a good musical effect. These files can be transferred by using a USB flash disk drive and they can be copied on to another computer or even a mobile phone that supports MIDI files.

PC Requirements:

The ION iED05 MIDI Drum Kit has the following minimum system requirements in order to be compatible with your PC: IBM compatible PC, Pentium III 800MHz or higher with 256 MB of memory recommended, Microsoft Windows Server 2003, 2000, 98SE, or ME, XP, Vista, CD-ROM: 8X speed or faster, Keyboard & Mouse, USB port, VGA compatible display (or higher), DirectX® video/graphics & sound-card drivers, 150MB of free hard-disk space for software installation, Sound Card, Speakers or Earphones.

Performance:

The ION IED05 is one of the better virtual drum kits available in the market. You can expect an excellent performance from this drum kit. Even though it is not as good as the real thing, this drum kit can be a great blessing for those people who wish to start learning music lessons and also for those who want to start composing music on a small scale. There are some concerns regarding the compatibility of the kit with some of the operating systems. Well, this is not true for all, but if your system cannot identify the kit or the software, you need to install some drivers, which may solve the issue. Some computers may also need a converter that converts file into MIDI format so that it will be compatible with most of the devices. It also does not require power cables. It receives power through the USB cable, from the computer. But, above all, the performance is good.

Warranty:

ION offers a parts and labour warranty service for a period of one year from the original date of purchase, pertaining to certain limitations and conditions.

Verdict:

The ION IED05 Digital Drum Set looks like it is a professional kit for starters, so you can easily access it even if you are a at a beginner’s level. Not only can it be used as a professional drum kit, but it also can be used to train the beginners before they actually get used to the real drum kit. Some really important drums lessons can also be learnt since the sounds produced once can be saved on the computer. This allows you to review the lessons time and again. It can be gifted to children so that it can be a great learning tool for them as they create interest in music. For such a low price, you can learn a lot of music lessons from the ION IED05.

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Ion iED05 Midi Drum Set – Technical Specification Table

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