EFNOTE 7 Electronic Drum Kit

Bought this kit based on video reviews and demos alone because no local shops carry them to trial for yourself.

Triggering on this kit is solid, and I think the cymbals are the real winners here. Any review that tells you the hihats are arguably the best electric hats in the game is honest. Compared to the Roland hats, these feel so much tighter and true-to-form than the Roland product; Out of the box it has significantly easier for me to modulate the sound in a way that feels natural to playing acoustic hihats. This is comparing 2-3 days on the EFnote to ~2 years on the Roland products (VAD716 + TD50x).

There’s enough ability to refine the sound per instrument in this module to be exceptional for at-home use and light gigging, as advertised. The biggest drawback for live on this kit is the channel limitations for output to your board/stage box, but still very usable for live with a DI, you just need to make sure your levels are good in the module to compensate for what FOH can’t adjust. One other POTENTIAL drawback is the inability to upload full custom kits to the module (unless I just haven’t figured it out yet), but the onboard sounds honestly are really good and true acoustic sounds, and with layering the instruments over them and adjusting the parameters of the layering some you can still create some really good custom onboard kits. You can still run a MIDI controller for VST’s like EZD/GGD/SD3 etc., but you will have to connect the controller to the module to make use of the VST, where with something like the TD50x you could simply upload your custom kit and call it a day.

My experience so far on this kit is only ~30 hours of play having just received it last Tuesday— ~29 hours of practice plus a gig. I have ~18 years of experience playing percussion between Latin percussion instruments, acoustic drum kits and various electric kits including but not limited to the 2Box Drumit5 and the Roland VAD716.

Overall I think this is an incredible kit, especially for the money compared to some of the higher end and more pedigreed products on the market. For anyone doing smaller shows or looking for an incredible at-home solution, this kit is for you. For bigger shows, church setups with full FOH, or professional studios, the Pro modules featuring XLR out are going to be better suited for your needs.

Attached is a photo of my incredibly limited-space bedroom setup. The kit does well in this spot, in spite of the stupid way I have to get behind the kit to actually play. :’)

The Hi- Hat is the loudest(ambient) I’ve played. I don’t like in-ear monitors, and I can hear the hi-hat with over the ear headphones played at a reasonable volume. That is my only complaint. I’ve been playing this thing for a couple weeks now and I’ve had no mis-triggers of any kind. That cannot be said about any of the other sets I played/owned. I love this thing.