I’ve been a big fan of the NAMM show for years, so I get the latest product release information. That is how I heard about Aerodrums. I bought the system (Aerodrums and Sony Playstation Eye Camera) from Amazon for a total of 8US. It came in 2 days (Am Prime) and I set it up on a desktop Window7 64 bit with i7 and NVidia graphics card. Works great. I’ve ordered a laptop with graphics card so I can gig with this as I improve my chops. It is both alike and unlike physical drums to play. Mostly, since it appears to have been designed by a drummer, is it like physical drums. Where it differs is that the precise height at which the drumstick reverses direction is not critical – it’s as if the height of the drum skin can be where you want it. Similarly, the pedals ‘move with me’ left-to-right within a limited range. The sound is great, the samples are realistic enough, and I detect NO latency or delay issues.

I play in 3 bands every week. I will introduce Aerodrums at one of my gigs soon, when I feel sufficiently confident and I have my laptop based system functional and I’m sufficiently familiar with it. I think that is the ultimate test – can you gig professionally with it?
I hope to provide a further ‘performance-honed’ review in the future. Naturally, I’m imagining how the audience will respond – I’ve had a few neighbors and friends drop by to watch me drum and of course they are blown away. It really looks quite cool to see the apparent consistency and presence of the invisible drums. Now that I’m familiar with the system, I’ve tried turning off the computer monitor and just playing my Aerodrums ‘in the air’ only, which has helped my technique – similar in a way to turning off the lights while playing traps or piano or guitar – a good practice to hone one’s technique.

For recording, a MIDI output will be great, and this is promised by the developer. But I think this system will work as it is for performance. Of course, as a ‘game’ or a ‘play-around-at-home’ kind of thing, it is fine. However, I really DO think it is up to the rigors of public performance! And in case you were wondering, I have no connection at all to the developers, programmers or inventors or the company, and I paid full price for my system.

In a jazz band I used to play in, the leader used to say ‘everyone in the band laughs at the drummer’ because the drummer is the first to arrive, takes a long time to set up, and is the last to leave because take-down takes so long. Not so with this system, as the ‘teaser’ video from Aerodrums shows so well.

I bought the Aerodrums after seeing them appear at NAMM. I’m not a drummer (I’m a musician :), I mainly do electronic music and to date have programmed beats using either an MPC-like pad device or a sequential 909-esque interface. I wanted something that I could capture some more natural sounding patterns with, without the expense, room, and overall environmental noise of a drum kit (I do a lot of production at night when the kids are asleep so even a V-Drum kit residual noise would be too much).

The first, and I guess most important question I had before they arrived was ‘do they actually work’. I’ve been stung in the past with new concept products and gadgets that I loved the idea of but they simply did not end up actually functioning as expected. The simple answer is ‘yes’. Once you acclimatize to the fact that you are striking drums in mid-air and there’s obviously none of the expected rebound you’d get from a physical kit (that spatial awareness and sensation takes a little getting used to) you definitely start to yield results.

My workflow to date is I’ve been recording the audio output directly into a DAW and just bringing the segments I want into Ableton Live as clips but now the guys at Aerodrums have actually implemented Midi capabilities so I’m really looking forward to diving into that soon.

In all, this is an amazing product, at the price point it really is a great solution for those wanting to dabble in drumming without the overhead that comes with acquiring and running a kit.

The company:
One quick word about the guys who develop this solution, I can’t speak highly enough of their approach. Before the recent Mac edition was released I was trying to get Aerodrums up and running on an old borrowed PC laptop and the ancient onboard graphics card just couldn’t keep up. Throughout the entire process Richard and Yann went above and beyond in helping me out. They have been super responsive with any queries or comments I had and are just the nicest of people to deal with. In the short time I’ve owned Aerodrums they’ve already released a Mac version (works flawlessly) and Midi support for triggering virtual instruments so there’s constant development in fine tuning the solution and adding major functionality.

The concept is there, but I had a great deal of difficulty loading the program, lining up to the camera, building kits, and getting the pedals and drums to respond accurately. Maybe as they progress with the design and programming, but for me, for now it was a no-go. I returned the unit and got a refund. I will say their custimer service (Aerdrums) was awesome and they responded quickly to eery email I sent and wish them the best. I will keep an eye on it and will more than likely order the next version.