Roland U.S.

Worship Ministry Profile

V-Drums At Lighthouse Community Church

by Cash McCloy

As the Worship Pastor/Music Director of Lighthouse Community Church in Costa Mesa, CA., I can say that the Roland TD-20S V-Drums have been the perfect solution for our very “acoustically-challenged” church. The sanctuary was built in the late 1940’s and has a very charming ‘New England’ look to it with stained glass windows and a very high, cedar-beamed ceiling. The building is charming aesthetically, but has a very “live” sound that rivals a gymnasium.

When I joined the staff, the pastor and elders were very clear in their desire to pursue a contemporary style of worship, with rhythm-section driven music, fairly high decibel level, a good sound system, and excellent-sounding drums. Since I’m the drummer and worship leader, I needed a solution that would give me the best of both worlds: realistic playability and complete control of the overall mix.

The highest quality acoustic drums available simply sounded bad in our acoustic environment, and provided our sound guy with zero control over the mix. We tried everything to get them under control, including the dreaded plexiglass wall. No matter what, the acoustic drums had a negative effect on the overall sound of the music and consequently on the quality of our worship time. Our church was not providing a very pleasant listening experience. It was immediately clear that something had to be done. The solution was quite obvious in my mind: the Roland TD-20S V-Drums.

Most electronic drum kits that I have played don’t feel like, or respond like an acoustic drum kit. However, I sincerely think that Roland has done an excellent job of dealing with this issue in the V-Drums. They allow a drummer to play with the same expressiveness and realism as on an acoustic kit. The velocity and where I hit the drum pads, cymbal pads and rims, actually feels, responds, and sounds incredibly similar to a perfectly tuned acoustic drum kit.

This is especially true with the velocity and zone sensitivity that the kit has. For example, if you hit an acoustic drum way off center, or catch a little bit of the rim when you’re hitting the snare, you know it immediately by the sound it makes and the feel of the stick response. It is exactly the same on the V-Drums. The TD-20S drumheads, cymbals and especially the V-Hi-Hat are very expressive, responsive, natural, and “real” feeling. The V-Hi-Hat behaves and sounds like an acoustic hi-hat.

Also, there’s an amazing array of realistic, high-quality sounds and the dual-trigger drum pads allow me to have a tom-tom sound on the drumhead and a percussion or sound effect on the rim. This is both fun and practical.

The best thing about the TD-20S V-Drums, is that despite all of our acoustic challenges, they sound amazing in my church and they provide maximum mixing control at the soundboard. In fact, because of the large number of direct outputs on the TD-20 Percussion Sound Module, each piece of the V-Drum kit connects to its own channel at the mixing board. So, our sound guy has 100% control over the mix and can EQ each piece of the kit. The TD-20S sounds like a perfectly tuned acoustic drum kit with expensive microphones on each piece.

For these reasons, as well as many others, I wanted to share the success story that I have experienced as a result of the V-Drums. Even with an acoustically-challenged environment, our worship experience at Lighthouse Community Church is both spiritually and audibly excellent.

Cash McCloy is a graduate of David Lipscomb University in Nashville, TN and is currently the Music Director/Worship Pastor at Lighthouse Community Church in Costa Mesa, CA.

Church web site: www.lighthousechurch.ws
Email address: mccashman@adelphia.net