Best Electronic Snare Drums (Updated Apr 2024)

If you are looking for the perfect snare drum to play at your next show, consider an electric snare.  Electric drums have a great sound, and they are easy to transport. Did you know that there is more than one type of electric snare? Here are some drums worth buying.

Best Electronic Snare Drums
Reviewed and Compared

Picture Name My Verdict
Roland PDX-6 Electronic V-Drum Pad Good Quality Check Price
Roland PDX-100 Electronic V-Drum Pad High Quality Check Price
Digital LCD Display Drummer Pad Affordable Check Price
EX Digital Practice Drum Pad with Drumsticks Dynamic Range Check Price
Kat Percussion KTMP1 Electronic Drum and Percussion Pad Durable Check Price
Roland PD-128S Electronic V-Drum Pad Compact Size Check Price
Yamaha XP100SD 3-Zone Electronic Snare Drum Adjustable Check Price
Korg Wavedrum Global Edition Expressive Check Price

Roland PDX-6 Electronic V-Drum Pad

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Pros
  • It comes with an electronic snare module for reproducing the sound
  • The hardware also reproduces the sounds of a hi-hat, open and closed cymbals, tambourine, ride cymbal, cowbell, and high-hat
  • Stereo speakers are delivering high-quality audio that brings drums to life
  • Good quality
  • It sounds like acoustic drums
Cons
  • You may need to buy a separate mounting hardware
  • Settings may be intimidating to beginners
  • It is currently out of stock
The Roland PDX-6 is a good choice for beginners who want the sensation of a real drum without the bulk or expense. The drum pads have six velocity layers and six different degrees of sensitivity to respond to light strums and heavy kicks at maximum volume. Practice features include:
  • Ten preloaded songs.
  • Five training modes.
  • Eleven built-in demo songs.
  • An interactive metronome for developing rhythm.

Roland PDX-100 Electronic V-Drum Pad

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Pros
  • Best choice for professional drummers because it offers them an authentic electronic drumming experience, better than traditional drums
  • As an innovator of sound modules and accompanying equipment, Roland has created the PDX-100 to be easily compatible with hardware equipment like amplifiers
  • It's also capable of upgrading your other drumset by adding a snare or hi-hat to use along with your other standard percussion
  • Affordable
  • High quality
Cons
  • There's no "felt" feedback, so the response time is slower than real drums
  • Electricity can interfere with other electronic devices; you'll need to maintain a reasonable distance from other electrical outlets and cables when playing
  • There is a "hotspot" issue
The existence of the Roland PDX-100 Electronic V-Drum Pad, with its digitally sampled acoustic drum set capabilities, is big news to the entry-level player. Beyond the sounds, Roland has also incorporated features like an auto-tuning and adjustable response, which give players great dynamic range and feel.

Digital LCD Display Drummer Pad

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Pros
  • Electric snare drums tend to be louder and crisper than acoustic ones
  • Electric snare drums can be set to emulate timbres of older drum heads with different levels of mesh stiffness
  • It usually has a much thinner shell
  • It is a stylistically less pronounced lip, which allows for more effortless playing in the upper regions of the instrument's range
  • Affordable
Cons
  • It discourages people from learning the subtler dynamics that acoustic drums offer
  • Reduces sustain and makes it challenging (or impossible) to play rim-shots
  • It has rebound effects like ghost notes or flams
A digital LCD drummer pad is a type of drum pad that replaces a traditional acoustic snare, bass drum, or tom-tom with a built-in visual representation on an LCD. The e-snare pads have been around for years, programmed to produce realistic sounds from your favorite songs. But today's versions are more advanced and offer so much more! The pads can provide the feel of any particular percussion instrument you want - from hand drums to complete sets of drums and cymbals!

EX Digital Practice Drum Pad with Drumsticks

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Pros
  • You can adjust the volume
  • You can customize your pads
  • It has a sound library to incorporate new skills and beats
  • It can play multiple songs simultaneously so that you can multi-task with little effort
  • It has increased dynamic range
Cons
  • It is electric
  • The snares emit such a high pitched tone that they can become irritating
  • It has an unsatisfactory "pinging" noise
The EX digital drums can be used with most common music software such as GarageBand and Ableton Live. When put together in combination with these programs, it can offer you a ton of flexibility. The kit comes equipped with one acoustic snare drum head, one Tama 10" Acoustic Drum Rocker pedal, and two pairs of cymbals include A Zildjian 14" Crash Ride Cymbal and a Zildjian 8" Ping Ride Cymbal. All three pieces of equipment can also be customized to your desired settings

Kat Percussion KTMP1 Electronic Drum and Percussion Pad

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Pros
  • It is more durable than acoustic ones
  • It does not need to be tuned over time
  • It is fun to play with
  • It has a very realistic feel and response
  • it great for playing drum sets without the loud thumping beat sound of an acoustic set
Cons
  • The volume does not sound good
  • Limited sound options
  • Not advisable for live performances
The Kat Percussion KTMP1 Electronic Drum Pad features an entirely new world of possibilities! With the KTMP1, you can quickly change what's being played to suit any mood or style. Play rock for 1 minute, then switches to Latin to drum along with bongos. The secondary pads are fully programmable through the included software suite for even more instant creativity and customization. And because it's all-electric drum pad-style, you have no bulky pedals to break down or wires to tangle up!

Roland PD-128S Electronic V-Drum Pad

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Pros
  • This is the perfect choice for beginners looking to start their drumming journey
  • The pad comes with 20 pre-installed demo songs
  • It has a metronome and rhythm trainer to make practicing easier
  • It also features one dual-zone snare, kicks pedal, and hi-hat controller for hands-on control
  • Its compact size and portable design make it easy to move around from room to room or take on the go
Cons
  • Not so great for people looking for a more uniform kit
  • It is pricier
  • its corded power supply may make things difficult when needing 1 in "the big game" or live performance
Roland PD-128S Electronic V-Drum Pad is a snare drum and cymbals in the form of drum sticks and pads when electricity is applied during use. As electronic percussion instruments, the PD-128 could trigger other devices such as electronic bass guitars, synthesizers, samplers, and sequencers. Drummers could effectively add one or more electronic drums to their drum kit set up to play an entire song with only a few different drumsticks, which makes it easier for musicians to switch from one instrument to another while playing live on stage.

Yamaha XP100SD 3-Zone Electronic Snare Drum

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Pros
  • It is an adjustable snare drum that provides the same experience as an actual drum setup
  • It has the convenience of electronic switching
  • It offers complete control over snare adjustments through dedicated parameters
  • It comes equipped with choke trigger effects built into a one-foot pedal jack
  • It gives you total drum control
Cons
  • It is more difficult to tune than acoustic ones
  • It doesn't give off much in the way of tone when played, especially when compared to an acoustic drum
  • The rim may not function properly
Yamaha is a famous Japanese company, and it invented the electric snare drum. The Yamaha XP100SD 3-Zone Electronic Snare Drum does not require a battery and can be stored upright. The three different settings allow one to play with three other snares, which produce three different sounds when activated by playing harder or softer on your keyboard. This feature allows for more diverse styles of drumming. The XP100SD also has six tuned percussion setups that add to its capabilities as a versatile instrument, such as adding cowbells or chimes for rock music or shakers or triangle bells for Latin music - all without requiring an additional player!

Korg Wavedrum Global Edition

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Pros
  • It sounds like real snares because a piezo sensor triggers them
  • You can adjust the sensitivity of the trigger and change it from a two-to-one to four-to-one triggering ratio
  • It has expressive drumming with its natural or sampled voices of percussion
  • It includes MIDI output, selectable effects for each voice, quantization functions for playing with prerecorded rhythms such as those on CD or MIDI files
  • It also features USB memory storage for storing your samples
Cons
  • it doesn't pair well with acoustic drums since they are tuned differently
  • It also can be irritating to play for prolonged periods due to the lack of lateral movement of the drum pads
  • It's also challenging to accomplish quick rolls due to how its pads function
Korg Wavedrum Global Edition is a fantastic new electric snare drum with improved sound quality, wireless ease of use, a high-resolution LED display, and uniquely expressive waveforms. For years snare drums have been the backbone of music for percussionists worldwide. With the renewed demand to fully express musical expression through electronic instruments, Korg created its tool designed to deliver outstanding sound and comfort, and control for today's modern musician--the Wavedrum® Global Edition. Featuring an ultra-realistic acoustic model that was painstakingly sampled from a vintage drum kit, it has unparalleled realism in tone while providing consistency across velocity ranges.

We hope you found this article informative and helpful. Comment below if you have any questions or thoughts on electric snare drums that we didn't cover in the blog post. Thanks for reading!

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