Aerodrums, The Best Air Drumming Instrument? | LOOTd Unboxing

in the last few years there have been several companies that have attempted to make air drumming devices that mimic the feeling of playing a real drum kit and a few months ago we tried one for the first time and honestly it was one of the worst experiences i've ever had with a modern music device they were temperamental the drums kept moving around and the app oh god the app was so bad but yeah check out the video here if you want to find out more about that after making that video i got an email from the guys at aerodrums who are a small uk based company and the ogs when it comes to air drumming instruments and he mentioned that their device was able to deliver a more authentic drumming experience similar to that of an electric drum kit which had me intrigued so i said sure thing i'll try it out on the channel so this week that's exactly what we're going to do and before we get started full disclosure this kit was sent to us by aerodrums and i even had a chat with the marketing guy who was a super nice chap but this video isn't sponsored they haven't told me what to say and like always i'll do my best to keep my opinions honest so if this thing turns out to be rubbish i won't sugarcoat it i'll just say it's rubbish just judging from the packaging i wouldn't assume that this thing is a serious piece of kit i mean the logo looks serious enough but the font they've used down here looks like it was taken straight out of the children's book aerodrums is portable virtually silent expressive and midi compatible all very good things so inside the box what we got a couple of aerodrum stickers the instructions a safety warning and what i'm going to assume is the warranty yep then we've got the drumsticks with the reflective balls on the end they feel like pretty standard drumsticks they're quite lightweight but totally usable and then we have a couple of reflective panels to use as foot pedals a camera as well as a small led ring light oh that's cute they've even put a tiny tube of glue in here so if you need to replace the balls at any point you can do that so this is everything that you get in the box and i've got to say for 150 pounds or 200 this doesn't really seem like a lot but that price does also give you access to the software so with any luck it makes it worth the price but we'll find out also is it just me or is this a playstation free camera in fact if i remove this little black sticker ah as i thought this is a playstation camera see right there playstation logo either way i'm just happy that i don't have to buy a camera and it comes with one as standard also these reflective panels that you put on your feet to use as pedals do feel quite cheap i mean they are literally just a cut out of foam with a reflective panel stuck to the top of it with an elastic strap so you can put it around your feet and that is it nothing particularly fancy going on here but then again doesn't really need to be fancy as long as it works i'm not really bothered and then inside the box just here you've got your product key which you will need to download the software from the aerodrums website and that software will work on both windows pcs and macs now the big difference between the aerodrums and something like the pocket drums is that instead of using bluetooth tech which is pretty unreliable the aerodrums use the camera which is hooked up to a laptop or pc and it can more reliably track your movements and using their software you can change the position of the drums to fit your play style you can change out different parts of the kit you can add more drums you can change the samples etc which though already sounds way better than the pocket drums does also sound like it's going to require quite a bit more setup time but we'll get to that in just a bit now at this point you might be wondering what the led light in a reflector panels are all about and it's all basically just to assist the camera with tracking your movements so the light from the led light bounces off the reflected surfaces goes back into the camera and now it can clearly see the points it's meant to be tracking whereas if you didn't have these the camera wouldn't know where to track and it would just be a complete mess but also as the motion tracking is light based you can't play these things outdoors in the daylight or with a bright window behind you as the light from the sun will mess up the tracking but if you want to play this thing outdoors at night though a bit weird you certainly can they did also send over a stand which though is sold separately does allow you to set up the camera pretty much anywhere which is pretty easy to set up and it also comes with a handy dandy carry bag it's not even that tall it's about waist high so it's not very cumbersome and very easy to move around so if you are in an awkward place and there's nowhere to rest the camera like in a studio or in a hotel room just pop up the stand and you're good to go now it's at this point where i really wish that i had a laptop so i could continue doing this video here in the studio but alas i do not so we're going to have to take this video into the living room where my pc is now bear with me a second as i make my desk at least somewhat presentable saying getting this set up to work in the living room was a bit faffy is an understatement it was quite faffy it took about an hour and a half to get it all sawed and now i'm tired so here is the setup we've got the light and the camera on the stand connected up to the pc hooking up the camera to the pc downloading the software and getting it all up and running was all very straightforward the only really annoying thing is the fact that we have a massive window here in the living room so all the light that was spilling in was bouncing off the walls and making it very hard for the camera to track my movements so i had to put one of the massive sound blankets over the window just to get this thing to work if i had a laptop and i could film in the studio it would have been way easier as i have full control of the lighting in there but oh well what's done is done setting up the software was super easy it basically just holds your hand through the whole procedure it's just full of instructions it makes it super straightforward it would be cool if one day they managed to provide a camera that has both the light and the camera combined in one unit so it only uses up one usb port i know it's not that big of a deal when using a pc like this but won't somebody please think of the macbook users so i've got my sticks i've got the pedals strapped to my feet and the camera is all ready to go so all i need to do is back my arse up and we can start playing this thing finally i can stop talking you think i like talking this much no it hurts my throat so right now we have the small rock drum kit selected and as you can see on the screen we've got tracking points for my right foot we've got my left foot we've got right hand and left hand so it's all working as it should there's no light spills from the window so the camera has no problem tracking my movements [Music] that sounds pretty good [Music] that sounds really good the samples on this kit are very high quality the tracking is really accurate as well i'm really surprised obviously with the pocket drum being bluetooth the symbols will always move at one point you'll be hitting a symbol and then suddenly it will turn into a snare and it was very very annoying whereas this one is amazingly accurate [Music] so good it's also kind of surprising that it doesn't take long to get used to where all the drums are and before you know it you're not even looking at the monitor you're just looking off elsewhere and playing some beats also another nice feature if you want to go back to the menu and change up some settings but you don't want to go all the way back to your pc to use your mouse and keyboard you can use the sticks just hover over where it says menu give it a hit and you're in the menu so for example let's go to sound and then from there you've got volume mixing reverb you can do center panning i'm not sure what that is but you can do it and then in drum kits you can select for a few different kits like the big rock drum kit you've got percussion kit you've got a midi kit and there's even a jazz kit as well and then you can also select your own custom creations but right now let's try out the big jazz kit so just hit apply done and there you go a whole new drum kit these are also velocity sensitive and i really don't know how they've managed to make it so good so for example on a snare [Music] it works so well [Music] okay all these presets sound great but i think it's about time that i made my own custom kits so one moment charles's red drum kit pop snare let's just pop that in there a ride and of course the all-important cowbell gotta have that on there so we want the snare just here then we've got the 10 inch rock tom i think we're going to put that there then the 12 inch here and a 16 inch just here that seems about right got the tambourine and we've got the all-important cowbell that's going to go right here this is a real mess isn't it [Music] [Music] wait is that 3d mode in the bottom right there okay we have to give that a go oh look at this it seems a little bit janky compared to the regular mode but this is a beta yeah i can definitely see the sticks glitching out a little bit but for work in progress this looks pretty good let's try loading my drum kit charles is rad drum kit go oh oh that's a mess i mean it didn't look that great in 2d but it's a true monster in 3d now obviously i'm not a professional drummer i am very much an amateur in fact i can't even twiddle my sticks while playing like i have no idea how you guys do that i've got to say i'm very impressed with what we've got here in fact i'll even go as far as saying that this virtual drum kit is better than my electric drum kit the samples sound better there's more variety for customization and sounds i'm just amazed with how good it actually is and also because you don't have to hit anything it also means that it's way quieter than my electric drum kit so if your housemates or your family can't even deal with the sound of tapping plastic these things actually might be a good option i think you'll have a better experience if you use the aerodrums with a laptop rather than a pc setup like i have just because they'll allow you to play pretty much anywhere rather than being limited to playing just in front of your pc although the physical elements of the aerodrums do feel quite cheap the software itself definitely doesn't feel cheap at all it's very responsive the drum samples they've used are very high quality it does a really good job tracking your movement and the customizable drum kits are just fantastic and it also has midi support so you can go ahead and use it with your preferred door software and open it up to a whole world of new samples and in fact as the drum samples are so high quality and it's easy to record with you could probably get away with using this as a studio drum kit which is pretty crazy when i was starting this video i really expected the aerodrums to have more in common with the pocket drums but honestly these guys have just blown them out of the water in fact i find myself comparing these more to electric drum kits rather than other air drumming devices to the point where i'm thinking do i even need an electronic drum kit anymore i could save a lot of space if i just bought a laptop and replaced my drum kit with a webcam but for those out there who are thinking of picking up a bluetooth air drumming device i would honestly say give them a miss and go for something like this obviously with these you're not gonna get any rebound or anything like that so it's not a truly authentic drumming experience but it does get surprisingly close i definitely don't think the aerodromes could replace an acoustic drum kit but if you're looking for a portable and practically silent alternative it doesn't really get much better than the aerodrums and with that i think that's going to be it for another edition of looted shout out to keegan mcadams natasha savage pika food luna george aycock luke reason chance mctire on patreon thank you very much for your support and if you like this video hit like if you like all our videos hit subscribe we've got more videos on the way if you want to support the channel further check out link in description to our patreon page and you can also join us on our discord server we'll see you guys in the next one have a good one

Channel: LOOTd

Views: 131,052

Keywords: aerodrums, air drumming instrument, air drumming device, pocketdrum, aeroband, aerodrums unboxing, virtual drum kit, drum kit unboxing, aerodrums reveiw, musical instrument, instrument, drums, drum kit, LOOTd, LOOTd unboxing, air drums, electronic drums, air drumming

Id: zJ7fcxcLLUM

Length: 12min 49sec (769 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 25 2021