If you want to play drums but are concerned about the noise, you may want to consider investing in an electronic drum set.  Like you, I live in the real world in spite of how much time I spend on the internet. And in the real world most of us have neighbors–neighbors who deserve to get a good night’s rest and not be disturbed by our drumming.  So, I reluctantly purchased an electronic drum set (thank you Coffey Music in Westminster, MD). 

I say “reluctantly” because I grew up playing and listening to acoustic drums.  All my drum heroes played acoustics drum sets too and I had no intention of changing.  But, I’ve found that I can still get a great practice session in on my electronic set and improve my skills (I went with a Roland TD-17KVX).  With the Roland V-Drums you can easily tweak the factory settings to modify the numerous preset drum kit sounds.  You can also play along to backing tracks with your phone’s bluetooth and play along with the built in metronome.  On the drum set that I picked up, you can even loosen the mesh drum heads a bit so they feel more natural.  And most importantly, you won’t make unnecessary enemies in your neighborhood.  There are quite a few electronic drum sets on the market, but here is a YouTube link to a demo of the one that I purchased and would recommend. 

Do I still prefer the look and feel of an acoustic drum set?  You bet.  Am I going to sell my acoustic drums?  No way!  But, electronic drums are a great path to a win-win situation.  You get to play drums, and you get to keep the peace with neighbors and family.  They would work well in a college dorm too, so when the kids go off to school there is no reason for them to leave their drums behind–off they go!  Give it a shot, stay open-minded if you are an analog soul like I am, and drop me a line anytime you want to talk music or drums.  Happy Drumming!