Roland VAD307 Review

Many drummers don’t enjoy playing electronic kits due to how small they are. Most of them are mounted to small racks that make them compact enough to fit in most spaces. 

While that’s great for convenience, it’s not great when you want to get the same feeling you get from playing acoustic drums. 

With the Roland VAD307, you can space all the drums and cymbals out in the same way as an acoustic kit, as they’re all mounted to regular hardware stands. This makes the kit a more attractive option for drummers. 

There are several other top-quality features that make the kit good, and we’re going to dive into each one of those. I’ll explain how the kit ranks in terms of performance, design, build quality, and value. 

Roland VAD307 Gallery

Contents

Roland VAD307 Ratings

Performance

5

5/5

Build Quality

5

5/5

Value

4

4/5

Design

4.5

4.5/5

Module

4.5

4.5/5

Module

The Roland VAD307 uses the TD-17 drum module, which Roland markets as their intermediate module option. It’s a powerful module with several features inspired by the brand’s higher-end options. 

When you buy this kit, the module comes with 70 preset kits and another 50 slots to create your own drum sets.

If you get the VAD306 version of the kit, it comes with the first generation of the TD-17 module, which only has 50 kits. However, you can upgrade it for free to get the 20 new preset kit sounds as well as a few other tweaks. 

The module has Roland’s famous Prismatic Sound Modeling Engine. It ensures that you have a good amount of control over the sounds, and most of them sound fantastic. 

While the module has several great features, it’s also very simple to get a hang on. It only takes a few hours to understand all the controls. 

Performance

The performance quality of the Roland VAD307 comes from how the module sounds interact with the drum and cymbal pads. 

Each pad is incredibly responsive, offering an excellent amount of playability.

This kit also feels a lot more comfortable to play due to the pads being spaced out. You can mimic your acoustic drum kit setup perfectly, making more drummers feel at home compared to smaller and more compact e-kits. 

Some preset kits need to be edited a bit, though. There are many on the module that have very soft hi-hat sounds, and you need to manually increase the pad sensitivity to get those sounds to be a bit louder. 

With that being said, you use a regular hi-hat stand for this kit, making playing the hi-hat feel more comfortable than kits with a hi-hat trigger pedal. 

Build Quality

The two build quality aspects to look at are the pads and hardware stands that come with the kit. Unfortunately, the kit doesn’t come with a hi-hat stand, kick drum pedal, or snare drum stand. 

It only comes with three cymbal stands and mounts to clamp the drum pads. These cymbal stands feel amazing, though. They’re heavy-duty stands, making both the drum and cymbal pads feel seriously secure when you play. You don’t get any wobbling, even when you hit hard. 

The drum and cymbal pads themselves are fantastic. Roland offers the best pads on the market, and you get to experience high-end build quality here. 

The mesh drum pads are built very sturdily, and they’re known to last decades before they stop working properly. 

The cymbals on the VAD307 are a bit thinner than the ones on the VAD306. This makes them feel a lot more realistic and responsive, as they act more like acoustic cymbals than thick plastic ones do. 

The 307 version also has a 14” ride pad, while the 306 version has a 13” one. The larger surface area also adds better playability to the newer kit. 

The kick drum pad is one of the best features of the kit. It only has a small mesh area where sounds get triggered, but the rest of the large shell makes it feel the same as a typical acoustic kick drum when you play. 

Design

Since this kit falls under Roland’s VAD Series, each drum pad is built onto an acoustic shell to make the kit resemble an acoustic drum kit more than Roland’s V-Drums sets.

These acoustic shells are completely aesthetic, as they don’t affect how the drums feel to play. Only the acoustic bass drum affects the response a bit. 

The acoustic shells on this particular kit are also only half shells. The higher-end kits in the VAD line have full acoustic shells. 

The benefit of these acoustic shells is that they make the kit look a lot better. You may be more inclined to use a kit like this on stage than one with thin pads that don’t offer stage presence. 

There isn’t any difference in the shells when comparing the VAD306 and VAD307, so you won’t miss out in this area if you get the older version of the set. 

Value

Since this is a Roland electronic drum kit, it comes with quite a hefty price tag. However, Roland drum sets are always worth their cost, as they tend to last much longer than most other electronic drum brands.

You’ll pay just under $3000 for this set, depending on where you look. You’ll also need to buy a hi-hat stand, kick drum pedal, and snare drum stand if you don’t have those already. 

If you want to get the same sounds and playability for a lower cost, you could consider the Roland TD-17KVX. It has all the same features besides the acoustic shells. 

The VAD306 version is naturally a bit cheaper, but it will be a lot harder to find now that it has been discontinued. However, I think it’s well worth it to get the VAD307 version due to the cymbals feeling a lot better to play. 

Verdict

If you don’t own an electronic drum kit yet, the Roland VAD307 is a fantastic option to consider. It’s one of the more affordable VAD kits that allows you to get a comfortable and spaced-out drum kit setup. 

The TD-17 drum module is also a fine piece of work, offering high-quality sounds and performance.

This is a great kit for professional drummers to use as a practice option. It’s also perfect for less experienced drummers that want something on the higher-end side of things.