Ah drums, how I've enjoyed it. I started out with a cheap no-name kit when I was in high school/college. During my grad school I had a Pearl Kit with Paiste Cymbals and hi hat. Once I moved and got a job thought, I couldnt keep my acoustic kit in an apartment, so I had to sell it off :(
I still miss it, in some ways, cos a year later I ended up getting a Roland kit with mesh snare and DW double bass pedals. I've managed to keep in touch but I've still had issues with downstairs ppl complaining (there have been like 4-5 different sets of ppl there, some of them were ok, some werent). One guy even came up to me and said, "what do you think this is a club?" all I could say was "huh?" and said sorry I wont play anymore, couldnt play for a few months until that guy moved out....sigh
Nowadays I've deviced a semi-solution to keep things under control. I have three layers of carpetting, and have positioned the drums on the side with huge patio doors so it doesnt reverberate as much. So far it has been ok. I've lost a lot of my touch though, and can hardly keep up with songs I used to be able to play before. Electronic kits also kind of reduce your skill level if you use it as your only kit I feel, when I went back to an acoustic kit at my friends place after a few years of playing on electronic, I could barely play decently, it was so weird and it just felt odd, and I kept striking it softly to prevent making noise, as though I've been trained to not tolerate hitting the drums hard.
But nevertheless, the Roland kit is very good. To anyone who is having trouble with neighbors and cant quite manage an acoustic kit, I wouldnt bother with any of the other electronic kits, just go with Roland. If you can afford to have mesh pads on all the drums instead of just the snare, that would be even better. I for one, didn't want to invest too much on this cos I'm hoping to move to a house sometime and get back to playing acoustic.
