How Loud Are Electronic Drums? What the Published Numbers Say

Search for how loud electronic drums are and you will find the same numbers repeated on dozens of sites: “60 dB,” “70 dB,” “130 dB for acoustic.” Almost none of them say where the number came from. Some are guesses, some are copied from each other, and a few come from real measurements.

So I took a different approach for this page. I only use figures that someone actually published, I name the source in the text, and I say how the figure was produced when the source says so. Where I could not find a published figure, I tell you that instead of making one up. I did not take measurements myself.

The published figures at a glance

A quick primer on decibels

Decibels are a log scale, which makes them easy to misread.

• Every 10 dB is roughly a doubling of how loud something sounds to us. So 80 dB sounds about twice as loud as 70 dB, and four times as loud as 60 dB.
• Every 3 dB is a doubling of sound energy. That is why hearing limits shrink so fast as levels go up.
• dBA vs dBC. The “A” weighting matches how our ears hear everyday sounds and plays down low bass. The “C” weighting includes more low end and is used for peaks. A kick thump has a lot of low end, which A-weighted readings partly hide.
• Distance changes everything. A reading at your ear and a reading across the room can differ a lot. Many published figures do not say how far away the meter was, which is why I note it when they do.

How loud an e-kit is in the room

Roland’s UK blog on acoustic vs electronic drums gives 60 to 75 dB for kits with mesh drumheads and compares that to normal conversation up to a car driving past. Note the wording: it is a figure for mesh kits, not for every e-kit, and the blog gives no distance or method. Roland also says the bass drum and hi-hat pedals make most of the noise. Remember that Roland makes electronic kits, so these are a manufacturer’s ranges, not a lab report.

The best independent number I found for an electronic kit in a room is from Collaborate Worship. Kade Young, who runs the site, describes testing a Roland VAD516 against the church’s acoustic kit, with the same drummer and the meter in the same spots at the front and back of the room. The e-kit averaged 53 dB with peaks of 57 dB. The article does not say how far the meter was from the kit, which weighting it used, or whether the PA was running during the electronic reading, and the author calls it “not a scientific laboratory test.” Still, it is a real meter reading of a real kit.

DrumSpy’s measurement in a house gives a higher figure: 79 dBA in the playing room with the kick of a Donner DED-200 MAX played hard. That reading came from a phone meter, and the article does not give the distance from the kit. The difference from the church test likely comes from the room, the distance, the kit and how hard it was played. Neither test is wrong. They show how much “how loud” depends on the setup.

So a fair summary: in the same room, a played e-kit typically lands somewhere between conversation level and a loud TV, depending on the kit, the room, the distance and how hard you hit.

How loud an acoustic kit is, for comparison

Roland puts acoustic kits at 90 to 120 dB. That lines up with the best independent figure I found.

A 2025 study by Chiara Valderrama, Jorge P. Arenas and Jorge Cardenas, published in the International Journal of Acoustics and Vibration, measured noise exposure for 21 drummers during a controlled rehearsal in a recording studio, with microphones placed at the entrance of each drummer’s ear canal. The overall level during a typical rehearsal was 103 dBA. Adjusted for how impulsive drum hits are, the figure rose to 108.3 dBA. 90.5 percent of the drummers were over the NIOSH recommended limit, and 62 percent produced impulse peaks above 140 dBC. These are levels at the ear, not across a room.

In the Collaborate Worship test, the church’s acoustic kit averaged about 80 dB with peaks of 86 dB at the measuring spots. That is lower than the study, which makes sense: the meter was out in a large room, not at the ear canal in a studio.

In the church test, the electronic kit came out about 27 dB quieter on average. Using the 10 dB rule, that is a kit that sounds roughly six times quieter to the people in the room. It is one informal test, but it is the only side-by-side one I found.

What part of an e-kit makes the most noise

The kick pedal

Every source I found agrees that the kick is the loudest part through the building. Roland’s UK blog names the bass drum and hi-hat pedals. The clearest numbers are DrumSpy’s: 79 dBA in the playing room, 78 dBA in the room directly below, and 56 dBA in the room next door. The floor took out less than 2 dB. The wall took out 23 dB.

That is one house with a thin wood-frame floor over a basement, measured with a phone, and DrumSpy notes a concrete slab would likely behave differently. But it explains why the person below you hears you and the person next door often does not.

Roland’s figure for its beaterless KT-10 kick pedal puts a number on how much the kick setup matters: about 75 percent less noise in the playing room than a KD-9 kick pad played with a standard beater. Two limits: it is measured in the playing room, not downstairs, and Roland does not publish the decibel values behind the percentage, so I cannot turn it into a dB figure.

The hi-hat pedal

Roland groups the hi-hat pedal with the kick as the main noise source. I could not find any published decibel figure for a hi-hat pedal on its own. The mechanism is similar to the kick, a foot pedal thumping into the floor, just with less force on most kits.

Drum pads

Pads make the familiar tap you hear in the room. Every source I checked, including MusicRadar, Andertons and DrumSpy’s quiet-kit guide, says mesh heads are quieter than rubber pads. DrumSpy describes mesh stick attack as a soft thud where rubber gives a hard crack. I found no published test that measures mesh and rubber pads side by side in decibels. So I can tell you the direction but not the size of the difference. Our mesh vs rubber pads page covers why mesh is quieter.

Cymbal pads

Most cymbal pads are rubber, even on all-mesh kits, and they make a sharp tap. I found no published decibel figure for cymbal pads alone. On an all-mesh kit they are the only rubber surface your sticks hit, so expect them to be the loudest tap in the room.

The rack and throne

A light rack can rattle, and a throne can creak. These add to the noise but nobody publishes figures for them. They are usually fixed with tighter clamps and felt or rubber feet.

How loud the quietest kits are

Roland’s V-Drums Quiet Design kits, announced in October 2024, are built specifically for low noise. Roland’s product page claims “up to 75 percent reduction in playing noise compared with a conventional V-Drums kit,” based on “detailed testing in special facilities.” It also says stick hits on the pads produce in-room levels “similar to an average conversation.” That line is about stick hits, not the kick, and Roland published no decibel value or test method.

You may see a single dB number quoted for the VQD106 on retailer pages. I could not trace any of them to a measurement, so I leave them out.

Is an electronic kit safe for your hearing?

NIOSH, the US agency for workplace safety and health, recommends keeping average exposure at or below 85 dBA over 8 hours. Its rule uses a 3 dB exchange rate: every 3 dB louder halves the safe time. That means about 4 hours at 88 dBA, 1 hour at 94 dBA and about 15 minutes at 100 dBA. Roland’s blog also names 85 dB as the point where permanent damage becomes a risk.

The acoustic numbers above show why acoustic drummers are told to wear hearing protection every time. The Valderrama study’s 103 dBA overall level is well past the safe daily dose within minutes.

With an electronic kit, the pads themselves are well under those levels at the published figures. The real risk is your headphones. You set that volume, and turning headphones up to drown out the pad noise can push your ears into the same range as an acoustic kit. Keep the headphone level moderate and use closed-back headphones so you don’t need to turn up. Our headphones guide covers models that isolate well.

How loud it is for the neighbors

The answer depends almost entirely on where they are.

• Next door, through a wall: DrumSpy’s reading dropped from 79 to 56 dBA through one interior wall. Most people next door hear little or nothing from the pads.
• Directly below, through a wood floor: DrumSpy’s reading barely dropped, from 79 to 78 dBA. The people below hear the kick clearly.
• Below, on a concrete slab: I found no published measurement. DrumSpy writes that a drummer over a concrete slab has a much easier problem than one over wood joists, but gives no figure.

I go into this in more detail on can neighbors hear electronic drums. For the fixes, from risers to beaterless kicks, see how to make electronic drums quieter.

How much quieter fixes make it

Here the published data is thin.

• Beaterless kick: Roland says about 75 percent less noise in the playing room versus a KD-9 pad with a standard beater. No dB values and no figure for the room below.
• Isolation board: Roland says its NE-10 cuts noise and vibration through the floor to rooms below by about 75 percent versus pedals without it. This is the only published figure I found that is measured downstairs, and Roland gives no test conditions.
• Risers, tennis-ball platforms, rugs: I found no published decibel measurements. A floating riser is the fix most often recommended for people below, but nobody I found has published before-and-after numbers.

If you want to check your own setup, a phone sound meter app used the same way before and after a change gives a useful comparison, even if it is not lab-accurate. Our riser and rug pages, best drum risers and best drum rugs, cover the products.

Why the numbers online vary so much

You will see e-kit figures from 30 dB to 80 dB online. A few reasons:

• Distance from the kit. A meter at the drummer’s ear reads much higher than one across a church.
• How hard it was played. DrumSpy’s test was deliberately played hard.
• What was measured. Room level, next room, room below, with or without the kick.
• The meter. Phone apps vary, and many sources do not say what they used.
• Copying. Many figures on drum blogs have no source at all. I checked several popular pages and found ranges like “60 to 65 dB” and “130 dB for acoustic” with no method or source given.

So when you compare kits, look for figures from the same test, done the same way. A number by itself means little.

The bottom line

The published numbers agree on the big picture. In the one side-by-side test I found, the electronic kit was about 27 dB quieter than the acoustic kit in the room, and Roland’s ranges point the same way. What they also show is that the kick is the weak point, because the floor passes its thump almost unchanged. Treat the kick and the floor, and an e-kit becomes one of the quietest ways to play drums at home.