ot: digital drums

[BillWelcome Home Studios]

Got the Alesis DM-5 Pro with Surge cymbals yesterday. The R'N'R GirlFriend didn't enjoy playing the acoustic kit because, as a beginner, she didn't want people to hear her mistakes as shes getting it together.

 

I picked the Alesis, because a deal fell through for the Roland HD-1 (and of course, the guy calls me back after I've ordered the Alesis, wanting to do the deal after all...) and I picked the Surge cymbals because compared to rubber drum pads, they really do feel a lot closer to real cymbals.

 

Currently I have a few issues with the kit, but I'm confident that they will be resolved as I get familiar with it,and I get deeper into the manual.

 

But I do have one curious issue... the hat pedal doesn't seem to be working. I can pull out the plug, short it, and cause the trigger action to work, so I know that it is not he brain or the cable. Before I start to tear the pedal apart and attack it with a soldering gun and other implements of destruction, I thought that I might check for anyone else similar experiences. Anyone else working with this kit?

 

[A String]

I've played on several of these kits and, while not as nice as an acoustic kit, it's quite nice for home recording, not to mention they are quite fun!

 

I've never had any problems, but I've heard the wires can come loose from too much wear and tear.

 

If it's still under warranty, I would return it and get a new one. If not, it sounds like your hypothesis is correct and the wire probably just needs to be soldered back into place.

[BillWelcome Home Studios]

"I would return it and get a new one. "

 

Yeah, I bought it mail order, so that could/would mean untold weeks of waiting. If it is as simple as a bad joint or switch, I can fix it in an hour. So I'll try that route second. My first move was to contact Alesis, but I sent in my request after hours yesterday. Gotta give them a little time to respond. It may come to shipping it back, but since I just finished reading the manual and they describe what kind of a switch it is, I'll probably fix it myself one way or another. (I have a few extra pedals around here with the same switching system, might just replace the stock with a different pedal, or swipe the switch from a different pedal.)

[A String]

Just out of curiosity, how do you like the DM-5 over others you have tried? How close to a real kit, sound wise, can you get in recording?

[BillWelcome Home Studios]

Just out of curiosity, how do you like the DM-5 over others you have tried? How close to a real kit, sound wise, can you get in recording?

 

Well, the Surge cymbals, in terms of feel, are worth the price of admission.

 

I've always been happy with the Alesis drums. I had a D4 and I still have an SR16, I had an HR16, too. Easy to use, decent sounds. There are recordings wherein I replaced the real drummer with Alesis drums and nobody knows but me and the producers.

 

I hesitate to give you a totally positive review at this point, because the set is only days old. I've seen people rave about them, and I've seen people whine about them. Most of the complaints were obviously setup issues, as they are addressed in the manual (though the posters don't seem to know this). But at least one might be valid... a drummer mentioned that trying to play a roll at a certain speed causes notes to be cut off. I don't know about that, probably won't affect me much if at all.

 

What I like... the cymbals, the drumheads. Feels pretty good.

I don't like the rack very much, and I don't like the clamp articulation. But they might all be like this, I don't know... I never paid THAT much attention until I tried to set up the kit.

 

A weak spot for me is the hat. It is either open or closed. I played drums in a band all through high school. I use the hat in a lot of ways, not always fully open or closed. Some other kits offer a variable hat control. This is not a deal breaker for us, because this kit will serve mostly as a learning tool for Debbie, and as a MIDI input device for me.. I'll never use the DM5 sounds, I'll just play the parts into Sequoia and assign samples.

 

Also, the price... $640, delivered... was right.

 

Now, you can buy the DM5 Pro kit used for about $450, but these do not include the Surge cymbals, which are quite expensive to add. Since the kit new is under $600 everywhere, I'm not impressed with that price. But the important part for me was the PRO designation, which indicates that you get the drum pads with heads, rather than the rubber pads of the previous DM5 kits.

 

I really liked the compactness of the Roland HD-1 kit. As I said, I saw one of them for $450, but after using the Surge cymbals I'm really glad that we got what we got.

[BillWelcome Home Studios]

Oh, I thought that I should add... there are only four outputs on the DM5 Pro brain. So if you want to record discrete drums, you'll not be able to do it in one shot.

 

But the MIDI outs allow you to record the playing into a sequencer, edit the playing to make it 'perfect' (change it any way you want) then use the MIDI out of the sequencer to play the DM5 brain. If you edit the sounds in the brain to assign the Kick and Snare to an output each (say, Kick left, Snare right), and build a stereo mix with the rest of the drums across the auxillary two outputs, you'll end up with a nice four channel drum recording that should allow you a reasonable amount of sound editing.

 

Or you could just do what i'm going to do, and assign the MIDI tracks to a drum sample library within the computer.

[A String]

Thanks Bill!

[G. A. Donis]

Nice timely post. I've been seriously considering buying a digital drum set and taking lessons. Ever since I was a little kid I wanted to play the drums. It probably isn't too far off the mark to say I am a frustrated drummer. I love digging into a deep groove.

 

Thanks for the info, I've been trying to decide what to get and this helped me get a little closer to the destination.

 

edit: My main reason for looking at digital drums is to be able to practice without disturbing the household or the neighborhood. How loud acoustically are the Surge cymbals?

[Fumblyfingers]

I hve been toying with the idea of getting a digital kit for years. While I am not a drummer, I can hold down almost any beat...it is just the fills where I would get into serious trouble.

 

I have quite a few drum programs..... good ones...Stylus RMX with all the S.A.G.E expanders, Drumcore with many drummerpacks, EZ Drummer with several EZX add on's, Discrete Drums, BFD Lite etc etc

 

The problem is I never seem to be able to find that beat I need in the preprogrammed or recorded ones, and they never sound right when I try programming a MIDI beat.

 

It is small variations in kick, hat amd snare patterns that really make a drum track pop... this is what really makes the idea of this sort of kit appealing.

 

So Bill, what you are saying is there is no sloshy hat sound...... just closed and open? Also if one were to ant to manipulate a hat pattern that was always closed but one was pushing harder and letting up on the pedal.......you'd not get that? It would be one closed sound?

 

I actually thought a way around this would be to use a real hi-hat and a real crash and ride cymbal. Just use the pads to write the part and then assign a good sample library like Drumcore to the MIDI notes.

[BillWelcome Home Studios]

"So Bill, what you are saying is there is no sloshy hat sound...... just closed and open? Also if one were to ant to manipulate a hat pattern that was always closed but one was pushing harder and letting up on the pedal.......you'd not get that? It would be one closed sound?"

 

Yes. And that is a shame, but so far it is the only sonic dealie that I've found.

 

"I actually thought a way around this would be to use a real hi-hat and a real crash and ride cymbal. Just use the pads to write the part and then assign a good sample library like Drumcore to the MIDI notes."

 

I used to use digital drums and real cymbals. The DM5 cymbals sound pretty good so far, I'll probably use them. And the Surge cymbal pads are nice to play...much cooler than rubber pads.

 

"I never seem to be able to find that beat I need "

 

And they are missing basic ones... like using the floor tom instead of the ride. Yeah,I can re-assign. And pushing ans pulling, and tom fills, or dramatic breakdowns... by the time I hunt for them, find something close, try to modify it... I'd sooner just play what I hear in my head and assign sounds from a library. (Which was a part of the reason for buying the DM5 kit.)

 

I'm sure that a drummer would complain. I'll probably find shortcomings as I go along. But this is going to allow me to do a lot of stuff.

 

 

 

[Fumblyfingers]

I'm sure that a drummer would complain....

 

So what......it is still better than programming a beat in a drum machine that no drummer on earth could play ......even Dennis Chambers...LOL!!!