Electronic Drums and MIDI

[Andy Peters]

I'd stay away from the Alesis modules. The modules that I have had were all........ Not that good. (Trigger I/O, DM5, D4)

I've had a DM5 for about 15 years. Never had to complain. I'm not a MIDI freak, I use it just because it's convenient.

A D4 saved a gig for me once. The band I was working for have a song which uses TR808 samples for kick, snare and hat for the first verse; when the first chorus kicks in it's back to real drums. So I carried a D4 in the rack and triggered kick, snare and hat sounds from those drum channels' direct outs on the console. The samples returned to three other inputs.

So we're doing a fly gig at a college in Michigan, and the hired backline was actually borrowed from a local band. And after the third or fourth song, I lost the kick channel. I could clearly hear things in the headphones, just the kick sound was pffft. I radio back to the stage, and I'm told, "He put his foot through the batter head of the drum!"

I dial up a "rock kick" sound on the D4 and nobody knows the difference.

-a

 

[helterbelter]

Regarding Alesis stuff : I'm referring to the use of triggers, vs midivelocity (to change the attack and punch.)
Alesis seem to know only one sound : full force. Nothing dynamic (well.... not dynamic enough to my taste, let's be fair).

This is the only reason why I don't like the Alesis modules. The sounds that are in the Alesis modules are fine, but the triggerresponse isn't.

If you use these to trigger from tape or other audiosignals.... They might be fine, no experience with the Alesises on that front. I've seen DM5's in a lot of studios, only used for that purpose, so, I can only expect they're doing that job very well.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Regarding Alesis stuff : I'm referring to the use of triggers, vs midivelocity (to change the attack and punch.)
Alesis seem to know only one sound : full force. Nothing dynamic (well.... not dynamic enough to my taste, let's be fair).

This is the only reason why I don't like the Alesis modules. The sounds that are in the Alesis modules are fine, but the triggerresponse isn't.

If you use these to trigger from tape or other audiosignals.... They might be fine, no experience with the Alesises on that front. I've seen DM5's in a lot of studios, only used for that purpose, so, I can only expect they're doing that job very well.

I assume you know each trigger input has a gain setting and a selectable response curve...? What type of pick-ups did you use?

 

[alexc]

The Alesis kit have additional parameters relating to triggering than the older stuff.

The DM8 that I have has no problem with realistic trigger dynamics at all.

Much better at snare rolls and so on than the older kits I used, like the roland td6 and earlier.

Chalk and cheese, certainy, compared to my old sr16 

 

[helterbelter]

I assume you know each trigger input has a gain setting and a selectable response curve...? What type of pick-ups did you use?

DDrum... the expensive ones. And also the current Roland pads with meshheads and cmbalpads.
And yes, I know about the settings and the response curves. Regarding the trigger IO (which is a modern Alesis module), I have twiddled hours and hours : I couldn't get it right.

The Alesis kit have additional parameters relating to triggering than the older stuff.

The DM8 that I have has no problem with realistic trigger dynamics at all.

Much better at snare rolls and so on than the older kits I used, like the roland td6 and earlier.

Chalk and cheese, certainy, compared to my old sr16 

I haven't tested the DM8, it could well be that that one is fantastic. But the Trigger IO is also a pretty new machine, I'd be surprised if the DM8 has got other triggercircuitry than the Trigger IO.

By the way : I'm not saying that everything from Alesis is bad.
I'm just saying that I'd stay away from the Alesis drummodules. Simply based on my own experience. The only thing bad that I can say about Roland drumstuff, is that it's expensive.  It could well be that there are a lot of Alesis machines that are great, and they're a lot cheaper than the Roland stuff.

 

[JohnWatkins]

I wish I'd have seen this earlier.  I'm sure it's too late for my opinion to help.  But, I was in the exact same position a couple of years ago and ended up buying the Roland SPD-30 and building a drum set around it using it's external trigger inputs.  The sounds (for whatever reason) are better to my ear than even some of the V-drum kits.  I run it parallel with my Motif for a "best of both worlds" balance between the two.  People are routinely surprised to learn that they are not listening to acoustic drums.  Check out my soundcloud page if interested.  Almost all of the songs were recorded this way.

https://soundcloud.com/jwatkinscncguitarparts

 

[ruffrecords]

Hi John,

Thanks for the input. I have bought the Roland now and last night managed to get it to talk midi to my Yamaha ES rack so like you I have the best of both worlds.

Cheers

Ian