Author Topic: DM-10X Soundset on Steroids  (Read 3706 times)

DM-10X Soundset on Steroids
« on: September 09, 2016, 08:41:43 PM »
Hi drummers,
firstly, let me introduce myself:
I'm a drummer/drum teacher from Germany and entered the whole world of E-Drums firstly because of the increasing interest of students in instruments for practicing at home. I mostly played accoustic drums and sampling pads.

So I went the same route like probably many of you, I bought an early DM-10 X for a valuable price but got more and more diappointed and frustrated with it's limitations the more I needed a real instrument for rehearsals and gigs.

I followed many of your posts with great interest concerning upgrading the kit and finding solutions for the weaknesses of the DM-10 in the last years.

My upgrade history consists of many "traditional stages": Mesh-head conversion, better HiHat pad and controller, mute-groups and piezo tweaks, Trigger I/O and finally the BlueJay soundset. But all these things were not really satisfying. About 3 years ago a followed a thread in the DMdrummer forum of a few guys who hacked the software of the module itself and this is where I investigated further hence the project ended suddenly even though it was very promising (I'm aware of possible legal problems, too!).

So finally here I present to you: My Frankenstein DM-10 X in a quite final stage!!! -It's fun to play for nearly a year now!
Specs:
-DM-10 X with highly modified bases of the 2-zone drum pads, all with mesh-head conversion.
-4-zone snare (center, off-center, rimshot and rimclick triggers), added side-snare.
-2 modules running tweaked soundsets, I sampled my accoustic WAHAN beechwood drum kit and merged these sounds with the complete Yamaha Maple Custom kit of the BlueJay set, Sounds of the stock set and the Recording Custom drum set of the EZdrummer program into 2 different soundsets
-all cymbals choke-able (2 with mute-groups)
-3-zone ride with sensitive custom bell sound and new edge crash sound
-2-zone main crashes and added Alesis 2-zone china with individual sensitive bell sounds
-added Roland splash pad and added third crash pad (both choke-able)
-DIY Roland VH11 HiHat with bottom pad, individually customizable sounds for edge and bow, foot-chick and working heel-splash sounds (Yeah!-2 modules...)

All Sound files of the WAHAN kit have up to 4 more layers and the highest sound-depths.
I managed to assemble 10 different kits, including a brush and a rod drum set.

Conclusion: I spent endless hours evaluating (and very much was try-and-error...), documenting and programming and probably would have failed quite a few times without the help of my brother, he is a computer programmer, actually...

But it was worth the effort for me, firstly because I'm "on the edge to a real instrument" now and this one still seems to be top-of-the-line in the dying DMdrums era, especially since the Strike Pro still has not seen a drum store here, yet.
And not to forget that the DM-10 with mesh-heads still is a fine set for the price!

But as far I've come now, the road already has an end and I understand why the first Project ended so suddenly: The very limited memory of the module and the strange architecture of the sound roms. That means that besides the limited number of sound files, firstly the duration of the Sounds is very limited.
Generally it is only possible to exchange sounds with new ones. But in the stock sound rom the emphasis is put on a wide variety of sounds so there's only space for a small number of stereo-files with many layers for each instrument. If these are replaced not only the originals are deleted but quite a few parts of other compound sounds, too!

One final note: I started this project for private use and out of personal interest only, no comercial or public use intended in any way!

This is intended to encourage you to personalize your kits to your needs and simply push the limits;-)

Best wishes,
Tim.

Offline Hellfire

Re: DM-10X Soundset on Steroids
« Reply #1 on: September 09, 2016, 09:13:05 PM »
Wow! The ultimate tweak! Great story. I'm glad you shared it with us and welcome to the forum.

Re: DM-10X Soundset on Steroids
« Reply #2 on: September 13, 2016, 10:55:36 AM »
Wow! That is a real DIY. Most of us DIY hardware, but you just DIYed the drum software.
Yamaha DTXtreme III with DIY drum pads

Offline rhysT

Re: DM-10X Soundset on Steroids
« Reply #3 on: September 14, 2016, 03:43:33 AM »
My upgrade history consists of many "traditional stages": Mesh-head conversion, better HiHat pad and controller, mute-groups and piezo tweaks, Trigger I/O and finally the BlueJay soundset. But all these things were not really satisfying. About 3 years ago a followed a thread in the DMdrummer forum of a few guys who hacked the software of the module itself and this is where I investigated further hence the project ended suddenly even though it was very promising (I'm aware of possible legal problems, too!).

Conclusion: I spent endless hours evaluating (and very much was try-and-error...), documenting and programming and probably would have failed quite a few times without the help of my brother, he is a computer programmer, actually...

But it was worth the effort for me, firstly because I'm "on the edge to a real instrument" now and this one still seems to be top-of-the-line in the dying DMdrums era, especially since the Strike Pro still has not seen a drum store here, yet.
And not to forget that the DM-10 with mesh-heads still is a fine set for the price!

But as far I've come now, the road already has an end and I understand why the first Project ended so suddenly: The very limited memory of the module and the strange architecture of the sound roms. That means that besides the limited number of sound files, firstly the duration of the Sounds is very limited.
Generally it is only possible to exchange sounds with new ones. But in the stock sound rom the emphasis is put on a wide variety of sounds so there's only space for a small number of stereo-files with many layers for each instrument. If these are replaced not only the originals are deleted but quite a few parts of other compound sounds, too!

Thanks Tim for some ideas about expanding the DM10's capabilities although most of us only have one DM10 module and can't 'hack' the soundset. Did you consider using a SampleRack to combine imported sounds (via midi-control) with the DM10 internal instrument sounds?

I've thought about using the DM10 Editor to share some kits of preferred instrument sounds, but I keep making minor tweaks to the kit settings and it's easier to just update and share my AllMemory Sysex backup file for anyone not using VSTIs (http://www.alesisdrummer.com/index.php?topic=4240.msg45952#msg45952)

Re: DM-10X Soundset on Steroids
« Reply #4 on: September 17, 2016, 08:55:36 PM »
Yes, I considered those possibilities with the Sample Rack and similar products but for me the weakest point of the kit is the HiHat and it's control. Or more precisely: A one-zone trigger and insensitive controlling and that's not improved by an external sound-source. I'm not familiar with the specs of the Sample Rack but i don't think that we can load sounds with more than 16 bits into it and the trigger adjustments are quite limited via midi compared to those in the module, too. So I skipped the idea of upgrading my VSTi set-up on the computer for the drum-kit.
My initial idea with my whole project was to "clone" the set-up of my acoustic kit on the DM-10, find a better solution for the HiHat on the way and to do this even with the sounds by modding the sound sets, finally.
By the way, I found out that much of the latency (-especially with a midi set-up like the Alesis Trigger I/O) is the result of a few mili-seconds of silence in the beginning of many sound-files in the module itself!

I like the idea of sharing settings and backups of kits but it's a drag that everyone has to delete his own kit in the process.

Re: DM-10X Soundset on Steroids
« Reply #5 on: February 07, 2017, 03:26:27 AM »
Hello Tim,

You did a great job on making every bit of DM10 box to work the way it should from the beginning. Considering the lack of any meaningful official documents for module developers your project look simply outstanding (I'm a software engineer)!!

And it would be very sad if you simply throw results you got in hands because you eventually lost the initial enthusiasm about the DM10 hardware..  :-\

Would you be able to share whatever you have with the DM10 community here: binary files, compilations, notes... These things are precious.

Re: DM-10X Soundset on Steroids- technical background
« Reply #6 on: February 10, 2017, 06:32:14 AM »
Hey ezr7171,

Thanks for your post in this thread and your interest in this whole topic concerning our almost ancient DM-10:-)

Firstly, haven't lost interest in researching but didn't have so much time for it recently and simply had to switch to "play-mode" on my DM-10.
Shurely I'm interested in teaming-up for results but don't have the plan to make it all available generally in public.
Not primarily because of the mentioned low response or because of the upcoming new hardware but firstly because knowing my solutions are not usable commonly and could not lead to some sort of software or anything.

I was wondering about how little interest I gained in the community in general when i posted my project (-nobody seemed to have picked up those promising efforts again ever since a first effort back in 2014 and nobody even asked for sound-samples or anything. Perhaps because everybody is exited of the announced Strike kits or simply use EZ Drummer instead of the original sounds now???
So we're more or less on our own now it seems ...

As I mentioned there existed a group of drummers here who tried to go the same route but the whole project ended suddenly even though one of them claimed to be ready to offer modified sound-roms ("DM10 file formats (warning/ technical!)"). Sadly I was not able to get in touch with the participants when I started on my own about 2 years ago,
evaluating mostly trial-and-error with the help of a programmer here.

For all of you interested or those who already digged into the process of exchanging files, you'll find a short part out of a list of wav files inside the drum module ass an attachment, just to explain into which problems I ran very soon (-and probably everyone will as long as the, let's call it DNA, of the sound-roms is not found out).

Starting with file number 399: You can see the wav number, the calculated starting- and end-point of the file (-but all those are wrong due to a mis-calculation! I had to find them for each file individually..), the offset and finally the assumed tom-sound you will hear each file in when you play.

Just imagine the bunch of files building one drum sound together, with different velocities, PAN R / L,... stagged together like a pyramid turned upside-down: The first dynamic below, second dynamic on top of it, proceeding upwards every file being a bit longer for the size and longer decay of the sound.

BUT: Most of the sounds are mixtures of the others spread out all over the sound-rom in a kind of random order, no folder structures!...a clicking sound for the rim-shot on the snare for example forms the rim sound on a tom,too and heavily gated it is part of a rim-click on another snare at the same time. A cut-off tom sound forms the attack on a bass-drum and so on...
The parts of the pyramid are not spread-out in successive order, too, sometimes in reversed lenghts and so on. Hitting a cymbal for example means you hear long files with lots of sustain on the first dynamic level enriched by shorter attack sounds when playing a crescendo...no general outline for all of the instruments at all

...Back to my example file number 404: The biggest problem besides finding out which file is used in which dynamic level of what ever instrument is to figure out where you can load a all parts of new sound into. "WAHAN 5.Dyn." means I replaced the existing wav file with a sound of a 10" WAHAN tom on a 6th dynamic level, panned to the left, directly after you can see in which other tom sounds it will be audible, too, or- put another way which other tom files you loose in this process. Getting the point?

Just take the time to skip through an instrument folder and compare the sounds you hear when you through them.
Start with the Tom sound folder: I state that there only exist up to 3 DIFFERENT sounds with usable velocity depth and size for each instrument!

So which sounds do you want to use instead the originals, anyway?
- I came to the conclusion that it is a tough fight to beat the original Alesis sounds with a reasonable effort. Even though they are not good enough for playing live they still appear to be a good compromise of quite many sounds over all, a -call it reasonable- quality and the rather small size fitting the short memory of our module.

What makes an instrument sound lively, rich, coloured and musical?
Ambience, ring, long decay, layers!...all that means boosting sizes and running short of memory with the DM-10.

I intended to merge the best sounds of BlueJay, the original rom and EZ Drummer sounds into one rom but ended up with muted cymbals and toms, too!
And besides this fact I just couldn't find a library containing all the sounds we really need. The original BJ library lacks half-open HH and Chinas, too...(besides sacrificing a few dynamic levels for bigger file sizes), EZ has not more than 2 HiHat-openings at all, even Simon Phillips offers no Side-Snare sounds or Snares with the wires off!
I ended up sampling my whole acoustic kit in the end.

Let me point out again that I'm still not able to change the sound formats or architectures of the roms nor have I decoded the full DNA of them (-and I'm more and more certain that it can't be done with reverse engineering as long as no inside information about the roms is provided to us) nor can I provide any secure information about each element forming an audible instrument sound or each specific format of the elements.

So even though I claim to have successfully compiled 2 different sound-roms beating the Crimson kit and even most of what I've heard of the upcoming Strike kit, too there are a few bottle-necks that need to be considered nearly unchangeable, except you want to use 2 modules and heavily improve your hardware, too.

...But if you think you can dig deeper into the roms or know how to re-flash eproms and tweak start-up sequences, we'll enter a real new level!

My problems in this stage now is quite software-related, because I intend to tweak the tiny boot and trigger roms.
Perhaps this gets too detailed here very soon and we should get in contact via PM?


...Hmmm, quite a long post now but i hope this helps to clear it up for you all what it's all about here.

Just keep on drumming folks!!!!

Tim.



Offline rhysT

Re: DM-10X Soundset on Steroids
« Reply #7 on: February 11, 2017, 12:26:26 AM »
Gee Tim, I'm impressed with your in-depth hacking, but I'm trying to keep my improvements to the DM10 sound-set fairly simple by mainly adding extra layers with the 'spare' midi notes.

I guess my interest in DM10 tweaking will taper off when Mimic Pro (& SSD-5) are available, and I'm expecting the Strike hi-hats may be only 'semi-pro' standard.

Re: DM-10X Soundset on Steroids
« Reply #8 on: February 11, 2017, 05:18:50 AM »
Hello rhysT!

yes you're fairly right in using spare-time for other more valuable things ;D

With a look back at the different stages of my mods I would conclude that the greatest improvement for a reasonable time effort surely was the BlueJay soundset sound-wise and the possibility to choke more cymbals / add more instruments with the Trigger I/O.

And that's the way most of us improved their DM-10s.

What I really wasn't able to figure out is the way round robin works (or Dynamic Articulation) with so few files usable for every velocity level in the end.
Although there's less machine-gun effect when playing now with the new sounds!

That would be really interesting because I never got my hands on a drum module we could load own sounds in!

I fear that we don't get much sound-depth with those sounds, anyway or would have to record / sample them in many dynamics before...
I'd prefer to use my Roland SPS-S again;-)


Is the BlueJay still available, anyway? It could be possible to switch the reversed foot-chick sound, exchange the fully open HH with a half-open, skip some bad sounds for a 4th Tom and China/Splash cymbals.... if time is invested in evaluating.

Mimic Pro really sounds interesting! But really expensive all the same.

Tim.

Offline rhysT

Re: DM-10X Soundset on Steroids
« Reply #9 on: February 11, 2017, 11:50:44 PM »
What I really wasn't able to figure out is the way round robin works (or Dynamic Articulation) with so few files usable for every velocity level in the end.
Although there's less machine-gun effect when playing now with the new sounds!

I fear that we don't get much sound-depth with those sounds, anyway or would have to record / sample them in many dynamics before...

Is the BlueJay still available, anyway?

I've simulated a useful round-robin effect on my DM10 snare sounds as explained here: http://www.alesisdrummer.com/index.php?topic=6582.msg47412#msg47412

You can also add more effective depth to the tom and kick sounds simply with a cable between the Midi in & out ports, and vary it a bit with Note Chase on or off.

Btw, BlueJay is not currently available, but Alesis haven't confirmed that it's been discontinued.
« Last Edit: February 11, 2017, 11:53:15 PM by rhysT »

Re: DM-10X Soundset on Steroids
« Reply #10 on: February 12, 2017, 04:56:21 AM »
Thanx again for your reply, rhysT!

Your linked post really helps tu figure out how to enrich sounds by using additional midi sounds and the chord function.
What i wanted to know is how round robin works basically. Is it correct that the machine gun effect is simply reduced or avoided by firing up slightly varied files of the same dynamic level and sound in random order or some kind of chain?

It would be very interesting to find out if there're extra sound files stored in the sound set or if this feature is generated by the hardware itself, meaning varying effects, panning and so on when you repeatedly strike the same pad without using extra sound files.


Offline rhysT

Re: DM-10X Soundset on Steroids
« Reply #11 on: February 12, 2017, 08:43:32 AM »
What i wanted to know is how round robin works basically. Is it correct that the machine gun effect is simply reduced or avoided by firing up slightly varied files of the same dynamic level and sound in random order or some kind of chain?

It would be very interesting to find out if there're extra sound files stored in the sound set or if this feature is generated by the hardware itself, meaning varying effects, panning and so on when you repeatedly strike the same pad without using extra sound files.

I reckon the DM10 dynamic velocity algorithms may have some influence on round robin effects, as I've tweaked the dynamic pitch settings on most of my dual snare sounds for an offset of say +4 & -1 on their A/B layers. Plus combining the random timbale sounds on extra midi note layers helps to enhance the round robin effect. Btw, I've also set the snare trigger curve to Spline-1 for a useful pad sensitivity range.
Fwiw, the Strike module is likely to include similar dynamic velocity controls to the DM10.

Offline Sharkuel

Re: DM-10X Soundset on Steroids
« Reply #12 on: February 13, 2017, 11:19:27 AM »
Okay this is awesome! Been just peeping here and I only came across this post today.

I have a question, though. Do you intend to make this available to other people, or that doesn't appear at your sight at the moment, or ever?! And imagine that, I wonder, that your modules can properly work for people who only has one module? Or is it just programmed having a pair set?

You can reply me in PM if you don't feel "right" to talk here.
Megadrum 32 inputs with positional sensing add-on.

Cone centered DIY triggers in snare and toms.

8" racktom
10" racktom
12" racktom
14" floortom

Roland VH13
Lemon Cymbals

"Life is short, death is near, but one's word lives forever

Re: DM-10X Soundset on Steroids
« Reply #13 on: February 13, 2017, 08:00:39 PM »
Hello Sharkuel,

as i tried to explain in my last post it is not that simple because it has to be sorted out which sounds will get lost when some others are changed and that firstly depends on likes and preferences.

I splitted many instruments on two modules to get more dynamic levels and simply double the memory. So right now there's only 2 Toms in each sound-rom and only the variable edge-sound of the HiHat on the main module.

Means it would have to be re-taylored to function on one module again.

Offline Th3R00st3r

Re: DM-10X Soundset on Steroids
« Reply #14 on: February 14, 2017, 06:00:28 PM »
Great work! Interesting read.

" you'll find a short part out of a list of wav files inside the drum module ass" That part had me rolling on the floor.

I appreciate all the hard work you all do in trying to provide a way to "hack" the module, but this is the very reason I use VST's. I can have a good sounding kit for live performance.


th3r00st3r-Alesis DM10 Studio w/mesh head conversion (billy blast 2ply) and snare stand.

Offline rhysT

Re: DM-10X Soundset on Steroids
« Reply #15 on: February 14, 2017, 09:39:49 PM »
I appreciate all the hard work you all do in trying to provide a way to "hack" the module, but this is the very reason I use VST's. I can have a good sounding kit for live performance.

I agree that most VST's sound impressive, although it seems like a waste of the module to mainly use it as a Midi trigger interface.
Also the Strike module is likely to be a 'next-gen' DM10 and I'm keen to find out how much better its kits sound than my revised ones. If there's not a major difference I'll prob'ly just wait and pay more for a Mimic Pro instead, which allows many options for preferred snare pad and cymbals, etc.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2017, 03:41:42 AM by rhysT »

Re: DM-10X Soundset on Steroids
« Reply #16 on: February 15, 2017, 04:34:29 AM »
Yes, that really sounds funny;-)

Seems to be just a little copy and paste error revising the text being much too long before...
Should have been something like: "...dealing with endless Hex codes is just a pain in the ass".

Sorry about that!