I am not a drummer and i have had the set for about a month now. When i read in the manual that a standard drum key is include so that you can tighten the pads the way you want it, i had no idea what that is.
Out of the box, i noticed that the snare pad (the same size with the tom3) didn't respond equally on every part of the surface. Actually it produced almost no sound in the middle of the pad, and normal sound at about top right of the pad's surface.
I tightened the pads "one and a half" as it is suggested in the manual for the user to do before playing. Right. The snare's responsiveness didn't change. I decided to open the pad. What i saw was that the metal slim disc just below the first foam piece was placed all the way towards the direction where i got the most response from hitting. I placed the metal disc as much to center as i could, then i tightened it. Then i opened up all pads to see if they have the same issue, but no.
So my questions are the following. I have now checked all settings of the module and read the manuals. Apart from threshold, sensitivity and level settings of each piece of the kit, i see no solution to the different sound level of different parts of the surface. I changed the snare pad with the tom3 pad. The snare now has normal response as do toms 1,2, although all these tend to respond mostly when hit towards the centre. The now tom3 pad that i talked about, still does the same thing. Must be hit much harder to get a response, and the part it mostly responds to is towards one of the edges (close to the alesis logo actually). Can it be that this pad has some sort of faulty or semi-faulty trigger?
After i did all the tightening i read somewhere that when one tightens a drum piece, one should do screws as they are opposite to each other, not one by in a clockwork fashion. I didn't know that and just tightened each screw after the next. Is there any advice about the tightening of the drum pieces? How does it affect the triggers, my playing, everything else?
I am playing mostly rock/metal (for about a month now), so what should i put as an extra piece to the set, since DM8 gives me the place for one more trigger? A second crash is what i m thinking. Any suggestions?
And one more question. Is there a way to SEE the bpm's the metronome is playing at? And increase/decrease them? It there a way to measure how many bmp's i am playing at?