Author Topic: Greetings from southeast Missouri!  (Read 1606 times)

Greetings from southeast Missouri!
« on: March 25, 2016, 05:08:56 PM »
Hello! Rick Vandeven here. I am a longtime drummer in my mid 40's. I have played Ludwig drums almost exclusively since I started drumming back in the mid 80's.

I just purchased my first e-drum set. After much deliberation, I chose the Alesis DM10X Mesh. I have played a few e-drum sets, and the mesh heads are my favorite. For the features, price, and number of pieces the Alesis DM10X Mesh was the logical choice.

I understand that these drums are not ready to play out of the box, so I plan on using the message boards here to set my new Alesis drums up, and use them to their full potential.

Thanks, and I look forward to frequenting the boards!

RV

Online Hellfire

Re: Greetings from southeast Missouri!
« Reply #1 on: March 25, 2016, 11:47:43 PM »
Welcome to the forum RV!

Re: Greetings from southeast Missouri!
« Reply #2 on: March 27, 2016, 09:07:30 PM »
Welcome to the addictive world of electronic drums!  I got my DM10X Mesh in January, and finished maxing it out a couple weeks ago.  With help from Trondster, I finally dialed the last bugs out of the setup, and I'm pretty happy with how everything is performing.  Well, everything except the cursed hi-hat.

I'm keen to see how you get along with your hi-hat.  I hope you have fewer problems than I have, and I'm sincerely wishing you the best on that front.

Re: Greetings from southeast Missouri!
« Reply #3 on: April 06, 2016, 07:09:00 AM »
So far I am enjoying diving into the world of electric drumming. I have my kit set up, and dialed in more or less. I bought the Pro X Hi Hat, and so far that has been a bit of a letdown. I am going to try adjusting the bottom hat angle to see if it makes a difference. I haven't had a chance to use my new kit with my band yet. Practice is tonight though. I also bought a JamHub, so we have a lot of new toys to try out. Will keep you posted. Thanks!

RV

Offline Th3R00st3r

Re: Greetings from southeast Missouri!
« Reply #4 on: April 06, 2016, 11:28:17 AM »
Welcome!
th3r00st3r-Alesis DM10 Studio w/mesh head conversion (billy blast 2ply) and snare stand.

Re: Greetings from southeast Missouri!
« Reply #5 on: April 06, 2016, 06:19:51 PM »
For whatever reason I have achieved a slight victory for the human units in our epic fight against the Alesis Pro X Hi-Hat.

1. I increased the angle of the bottom hi hat to where I play on my Ludwig set. I don't know if this had any bearing on the performance improvement, but it's what I'm used to.

2. I replaced the crappy clutch that Alesis included in the Pro X Hi-Hat setup with the original Ludwig clutch that was included with my old 8000 series hi-hat stand. The clutch that Alesis included didn't stay tight without really bearing down on it, and it didn't include felts. I kept the top felt on.

3. I set the trim to 40 top and 20 bottom.

4. I re-calibrated.

Like I said, you can give some of these a try, or maybe these are all well known fixes that improve the performance of the Pro X Hi-Hat set, and I am just spouting newbie nonsense. Hope it helps someone regardless.

Cheers!

RV

Online AlanK

Re: Greetings from southeast Missouri!
« Reply #6 on: April 07, 2016, 08:51:24 AM »
Hi Rick, glad you're making headway and getting to enjoy the drumset!

Any shared tip or comment is generally great and gratefully accepted. A lot of us even the oldest members are still adapting their playing to the kits, or tinkering with how their setup is to make it a better experience so it's all good hearing what one person has done to theirs that might make another's life improve  :D

I'm still using the Alesis clutch but I've also tried the one from my hi-hat stand..I did find my Alesis one held well enough, but like you, I wondered why they say to throw away the felt..I've used felt on mine because I didn't want to scratch up the hat. I tried tilting a bit at first but I think I went back to flat..but see, now that you mentioned it, I'm going to try tilted again. One of my beefs (and likely others) is that there's a lot of air compressed in between the hats when you step down and I find that impedes getting a quick chick some of the time. I've tested out foot position while playing and find when I want to incorporate a steady chick pattern I tend to bring my foot down lower on the pedal and use a stomp.. when I'm doing more delicate manoevres or barking in a beat I'll keep my foot on the whole pedal and just raise using the ankle (but also sometimes I do need to lift my whole leg.. I think I need to push the hi-hat stand further out but it's tight in my basement so don't have much more room to push equipment outwards from me).

The other thing I found was that spring on the Pro X is really hard to compress (or I'm a weakling). That one coupled with the one in my stand (I have a Network stand) made it really hard to play with any subtlety, so I've taken my stand apart and replaced the spring in there with a much looser compression spring..maybe even too loose! I've lost a bit of play in the stand itself as a result but it's cool to try it out for a while, then I'll put the original one back in. Oddly enough, the size of spring that comes in those cheapy toilet paper roll holders is about the same size as the Pro X, but less tension. Thing is, even though it fit in nicely, and I used that plastic cap that helps keep it in the slot of the upper hat, it wasn't giving me a proper response.. the only thing I wondered is that the original spring from the Pro X is coated.. I wonder if you need to stop some sort of electrical interference? Dunno.. and of course, the wife n kids freaked out asking where the toilet paper holder went to so that was a brief test hahaha

So I still have some experimenting to do to get the right feel..which I'm sure we will never quite get to mimick exactly how we played on acoustic sets.. I mean, I was trying some fast jazzy sticking on the ride and I just can't get the speed that you get on steel.. and it's hard on the wrist.. but I'm sure if I kept at it I'd adapt my playing style somewhat and get at least close. I play a lot with Addictive Drums and find I've gotten a lot better sounding/responding hats with it. But I still do find that air displacement is putting me off.. I think somebody's drilled extra holes in their top or bottom hat to counteract this (I'd imagine the bottom would be the way to go, not the top). I was also going to add some soft foam bits in between the two hats to dampen the external noise you get when going to town on it.
« Last Edit: April 07, 2016, 08:54:40 AM by AlanK »
DM10X with Addictive Drums 2, Pro X hi-hat, 4 crashes, foam cone conversion w Roland mesh heads, Laurin Drums snare and kick, Mapex P710W double kick pedal, Mapex 2 legged hi-hat, Behringer 8 channel USB mixer, Tascam 144MK AI, Samson Expedition Escape powered speakers

Re: Greetings from southeast Missouri!
« Reply #7 on: April 14, 2016, 10:59:47 AM »
I'm glad somebody had good luck with the thing.  I think my module is probably defective and/or I somehow botched the firmware.  I updated to the trigger firmware designed for the Pro-X, and got the same behavior other people were complaining about who DIDN'T have the update.  Close the hat with the pedal, and it never chicks but just makes this odd swish noise.  I had to downgrade the firmware to get it working at all, and that came with a lot of problems.  The best I can do is have consistent open, closed, and pedal chick sounds.  It's more limited than the stock pedal, but it chicks the cymbals every single time I press the pedal down, which was my main frustration.  I play time on the left foot a lot, and the stock pedal was driving me insane with missed triggers and unintended splashes.

I would really like to try my luck with Superior Drummer or the like.  Maybe I can tweak the parameters in external software to behave more intelligently with the inputs from the module.  Maybe.  Unfortunately, I don't have any way of testing that theory without spending a lot of money, and what if it doesn't work?  The sounds on the DM10 are not outstanding, but they aren't garbage either.

Meh.  I'm going to keep on keeping on like this until the new flagship comes out, and then I'll consider whether to do a partial or total upgrade.  No matter how you slice it, even if I end up buying TWO flagship Alesis kits, it still doesn't add up to one Roland TD30-KV.  Plus I can trigger 23 different sounds with this rig.  It's flawed, but I have a hell of a lot of fun playing my drums, and life is pretty damn good.

Re: Greetings from southeast Missouri!
« Reply #8 on: April 24, 2016, 04:40:06 AM »
I have found that part of my problem is that when I calibrated the hats to the closed position, I was pressing down a bit too hard on my pedal. They don't play like "real" hi-hats, and I'm okay with that. I'm getting used to them.
RV

Re: Greetings from southeast Missouri!
« Reply #9 on: April 24, 2016, 04:45:32 AM »
I also recorded one of my custom kits the other day: the "Steely Dan" (reference to the band, not what William S Burroughs wrote about in Naked Lunch). This was the easiest experience that I have ever had tracking drums.
RV

Online AlanK

Re: Greetings from southeast Missouri!
« Reply #10 on: April 25, 2016, 08:36:34 AM »
I have found that part of my problem is that when I calibrated the hats to the closed position, I was pressing down a bit too hard on my pedal. They don't play like "real" hi-hats, and I'm okay with that. I'm getting used to them.RV

I've found the programmed calibration usually needs a bit of fine tuning. After I do an intial cal with teh F1 and F2, I go to the Trim tab and bring the open and closed up or down a bit to suit my style.. I will tap on the hats up top, on the edge, open and closed, and try barking and so on with the right hand while I bring the settings up and down until I find the best numbers.
DM10X with Addictive Drums 2, Pro X hi-hat, 4 crashes, foam cone conversion w Roland mesh heads, Laurin Drums snare and kick, Mapex P710W double kick pedal, Mapex 2 legged hi-hat, Behringer 8 channel USB mixer, Tascam 144MK AI, Samson Expedition Escape powered speakers