I have the strike. And let me be the first to say the reverbs suck. They are like alesis nano verb bad. But I come from guitars where my amp alone cost more than my strike. So for me, it really all depends on the situation and what it calls for. But I ALWAYS, try to run things dry first. Live. Recording. If the situation dictates I put a little ambience on it or use some light reverb on some of its less shocking modes then I do it. But I would be weary of feeling you need it. At the end of the day no matter what, trust your ears. You know what sounds good.
I now have a question for you as a fellow Strike user. Since I made my post about using light reverb on my kits, I've had a little more insight into the sound. We were also in the middle of our 3-week mini-tour, so I have just now been able to go back and listen to some of the recordings from the shows.
I've taken on the responsibility of mixing our audio down and producing the videos we post to our various outlets. I am more or less happy with the way my kit sounds through our PA. I've been told that it sounds great, and I've not noticed any major issues in practice or on stage.
However, in listening back to the show audio, I'm hearing a totally different result. The kit just sounds a little washed out in my opinion. Through my headphones, my amp at home and the band's PA, everything has a nice pop to it, and it has a great presence in the mix. But, in the audio recordings, it loses a bit of the amazing sound. The toms especially sound pretty dead. The get a bit lost in the mix.
I did see, on the Alesis community forum, a link to a video about using compression to improve the sound, but I haven't had a chance to work on any of it. Would that be a good starting place for me? Is it mainly going to be instrument selection?
We've got another show coming up on May 19, then we're on the road quite a bit in June, so I'd like to improve, if not altogether fix, this problem before then. I think we run everything pretty dry through our mixer on stage, but even so, the kit sounds amazing through my home amp and headphones also. So, I'm just not sure which route to take.
Sorry if that seems a bit like rambling!
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Shawn