Author Topic: Cross-talk or 'hand rolls' on your DM6? Read on!  (Read 439 times)

Cross-talk or 'hand rolls' on your DM6? Read on!
« on: October 14, 2020, 04:07:24 PM »
Hello all!

It seems that a lot of us were having issues with our DM6 kits either having cross-talk between the triggers or a particular drum 'hand-rolling' where you strike it once but it fires multiple times, or perhaps even both of these issues.

I am excited to report that I just discovered the solution that takes just a few minutes and requires minimal supplies:

For any misbehaving toms, take the drum head off of the kit and remove the 6 Philips screws to open up the head itself. The guts of each are extremely simple, with a small PCB with 2 wires that lead to the sensor that responds to being hit.

Here is the critical part:

The sensor inside should be taped up to the middle of the drum head.

Originally, it looks like Alesis used a small piece of black tape to do this job, but after however many years and beatings and heat and humidity and who knows what else, these sensors can fall off and cause a whole host of problems. I used blue painter's tape as it appeared to have a similar tack and texture to the original black tape used by Alesis, and I reseated all of my loose sensors. (For good measure, I even went and taped up the one sensor that hadn't fallen yet.)

That's it! Reassemble the head with the 6 screws, and you're good to go.

I felt confident that my kit would sound better after I did this, but I was absolutely floored when I turned my kit back on to find that everything worked perfectly now- all of my toms are crisp, there is no cross-talk, and no hand-rolling whatsoever. I am thrilled that this simple fix was able to bring my kit back to like-new performance.

I can't wait to continue playing and I wanted to share with everyone here! Hopefully this helps those of you out there with mushy kits!