Author Topic: X 10 Mesh kit _Review  (Read 2793 times)

Offline duffman

X 10 Mesh kit _Review
« on: April 03, 2015, 07:46:08 AM »
I am now 5 days in on the X10 mesh kit, bought from Sweetwater. This had been on order for over a month. Since its arrival I have been rather sleep deprived. Been spending a ton of time in my home studio laying tracks.

It arrived in 1 huge box. You better have plenty of room to unbox the thing.
Setup instructions come on a poster type sheet. Of course they show, "plug A into B", and neither A or B are marked in the box.  You have to guess.
Setting up the rack is the hardest part. Installing Pads, cymbal arms, and cymbals is very straight forward.
NEW USERS before you turn on the module for the first time, READ THE MANUAL! There is some important info in the first couple of pages.
Mesh heads, quiet, very quiet. As I have very little experience with mesh heads I can not tell you what ply they are. They do have a great feel. I found I needed to adjust the tension of a couple, but out of the box not bad.
Out of the box, I have very little editing to do for X-talk. I had 1 tom pad that crosses with rim if I hit it just right. Other then that, was good to go.
External/internal mixer....there is a latency when using the external mixer. Take a couple of seconds for it to react. When I switch over to the internal mixer the sliders on the screen do not always match how the external mixer sliders are set. A bit of adjustment to an external slider and the internal ones jump to match. Volume knobs on drum pads. I have never seen any reference to these but they are there and they work.
Recording, for now I have it run via the 4 cable method to my audio interface with a stereo return a headphones amp for monitoring. Reverb, compression, panning, done in box via Reaper. Over the next few weeks will be trying midi with Kontakt Abbey Road and Studio drummer.

Final thoughts, this kit looks great. Having the snare on a stand instead of mounted to the rack is fantastic.
The mesh heads work wonderfully with the module from the lightest tap to the hardest hit.
Although the rack looks way cool, shiny, shiny,  it is a pain in the ass and IMO this kits weak point.

« Last Edit: April 03, 2015, 07:47:41 AM by duffman »
When in trouble or in doubt
Run in circles
Scream and shout

Offline Sal

Re: X 10 Mesh kit _Review
« Reply #1 on: April 03, 2015, 08:54:02 AM »
Great review! Love to hear that everything worked pretty much as expected right out of the box.
Here this whole time I thought you were the troll with a heart of gold. Instead you're just a troll with a real troll's heart.

Re: X 10 Mesh kit _Review
« Reply #2 on: April 05, 2015, 04:33:56 PM »
Very good review.

I made a post yesterday about the DM10xMESH or DM10x with mesh conversions. I'm really not sure what i should buy because of the bad words that have been said about Alesis DM10x (realhead) in Holland.

I've got the option of buying a second hand Roland TD9-KX2 for about the same price, what do you guys think?

Offline duffman

Re: X 10 Mesh kit _Review
« Reply #3 on: April 06, 2015, 07:49:01 AM »
My thinking, the price difference between a realhead kit then add the mesh conversion and a new mesh kit was not very much. The difference to me was not worth the hassle of me having to convert and possibly voiding the warranty.

I spent my weekend trying to get the DM10 to play nice with midi via USB. I created a custom map for Abbey Road Drums in Kontakt. I am experiencing a huge latency problem. Tried it with drums included with StudioOne Artist. It sees the module but I'm not getting any sounds. The same with Sample Tank. I noticed a couple of these proggies have maps for Roland modules included. If you want to use VSTi it might be less of a headache to go Roland.

I have a several other midi controllers I use for different reasons. So far the DM10 has been the biggest pain to get to work.
When in trouble or in doubt
Run in circles
Scream and shout

Offline Sal

Re: X 10 Mesh kit _Review
« Reply #4 on: April 06, 2015, 09:22:03 AM »
My thinking, the price difference between a realhead kit then add the mesh conversion and a new mesh kit was not very much. The difference to me was not worth the hassle of me having to convert and possibly voiding the warranty.


Bingo! You're also looking at something designed from the ground up to be a mesh-head kit that works with the DM10 module, and STILL much less expensive than other full-mesh kits.


Have you tried using a non-Alesis mesh head yet? I'd be curious to see if a BB head or silent stroke is better/worse/just different.
Here this whole time I thought you were the troll with a heart of gold. Instead you're just a troll with a real troll's heart.

Re: X 10 Mesh kit _Review
« Reply #5 on: May 14, 2015, 12:44:21 PM »
I'm really digging my kit!