I've been playing a DM8 Pro for a while. It's a 10 year old module and I've been feeling like maybe I was missing something by playing on such an old piece of gear.
So I bought a DM10 MKii Pro and I'm disappointed. For one thing, the sounds don't really seem markedly better than the DM8. I haven't done an A-B comparison, but I'm pretty sure 95% of them are the exact same sounds as in my DM8. Most of them even have the same name.
And the DM8 had some really nice features the DM10 seems to lack. The DM8 let me layer sounds and mix them. So I could take two different kick samples and mix them together to get the best of both. The DM8 also had much more control over cross talk. Each trigger featured separate controls for XTalk send and XTalk receive. The dual triggers also included zone-XTalk. On the DM10 each trigger just has a single Cross-Talk setting.
The DM10 MKii Pro does have a few things going for it. It has dual triggers for every single pad, which is nice. And the DM10 has fewer "novelty" sounds (the stuff I can't ever imagine using). And the ability to recall your 3 favorite kits with a single button is nice. In general I think the DM10 is a little easier to use than the DM8. Separate volume controls for headphones, aux, and output is also a nice feature.
I'm just really struggling to understand how it is I find I'm preferring a 10 year old module to a shiny new one.
If I really want some new sounds, it might be better to go the midi route and just use the DM8 as a midi controller for some sound fonts or VST plugins. I was just hoping to avoid adding one more piece of tech to my band's setup.
Anyone else have a similar experience?