Author Topic: TransActive Drummer  (Read 8998 times)

TransActive Drummer
« on: February 19, 2010, 08:53:32 PM »
I use an Alesis USB/MIDI Performance Controller to trigger sounds in my MacBook. I need to connect an amp to the computer for live performance, not as a monitor. Can you use the TransActive Drummer? If not, or if this is not the best solution, can anyone suggest what I could use? Thanks.

Offline Burtmeister

Re: TransActive Drummer
« Reply #1 on: February 20, 2010, 01:41:02 PM »
I'd like to know this myself also. I can't seem to find any types of review on the TransActive Drummer anywhere.

Re: TransActive Drummer
« Reply #2 on: February 20, 2010, 01:50:29 PM »
Burtmeister - Have you tried any other solution for live amplification?

Offline Burtmeister

Re: TransActive Drummer
« Reply #3 on: February 20, 2010, 05:38:53 PM »
No, actually I have not. This will be my first foray into Edrums. I want the ability to practice quietly with headphones, but I also want to be able crank up the volume if I need to. Nothing really big, mainly just small house parties. I was interested in the Transactive Drummer mainly because of the price and it's advertised specifically for edrummers. But as I said earlier, I can't find any information from anyone who has one. Sorry I can't be of much help for you there.

Alesis

  • Guest
Re: TransActive Drummer
« Reply #4 on: February 20, 2010, 05:49:06 PM »
Let me try to shed some objective light on this.

1. We just started shipping them this week, so expect to see them in stores in the next few days. Ask your retailer when theirs are arriving.
2. It's 50W, so for me, that's good for rehearsing and practicing.
3. For live use, you have a few options. In small rooms, one may be enough. In larger settings, you may need a little more power. We made that easy with the TransActive Drummer's Stereo Link jack. You can make a 100W system by connecting two of them with a standard TRS cable. You can set up the system in mono or stereo. The other option is to connect your kit to the band's PA system and use the TransActive Drummer as a monitor wedge. In this last setup, you can take advantage of the DM10's multiple outputs and route the drums only to the PA and route the drums plus click or loops to your monitor or headphones, for example.

Hope this helps.
Dan

Offline Burtmeister

Re: TransActive Drummer
« Reply #5 on: February 20, 2010, 07:17:42 PM »
Thanks Dan, that's a pretty good chunk of the information I was looking for. I look forward to hearing what others think of it on a more subjective note. Maybe by the time my DM10 Studio kits arrives the Transactive Drummer will have gotten out and used by people who can share their thoughts.

Re: TransActive Drummer
« Reply #6 on: February 20, 2010, 08:08:35 PM »
I do not have  a DM5, nor any other "brain." I need to go from the Macbook to an amp.

Offline ghostman

Re: TransActive Drummer
« Reply #7 on: February 21, 2010, 01:58:55 PM »
I do not have  a DM5, nor any other "brain." I need to go from the Macbook to an amp.

I think the key here is that the amps or whatever you find that suits you - doesn't matter.  To go from the Mac to an amp (or mixer, or or or) you just need to find the right cable.  the mac speaker out and an adapter to whatever you are plugging into.  Any decent music shop (that deals with keyboards and mixers, etc) should be able to help you find the cable you need.  Or Radio Shack.

some amps or mixers or whatever, you'll need an 1/8" stereo jack (goes in the Mac) and then the other side would be 2 R/L mono plugs, a 1/4" stereo plug, or maybe even RCA plugs.  I have all of these!  I can plug my iPod, my mac or my drum module into any audio device in my house - Stereo system, amp, mixer, etc.  It's all about the adapters, baby.
Alesis DM10 & Trigger IO, 5 8" single input DIY shells; 2 18" DIY Bass drums, 1 13" DIY eSnare, PinTech 14" Visulaite Hi-Hats, 2 PinTech 14" choke-able crashes & 18" dual-zone ride; Steven Slate Drums EX.  Mounted on Superstrut custom rack.

Re: TransActive Drummer
« Reply #8 on: February 21, 2010, 02:24:32 PM »
Thank you, ghostman. i will be using this first in a high school auditorium, playing in the pit for a musical. Any amp suggestions?

Offline ghostman

Re: TransActive Drummer
« Reply #9 on: February 21, 2010, 05:48:33 PM »
Thank you, ghostman. i will be using this first in a high school auditorium, playing in the pit for a musical. Any amp suggestions?

A BIG one?  haha.. I don't know.  I don't play shows, just in my house.  I would use headphones for the monitor, and doesn't the HS have a house sound system?  you can just give 'em the L & R outs, and let 'em mix you in.  I haven't been in HS for over cough20cough years, and we had a sound system and mixers..
Alesis DM10 & Trigger IO, 5 8" single input DIY shells; 2 18" DIY Bass drums, 1 13" DIY eSnare, PinTech 14" Visulaite Hi-Hats, 2 PinTech 14" choke-able crashes & 18" dual-zone ride; Steven Slate Drums EX.  Mounted on Superstrut custom rack.

Re: TransActive Drummer
« Reply #10 on: February 21, 2010, 08:53:49 PM »
I have no idea of the size, I just got hired. I can find out. I don't imagine it's any larger than in the last century. I do know, however, that they don't have a sound system that would be useful for me. Thanks for taking the time with this.

Alesis

  • Guest
Re: TransActive Drummer
« Reply #11 on: February 21, 2010, 09:48:13 PM »
Most high schools I've been in have a PA system that's designed for speech, not music, so it would not be suitable for drums. My recommendation would be to find out what the rest of the group (bass player, keyboard player) is using. You can use their wattage to gauge where you need to be to keep up with them... and add 10-20% for headroom.

A TransActive Drummer or two would probably be appropriate as a monitor system in the pit for you and the band. For the house, assuming it's a ~1,000-seat room, something in the 300-500 watt range is probably where you need to be. You could either look into a small PA system (two boxes and a sub) or look at full-range keyboard amps, preferably with an 18" woofer.

As far as getting audio out of the computer, you'll want to use a firewire interface, and not a USB interface or the built-in headphone jack. Firewire is far lower in latency and much more reliable in a setup like this.

Hope this helps,
Dan

Re: TransActive Drummer
« Reply #12 on: February 21, 2010, 10:27:25 PM »
Thank you, Dan, that is very helpful. I've used a firewire interface often, partly because of the latency issue. Much different circumstances, though, where I was using  both an Octapad to trigger the Alesis D5  and a Reason NN-XT sampler, thru the computer, into my own small Mackie mixer, and from there to the sound person out in the house.
I've always gone acoustic in this present situation but they asked me if I could do it electronically to accommodate all the percussion and timpani parts (West Side Story -man, I  hope they come up with a mallet player!).
Thanks again!

Offline Guinness

Re: TransActive Drummer
« Reply #13 on: February 22, 2010, 02:15:12 AM »
As an FYi...  I plugged my DM5 into my 100w Line6 Guitar amp, and it sounded like crap. 
 
Again, FYI.
 

Re: TransActive Drummer
« Reply #14 on: February 22, 2010, 02:50:30 AM »
Guinness - thanks for that info.

Offline ghostman

Re: TransActive Drummer
« Reply #15 on: February 22, 2010, 12:36:02 PM »
As an FYi...  I plugged my DM5 into my 100w Line6 Guitar amp, and it sounded like crap. 
 
Again, FYI.

I've heard keyboard amps are good for e-drums - they have the low-end that guitar amps are missing.
Alesis DM10 & Trigger IO, 5 8" single input DIY shells; 2 18" DIY Bass drums, 1 13" DIY eSnare, PinTech 14" Visulaite Hi-Hats, 2 PinTech 14" choke-able crashes & 18" dual-zone ride; Steven Slate Drums EX.  Mounted on Superstrut custom rack.

Re: TransActive Drummer
« Reply #16 on: February 22, 2010, 01:12:48 PM »
Thanks, ghostman. I'll put it on my list of things to try.

Offline Bobby@NEMS

Re: TransActive Drummer
« Reply #17 on: February 22, 2010, 01:44:26 PM »
I've actually sold a couple of these to customers and one of them put together and awesome write-up with pictures over at a site I frequent.

http://docsrockbandmods.netforums.us/alesis-transactive-drummer-practice-amp-vt3363.html  (Mod: If cross-linking is not allowed, please remove the url. It has the images, etc that I found useful)

Here it is, sans images.

Quote
Alesis TransActive Drummer Review

Alesis has just started shipping the long announced TransActive Drummer practice drum amp . It is a 50 watt full range amp with a 10” driver, and a 1” tweeter. All in a nice carpeted enclosure. It has 1/4” line inputs for drums, and 1/4” outputs to feed a mixer. It also has an aux in (RCA jacks) and a universal iPod Dock.

First Impressions
After un-boxing the TransActive Drummer, I was surprised at how much airspace was in the box. The amp is smaller than it looks in the pictures online, but it is packaged quite well to prevent any damage in shipping.
I started by just plugging the amp in, and dropping my iPhone into the dock and queuing up some AC/DC. I hadn't touched any of the knobs so everything was still centered. I was impressed, this little amp throws out some sound! Granted, this was in my living room (only about 500sqft) but at half throttle (both the iPod gain and the main volume) it was loud enough to draw the wife out of the other room to tell me, “Too Loud”. I cranked the bass knob and pushed up the main volume quite a ways before I started getting any distortion. At this point, the volume was uncomfortably loud. I was really surprised at how much bass the TransActive Drummer was pushing out. Turns out the cabinet is ported. There's a 1”x10” port right at the bottom of the cabinet, and it does its job admirably, allowing the 10” driver all the breathing room it needs to reproduce low bass sounds. Mids and highs were also reproduced nicely.



Hooking it up
Well, since the TransActive Drummer is a drum amp, this wouldn't be much of a review if all we talk about is how well it plays from an iPod. I have an Alesis DM5 drum brain triggered by a combination of Alesis and Pintech triggers, so this is the rig that I'll be driving the TransActive Drummer with for the rest of the review (If someone wants to send me a DM10, or a TD20 to compare, I sure wouldn't turn it down).

The Back Panel
There are actually quite a few ports on the back of the TransActive Drummer. The most important of course are the 1/4” input jacks where you plug in your drum brain. Connecting the drums to the amp couldn't be easier, grap a couple of 1/4” Mono (TS) cables, and run them from the brain's 1/4” outputs to the amp's 1/4” inputs.
There is also a pair of RCA aux inputs so that you can plug in a CD player, MP3 player, or any other line level audio source. The gain control for this input is shared with the iPod Dock.
The TransActive Drummer includes a pair of line level outputs, so if you are using the amp as a stage monitor, you can still send your drums off to the house mix.
Finally, there's a “Stereo Link” output. This appears to be a stereo 1/4” (TRS) output to allow you to connect two TransActive Drummers together. There's a switch above this output to select whether this amp is supposed to play the left or right channel. If the switch is in the center, the amp will play both channels. The Stereo Link option appears to be Alesis' way to allow a pair of TransActive Drummers to be used as the primary drum amp for a small venue.



The Top Panel
The top panel has all the twiddly bits of the amp. There's the iPod dock, iPod / aux gain, 3 channel equalizer, master volume, and a headphone jack. There's also plenty of empty flat space to set a drum key and a beer or two (I've tested this one). I'm sure this flat area is a disaster in the making as the first spilled beverage will flow right into the knobs. However, the lip around the iPod dock and the headphone jack should afford those two components at least some protection from liquid incursion.
The knobs all do exactly what you'd expect, and the EQ knobs have a center detent.



Universal iPod Dock
The iPod dock is a fairly large and clunky looking creation when compared to Apple's offerings, but it does have an adjustable back support to brace the entire iPod when it is docked, and overall looks pretty solid. When the amp is on, it does charge the iPod, so you could play along with your music indefinitely. The dock supports any iPod with a dock connector including the iPhone. However, the amp doesn't have the filters required to suppress the GSM clicks and buzzes caused by the iPhone, so you might want to put an iPhone in airplane mode if that sort of thing is going to bother you. The dock shares the same volume control as the aux input, so if you are using both at the same time, you don't have a way to balance differences in gain between the two.

On to the drums
Once the DM5 was plugged into the TransActive Drummer, it required a bit of fiddling with the volume on the drum brain to get the most out of the amp. The DM5 volume needs to be below about 3/4 throttle to prevent clipping, but beyond that, sound was quite good. The TransActive Drummer does a great job at reproducing all the sounds of the drum brain. It can hold its own up to moderately high volumes. Once you get above about 3/4 throttle on the Amp (master volume), the 10” speaker has a hard time with the lowest notes the brain produces. The 2 way design just can't handle both the low and mid range sounds at high volumes. For instance, a floor tom and snare at the same time will end up with the snare sounding muddy. But, again, this happens at volumes that are uncomfortably loud in my living room. At any comfortable volume the TransActive Drummer performs admirably. The TransActive Drummer just isn't big enough to be a main drum amp on its own, but I think two of them connected via the stereo link would work pretty well in a small venue.
The iPod / aux-in feature is a great bonus. There is plenty of adjustment in the iPod/aux volume to get a good balance of music to drums. I've also run the audio from my tv into the TransActive Drummer's aux in to get a monitor for playing along with RockBand. This adds a little “realism” to the drumming and makes the game even more fun. I use a MIDI mapper to feed the game the notes it expects while still getting all of drum and cymbals sounds in the kit.

Summary
Over all, the TransActive Drummer is worth every penny of the list price. It is a perfect amp for practice or jam sessions, and would also serve just fine as a stage monitor. The aux-in and iPod dock are great tools for mixing in music to practice with. The TransActive Drummer even comes with a certificate to download 10 tracks from minusdrums.com to get you started. Vic Firth also offers some drumless play-along tracks in their education section (http://www.vicfirth.com/education/) which would help you get even more mileage out of the TransActive Drummer. You simply can't go wrong at this price.

Bobby D.

Offline Guinness

Re: TransActive Drummer
« Reply #18 on: February 22, 2010, 02:06:45 PM »
The problem with Ported is that the frequency response isn't flat.  While it can get deep, the curve is poor.  I'd prefer to drive higher wattage into a sealed box.  Sealed boxes are accurate, tight, yet their db curve do fall fast, depending on the size.
 
Ported box is good if you can flatten the bump in the db curve.   But, a ported box can sound goooooodddd... nice 'n low.
 

Alesis

  • Guest
Re: TransActive Drummer
« Reply #19 on: February 22, 2010, 08:00:10 PM »
Guinness –

Can you provide an example of a sealed cabinet design in a stage amplifier? I can't think of one.

The function of a port in a speaker cabinet is increased output and bass extension. While a sealed cabinet often yields a speaker with flatter frequency response, that characteristic is typically not higher on the people's list of priorities than volume output. 

Generally speaking, if perfectly neutral playback is your top priority, then you want studio monitors.

Dan

Offline Guinness

Re: TransActive Drummer
« Reply #20 on: February 23, 2010, 12:05:41 PM »
Guinness –

Can you provide an example of a sealed cabinet design in a stage amplifier? I can't think of one.


Nope.  I can't.  LOL.  :D   Just pointing out the differences between the two.
 
I've always wondered why companies use FreeAir speakers for stage monitors.  One gets so much more out of an enclosed cabinet (ported, bandpass, or sealed).  IMO, sealed sounds best, because it produces a very tight sound.  Volume output is lessened, yes, but higher wattage can overcome that.
 
My experience comes only from home and car audio.  No experience with Stage amplification per se.
 
I'm sure the Alesis product is great!  And if/when the time comes for me to purchase such a device, I'd get Alesis, that is if I don't make my own.  :)