Author Topic: So long, and thanks for all the fish!  (Read 3397 times)

So long, and thanks for all the fish!
« on: December 06, 2009, 06:17:31 PM »
Ok,

So over the weekend I did some more research and looked some more into Yamaha, which I had not really considered previously as I had a bit of a real head/mesh fetish but since I was now looking into a mostly rubber Roland setup anyway it seemed like a good idea.

I cruised the music stores Saturday and ended up ordering the DTXpress IV Special. Winning factors were the VH11-like hihat, the 3 zone snare/crash/ride and of course the price. Drawbacks were the single zone toms and the need to use y-cables to access the last 3 remaining trigger inputs and the lack of MIDI IN - as well as how ugly I think the rack and module are - but function over form eh?!

Anyway... it seems like this ends my Alesis adventure for now... though I think I'll still lurk here as I am interested in the DIY talk as well as the evolution of the DM10 module. Thanks especially to Phil for answering my e-drum questions over the past few months. :)

Online Hellfire

Re: So long, and thanks for all the fish!
« Reply #1 on: December 06, 2009, 10:54:25 PM »
Ok,

So over the weekend I did some more research and looked some more into Yamaha, which I had not really considered previously as I had a bit of a real head/mesh fetish but since I was now looking into a mostly rubber Roland setup anyway it seemed like a good idea.

I cruised the music stores Saturday and ended up ordering the DTXpress IV Special. Winning factors were the VH11-like hihat, the 3 zone snare/crash/ride and of course the price. Drawbacks were the single zone toms and the need to use y-cables to access the last 3 remaining trigger inputs and the lack of MIDI IN - as well as how ugly I think the rack and module are - but function over form eh?!

Anyway... it seems like this ends my Alesis adventure for now... though I think I'll still lurk here as I am interested in the DIY talk as well as the evolution of the DM10 module. Thanks especially to Phil for answering my e-drum questions over the past few months. :)
Congrats on the new purchase. In end what matters is that we as consumers are happy with our purchase and it sounds like you are. Yamaha is a darn good edrum company. I hope to see you around the forum once in a while.

Re: So long, and thanks for all the fish!
« Reply #2 on: December 11, 2009, 04:56:22 PM »
Ok... took delivery of the drums last night. Took 4 hours for me to set up as I have never set up a drum kit before (a pretty good achievement considering I've been playing in bands for almost 15 years - unfortunately I havn't avoided helping drummers load in and out!).

I LOVE IT! I bought a Yamaha 8500C double kick pedal at the same time and that feels very nice to my inexperienced feet also.

I read in many forums as I was waiting for the kit that there was no way for the DTXpress IV module to transmit choke to VSTs. This is not the case... There are settings for MIDI Gate and note off in the pad menus that allow you to control how long the notes are transmitted for, and whether to transmit early note offs (cymbal chokes) to the slave device.

With the gate opened wide enough and SD2.2 configured to release quickly on note off through the envelope function I am able to get it to choke fine. Of course it means having 5 second long notes for my crash and ride so that the cymbal decays naturally which is ugly, but small price to pay so long as I don't need my MIDI to be portable.

Hopefully other drum VSTs have similar configurability.

Anyway, that was the one thing that was making me question my decision and I have solved the problem so now I am extremely happy. =)