Yamaha DTXpress/DTXplorer/DTXtreme

Dear group,

My name is Tal. I'm a DTXpress (original) for about a year now. I've 
been following the group since the day I bought my kit, and it has 
helped me more than once, but now I have some dilemmas about 
upgrading, and in a dire need of help. So this is my first post.

I'll start with an introduction. I'm a 25 years old software 
engineer. I have played drums for about 3 years now. The first two 
were on the very small and toy-ish Yamaha DD-55... It was nice for a 
while, but I got sick and tired after I realized that I'm not 
getting anywhere. I quit drumming.

One Saturday night, about a year ago, I went to a pub, and found the 
drummer of my favorite band sitting next to me… We talked for a 
while, and something inside me clicked… I got home, searched second-
hand selling boards on the net, and a few weeks later I was the 
proud owner of a second hand original DTXpress! I've been pounding 
it ever since. Sometimes I jam alone, and sometimes with friends (a 
guitar player, a bass player, and a keyboard player). We're writing 
a few songs, doing some covers, and planning to start performing in 
the near future. 

I never took a drumming lesson in my life.

Well, lately the crash cymbal seems a bit tired… It misses a trigger 
here and then. Besides that, I'm feeling that the kit requires some 
upgrading and I'll be very excited to add to it the ability to 
output two voices and chock-ability to each cymbal and a rim 
shot/click to the snare, without buying an entirely new kit.

I did some pocking around, especially on your group and came to the 
following conclusions: I can buy a TP65S and two PCY65S, connect 
them without too much trouble, and get the snare to output two 
voices (not three!), and the cymbals to output two voices AND chock-
ability. Please verify that I'm correct!

Unfortunately, I do not know a store that sells Yamaha stuff, but I 
do have one that sells Roland… I read in the archives that people 
successfully connected Roland pads and cymbals to Yamaha modules (I 
haven't found information specifically about the original DTXpress). 
The price is right, and they look quite good, but I decide to not 
take any chances and went to the store to check everything out in 
advance. They were nice enough to allow me to connect my module to 
everything I want and check it out. 
Here's what happened: 
1)	I connected a PD-8 (a snare pad that looks very much like a 
TP65) using a stereo cable to the snare input. I got the snare sound 
to work, but the rim didn't do anything.
2)	I connected a PD85 (a mesh snare pad that looks and feels 
very good) the same way. The snare playing was amazingly responsive 
and it felt very good. I did rolls like a pro and what not, but I 
could not play the rim..
3)	I connected a CY8 (a round cymbal that features two sounds 
and chock) to the crash and ride input using a stereo cable. If I 
hit the back side (the flatter side), the pad sound will trigger (it 
should have triggered the rim sound if I'm not mistaken). The chock 
worked If I hold the cymbal firmly, but no matter what I tried, I 
could not trigger the rim voice… It seemed that the rim voice was 
triggered (according to the trigger page in the module), but no 
sound was heard. Naturally, I did select a sound for the rim, but 
nothing came out.

I would very much like to buy any of those parts, since the store is 
close to me, the prices are reasonable, and the technology and 
construction seems very high-end, but firstly, I need them to work!
I tried tweaking every setting I could find in the module, but I 
could not do it. Help please! Note that I did not observe any 
problems with trigger sensitivity. Everything was just right, 
especially the PD85.

Assuming that I did something wrong and those pads and cymbals CAN 
be connected correctly, there's the other subject of mounting those 
pieces on the Yamaha rack. The Roland pads connect with a vertical 
pin while Yamaha with a horizontal. Did someone try to put the 
Yamaha pin vertically and put a Roland pad on it? It fits, but is it 
natural for playing? Is there another way? Or do I also need to buy 
a piece of Roland rack? The cymbals seem to be even more 
problematic. The thing that stabilize the cymbal and keeps it from 
turning will not come with the cymbal. The L-shaped bracket will not 
do here. How do other people do it?

If one of the subjects will prevent me from fully enjoying the 
Roland gear, I will buy the Yamaha but I'll have to order online and 
it will be costly. If the Roland doesn't work out, should I consider 
Pintechs over Yamaha? Will they provide the full functionality with 
my kit?



Hope I didn't bore you with the overly long message.. I do think I 
broke some kind of record… :-)

Thank you very much for your patience!

Tal