Yamaha DTXpress/DTXplorer/DTXtreme

Hi folks,

You're probably all getting tired of hearing about kick pad problems... but 
maybe more of you will see this problem down the road, so all this may help 
you someday.

Continuing to have intermittent weak triggers, I went into the Trigger setup 
edit mode, and went to the Gain/Min Velocity screen.  Watching the "level 
display", hitting at even strokes, I'd see:  99%, 99, 99, 28, 99,99,14.  
Well, you get the idea, something inside the kick pad tower is 
intermittently cutting down the signal from it to the box.  So, off to my 
drum store.  We plugged it into his set, and at first consistent 99's.  I 
told him, keep pounding.... be patient. Sure enough, after about a minute, 
it started. Then he brought out the one that I had originally sent back a 
few months ago for the same problem that had been sent in for repair and 
returned.  It worked fine.

Then one of the other guys in the store says yeah, I had the same problem 
with the tower that came with his earlier vintage DTX sets.  He said that 
they tore it down and found that the wiring from the output jack to the 
trigger was very light gauge, and there was some sort of kink in that wiring 
and that's where it went bad.  They're wondering if something similar is 
going on inside some of these towers too.  They are going to open this one 
up, and I'll let you know what they find.

Anyways, losing confidence in Yamaha kick pads, they gave me some credit on 
the defective Yamaha one, and I bought a S&S Stealth Bass Drum Trigger.  
Wow, is it nice!  Much more comfortable to play, quieter and more accurate 
for sure.  I'd recommend it to anyone.  You can see them at:
http://gmdi.home.mindspring.com/ssProduct1.html#kick

This was rated the most comfortable and accurate bass drum trigger by Modern 
Drummer magazine.

Many thanks to Clark and the great folks at Colorado Drum for taking care of 
me and backing the products they sell.

If we find anything interesting inside the Yamaha unit, I'll pass it on.  
Oh, by the way did you see that Yamaha has a new KP80S kick tower, that 
helps utilize port 9/10? Or at least it's the first I've heard of it.  You 
can see it at:

http://www.yamaha.co.jp/english/product/drum/dtx/prd/component.html

It sounded interesting to me, but after the luck I've had with Yamaha kick 
tower, I decided to go another direction.

Hope all this info helps, and that you won't have the same trouble I had.

Keep on drummin!

Rolf


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