Yamaha DTXpress/DTXplorer/DTXtreme

Hi Creighton,

When I got my version of the DTXpress back in the 14th century, I 
had a terrible time with the kick pad. I won't bore you with the 
details, but one of the problems was double-triggering. I got so 
flustered with the inconisistencies that I stopped tinkering and 
bought one from another company. You'll notice that the archives of 
2001/2 are littered with complaints about the KP60. The fact that 
the latest version, which seems to have been redesigned--at least 
cosmetically--hasn't attracted much grumbling seems to suggest that 
it works better. I don't think that the piezo is overly sensitive to 
temperature; mine double-triggered in a nice cozy room that didn't 
vary much. But I wouldn't be surprised if the rubber pad got stiffer 
in the cold. And the hardness of the rubber may well have something 
to do with the double-triggering--notwithstanding the issues of self-
rejection, gain, and minimum velocity. I began to notice that my 
beater almost imperceptively struck the hard pad twice. I could 
eventually control it a little by concentrating on my technique, but 
not enough to eliminate the problem. If this is what's happening to 
you, you might glue part of an old mouse pad to it, and/or increase 
the min. vel. setting, decrease the gain, and find a comfortable 
self-rejection point. Unfortunately, however, these measures may 
also further deaden the dynamic range, which, I agree, is not good 
in the first place. It's hard to get a light hit no matter how you 
set the parameters. 

Maybe Walt or someone else can bear me out on this point, but the 
polarity switch mainly permits the trigger to be used with equipment 
that reverses polarity. Yamaha's modules make polarity adjustments 
on the fly, rendering the issue irrelevant with its own triggers; 
switching it shouldn't make any difference in your case. 

Let us know how you make out. If you go the DIY route, or find an 
alternate explanation for the difficulty, your experience wiil 
certainly be valuable.

Ed


--- In DTXpress@yahoogroups.com, "creighton_higgins 
<creighton@l...>" <creighton@l...> wrote:
> anyone here have any issues with stability of settings? Having 
gotten 
> my kick pad working ok- suddenly last night it starts double 
> triggering- severely. Went to trigger settings and changed self-
> reject settings and saw some improvement, but if you pick too high 
a 
> setting you cannot trigger fast enough. I'm wondering if piezos 
are 
> sensitive to temperature changes or if there is some inherent 
> instability. All along I have had no success setting the kick pad 
so 
> I have a semblance of dynamic range- it has acted more like a 
> switch:just 1 loudness no matter how hard or soft I whack the 
thing. 
> 
> Since I have no manual for the kick tower- who can tell me the 
> purpose of the polarity switch?
> 
> Thanks.