Yamaha DTXpress/DTXplorer/DTXtreme

( this reply rambles, but it's late and I'm just blabling )

Herb,

Unfortunately, the dtxpress can't do this natively. Sure,
it can play a sequence, but you need a reference click, which
is audible.

This kind of thing was real common in the 80's early 90's
when cover bands would have their drummer play to a click
track which was the tempo of a sequencer which played all
the "extra parts". I did quite a bit of this. The biggest problem
was the awkwardness the drummer had to endure of playing
to a robotic click, which, in many cases, causes the naturalness
of the music to become sterile and possibly created abrupt tempo
jerks when the drummer notices he's a little ahead/behind the click.

We settled on a "kahler human clock" to actually set the midi 
tempo based on the drummer's feel. It listen's to the drummer
and makes minute adjustments to the midi clock and maintains
some degree of human feel. I don't believe they still sell stuff like
this as it's just not to popular anymore ( at least since Milli Vanilli
)
to pipe in any sequenced music/sounds/vocals. The extreme is the modern
'one man band' you see in every tourist trap that plays or sings to
midi tracks. Ironically, if these guys just thought about it for
a minute, they'd realize all they really need is a cd player ( but I'm
guessing they think that 'all that gear' justifies the effort and makes
it seem like more than one guy playing to a tape :) )

If you're looking to hit a pad and trigger a piece of audio,
you might want a sampler, but this is only good for short audio
pieces that are very tempo oriented ( like a horn pad, or single word
backup harmony ).

The cheapest way out is to get a second seqencer/brain that can transmit
midi clocks AND produce it's own audible click 
( like one of those casio/yamaha keyboards they sell at 
walmart/circuit city/sears for under $200. )
so you can route the click to your phones/monitors and 
hide it from the rest of the world.






Herb wrote:
> 
> 
> ok,  I used the DTXPRESS for a live Jam practice with some guys last
> night.   It worked great after some fine tuning.    I have a question,
> maybe you guys know is there anything on the market that will allow us to
> play cover tunes and fill in the missing parts?  Like if we want to play
> Dave Matthews  tune "what would you say"  is there some piece of equipment
> that will allow me to hit Play, hear a click so I can start the tune, and
> then fill in the Harmonica part, and violin part.  Or If I want to play
> that rusted root tune,  I can go get something or download something that
> will cover the flute part?  Does anyone know what I mean?
> 
> Herb
> 
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