Yamaha DTXpress/DTXplorer/DTXtreme

--- In DTXpress@yahoogroups.com, "pinoyboy71" <pinoyboy71@y...> wrote:
> Has the DTXpress replicated the "feel" of an acoustic drum set to a 
> great extent? I know it'll never be quite the same, but is it at 
> least rather close? As for getting both acoustic and Edrum, i think 
i 
> might just get a cheap mahagony acoustic set to get the hang of 
> things. No, i'm not gonna be working with a band, i just learned to 
> enjoy/appreciate drumming. 

In some ways, your question is a hard one to answer definitively. 
Although the aim of electronic drums is to relicate acoustic drums to 
some extent, the degree to which they succeed, or should succeed, is 
a personal matter. If you want to know what it's like to play 
traditional drums, then you have to get acquainted with them first 
(or at least at the same time as you use electronics). As an 
oldtimer, who played acoustic drums for nearly 4o years before I 
seriously tried electronics, I didn't miss a beat moving from one to 
the other. The main difference for me was in the geography; a gum-
rubber kit simply doesn't cover the space that a similarly configured 
acoustic kit does. As for feel, rubber is certainly different from 
mylar or calfskin heads and metal cymbals, but I've practiced on 
countless types of surface in my day (humans, couch arms, dashboards, 
tabletops, you name it). Gum rubber wasn't much of a hardship at all. 
In the end, though, I'd have to agree with Jon. If the lure of the 
drums for you is the acoustic variety, that's where you ought to go--
all things being equal. A compromise in the noise and feel 
departments, however, would be to put together an a la carte e-kit 
that approximates acoustic touch and size better than the stock 
DTXpress. For example, You could get a mesh snare with one or two 
acrylic cymbals, a round hi hat on a traditional stand, along with a 
rack of gum-rubber toms and a gum-rubber kick until you could afford 
to make them meshes, too. You could also buy a Pearl Rhythm Traveler 
acoustic kit, put mesh heads (Hart two-plies, for example) and 
triggers on it, and buy the aforementioned acrylic cymbals etc., and 
you'd have many of the features of an acoustic kit that just happens 
to run through a module. For other more scratch ideas about how to 
construct an e-kit from a number of different materials--traditional 
or otherwise--you could consult electronicdrums.com, where people 
discuss and build all sorts of DIY projects. 

Ed