Yamaha DTXpress/DTXplorer/DTXtreme

Well. Having digested the NAMM fallout, I am left with mixed 
feelings.

Yamaha's e-drum folks clearly couldn't market their way out of a wet 
paper bag. They have good gear, but their European web site still 
has the OLD DTXtreme, and the comparison between the videos on 
Harmony Central for the TD-20 and the DTXpressIII is painful. If I 
was a tech at Yamaha, I would be mightily pissed: their new baby 
getting next to no coverage, leaked out before NAMM and leaving 
Roland to steal the show. You just have to admire Roland, even if 
their gear is ludicrously overpriced. It's a bit like watching IBM 
and Microsoft back in the days when I was an OS/2 programmer.

Nothing from Clavia, and nothing from Pintech that I can see.

I'm left with a suspicion that my upgrade path this year will be 
modest: a DTXPU3 module to sit alongside my DTXPU2 (take advantage 
of the new sounds and get some more inputs), a handful of the round 
cymbal pads to replace the PCYs, perhaps the hi-hat pad (as long as 
I can cable mount it - I agree with the rumblings about pad son hi-
hat stands missing the point a bit), and at least one mesh pad 
(snare).

I don't yet see enough that's compelling enough about the 
DTXtremeIIS module to make me spring the extra cash, and the Roland 
TD-20 module and kit looks wonderful but the price is so high I 
would need specialist breathing equipment and a heated suit to get 
up there. My existing RS65 rack has been supplemented by a couple of 
extra tubes and clamps and is fine (if not pretty), so no need to 
spring for the (admittedly nice) new racks, and even if the new TPs 
are softer rubber that doesn't really make me want to run down to 
the store for them.

I'm completely conflicted about the Roland gear too. I mean, 
technologically it's stunning. What they've done with the hi-hat, 
with the modelling, with the interval tuning, are all superb. The 
hardware is stunning too - cabled racks, roadworthy clamps, and so 
on. Yet all that processing power and huge tweakability to get 
closer and closer to a facsimile of an acoustic kit seems almost 
futile. If it's silent acoustics you want, surely a converted 
acoustic kit and a sampling module like the ddrum4 is the 
overwhelmingly obvious choice? Chris Jude's converted Sonors on 
edrumming.com are plain, old-fashioned stunning, and hooked up to a 
ddrum4se and TD-10 (or 20) will sound awesome.

Hmm.

Stewart