Yamaha DTXpress/DTXplorer/DTXtreme

--- In DTXpress@yahoogroups.com, "moosetication" <moosetication@y...> 
wrote:

Good morning/UK afternoon, Stewart,

> 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.

It's clear that e-drums don't have the same importance for Yamaha 
that they do for Roland; whether resignation, litigation, or 
ineptness is responsible is the $ million question.  But I don't 
think that a giant like Yamaha, which certainly knows how to promote 
when it has a mind to, is suffering from any unforeseen consequences. 
The DTXpress has done well, and will continue to do so while Roland 
reaps the rewards of owning the market in general. The DTXtremeIIS 
will take some of the lower high end, but even though Yamaha seems to 
have done as well as it can with rubber, not having a woven-head 
option will hurt, and Yamaha seems to know it. I honestly think that 
something else is waiting in the wings, but legal problems, and maybe 
other considerations, are stalling it. But I'm definitely intrigued 
about the XtremeIIS. If I can find one, I'll go play it. The 
DTXpressIIISP is my cup of tea as well; I like what I heard on the 
video. I may buy the module as well sometime.

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

Clavia, I'm afraid, is a dwarf among giants. It simply cannot afford 
to keep up, or even bother to try to keep up, with the big boys, and 
synth products are its priority. If what I've heard is true, dddrum 
has had something new on the drawing board for years, but the usual 
product-release timetable for this company doesn't apply. As far as 
Clavia is concerned, it's NAMM SHMAM THANK YOU MA'AM. 
 
> 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.

Elegant as the TD-20 kit is, I don't see the point of shelling out 
$5,000 for it either, but thousands of people will. Converted kits 
are an option, but a labor-intensive and not necessarily less 
expensive one. I've thought of converting my old Walberg & Auge, but 
I don't have Chris' time. Those who want meshes but not at Roland 
prices will happily take up Pintech and Hart on their options, though 
Roland's new "spider" triggering will be hard to match. The TD-20 
module certainly seems like an advance. As OGD says, its sampling 
capacity may largely determine how satisfied higher-end consumers 
will be with it, but its sounds and subtleties are hard to deny. I 
must say, however, that at least some of what it accomplishes were 
anticipated in the ddrum, and on principles that are far simpler to 
deploy than Roland's. 

In the end, my feelings are mixed, too (they always are, for a 
variety of reasons). The balance of power definitely has not shifted, 
but Yamaha's offerings occupy a distinct and valuable place in the 
market. It will be interesting to work with them and to see how they 
fare.

Ed