Yamaha DTXpress/DTXplorer/DTXtreme

Hi

I'm about to purchase a new KP65 because I think my old one is
triggering intermittently. It's still under warranty, but I've a gig
coming up and I don't want to trust to sending it off and waiting for
a new one to arrive.  I figured I'd buy a new one, then send the old
one back for replacement. If the unit's as dodgy as you guys reckon, a
spare won't do me any harm.

Is there a preferred place to buy bits from or shall I carry on with
my local shoppe? Any guide prices?

Any other thoughts on my strategy?

Oh, also, I'm getting all excited about the idea of buying a guitar
compression pedal and putting the kit through that to get a sound
that's easier to listen to. Then I thought I could have a line of
pedals on the floor and trigger them for all sorts of effects. Fuzzed
drums, chorussed drums. Maybe, if I'm thinking that way, there's a
single effects box that would do everything I want .. any ideas on
that?

J

> Is there a preferred place to buy bits from or shall I carry on with
> my local shoppe? Any guide prices?

I wouldn't mind finding out about good places to buy replacements from 
either, anyone who has an idea in the UK please suggest.

As far as effects go, I wouldn't worry about them too much.  Chorus you will 
be hard pressed to hear on short transients like drums.  Distortion may be 
quite fun (I would head towards classical distortion instead of fuzz). 
Delay is definitely very fun to play with.  Dynamics effects are pretty 
useless since you can achieve the same thing by playing with the velocity 
curve on the drum, which is a much preferred way of doing this.  There are a 
huge number of multi-effects pedals and you get what you pay for (most won't 
have compression tho).  As with all the effects though, you will likely be 
going through a completely new set of ADC's and DAC's which are often not at 
24-bit resolution, sometimes even just 14-bit.  Recording through these will 
deteriorate the quality of your sound significantly, and it would probably 
be noticeable at gigs too, although for playing around it doesn't matter at 
all.
Sorry can't help on the other points.

Matt

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
http://www.loopit.org
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <john@...>
To: <DTXpress@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2005 8:39 AM
Subject: [DTXpress] KP65 bass drum pad / compression


Hi

I'm about to purchase a new KP65 because I think my old one is
triggering intermittently. It's still under warranty, but I've a gig
coming up and I don't want to trust to sending it off and waiting for
a new one to arrive.  I figured I'd buy a new one, then send the old
one back for replacement. If the unit's as dodgy as you guys reckon, a
spare won't do me any harm.

Is there a preferred place to buy bits from or shall I carry on with
my local shoppe? Any guide prices?

Any other thoughts on my strategy?

Oh, also, I'm getting all excited about the idea of buying a guitar
compression pedal and putting the kit through that to get a sound
that's easier to listen to. Then I thought I could have a line of
pedals on the floor and trigger them for all sorts of effects. Fuzzed
drums, chorussed drums. Maybe, if I'm thinking that way, there's a
single effects box that would do everything I want .. any ideas on
that?

J

> Dynamics effects are
> pretty
> useless since you can achieve the same thing by playing with the
> velocity
> curve on the drum, which is a much preferred way of doing this.

> As with all the effects though, you will
> likely be
> going through a completely new set of ADC's and DAC's which are often
> not at
> 24-bit resolution, sometimes even just 14-bit.

Good points both, Mat, I've either forgotten or never knew about the
velocity curve thing, may have a play.

The thing, tho, that I'm having trouble managing is that I have pretty
much a different kit for each song, as different as world music is to
a rock kit. Some seem louder than others.

Given that we've a small gig coming up and there'll be no-one on the
mixing desk to even out the sound from song to song, is there a way of
evening out the differences or shall I continue doing what I'm doing,
which is "ooh, that snare sounds a bit overbearing, I'll turn it down
a tad".

J

> Given that we've a small gig coming up and there'll be no-one on the
> mixing desk to even out the sound from song to song, is there a way of
> evening out the differences or shall I continue doing what I'm doing,
> which is "ooh, that snare sounds a bit overbearing, I'll turn it down
> a tad".

Forgive me if my answer below is not appropriate.  I'm just assuming that by 
'turn it down a tad' you mean you're using the snare KNOB on the front... if 
thats not the case (and instead you mean you're adjusting the levels by the 
voice edit menu) then ignore everything I've written.

Well I'm no expert, but the first thing that occurs to me is that you should 
just attempt to normalise all the sounds for the kits manually by listening 
to them (in the most realistic scenario possible).  I tend to only use the 
user kits, having selected which kits are halfway decent and weeding out 
those awful drum loops, so customisation of these kits is possible.  Then 
have a play (with the snare and kick knobs set to halfway) and decide which 
sounds are too loud or quiet and get one kit correct... I'd imagine the kits 
are probably all relatively balanced anyway, so then go through and adjust 
the levels of the next kit, constantly referencing the previous.  To adjust 
the volume just navigate to the volume setting on the voice edit (?).
If you find ALL the floor toms are too loud then adjust the sensitivity of 
the trigger input, but from what you say I guess the only things you need to 
change are the relative levels of each kit.... in which case you will still 
need to go through all the voices individually and adjust the volume!

Best of luck,

Matt

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
http://www.loopit.org
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
----- Original Message ----- 

From: <john@...>
To: <DTXpress@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2005 2:18 PM
Subject: Re: [DTXpress] KP65 bass drum pad / compression


>> Dynamics effects are
>> pretty
>> useless since you can achieve the same thing by playing with the
>> velocity
>> curve on the drum, which is a much preferred way of doing this.
>
>> As with all the effects though, you will
>> likely be
>> going through a completely new set of ADC's and DAC's which are often
>> not at
>> 24-bit resolution, sometimes even just 14-bit.
>
> Good points both, Mat, I've either forgotten or never knew about the
> velocity curve thing, may have a play.
>
> The thing, tho, that I'm having trouble managing is that I have pretty
> much a different kit for each song, as different as world music is to
> a rock kit. Some seem louder than others.
>
> Given that we've a small gig coming up and there'll be no-one on the
> mixing desk to even out the sound from song to song, is there a way of
> evening out the differences or shall I continue doing what I'm doing,
> which is "ooh, that snare sounds a bit overbearing, I'll turn it down
> a tad".

> Is there a preferred place to buy bits from or shall I carry on with
> my local shoppe? Any guide prices?

I have used Thomann in Germany for spares: 

http://www.thomann.de/thoiw2_index.html

mainly because they have a huge stock and prices are good (eg £46 for
KP65).  For small bits, it may be cheaper from other online retailers
because of the delivery cost (£13 I think).

Keith.