Hi Darren,
I'll spell Walt for a moment. Many of the members of this group use
the DTX for live gigging, with great success. The DTXpress also
seems to be a popular choice for studios, home and otherwise. The
voices on the DTX are very good, but don't expect to get acquainted
with all of the options or to find your eternal favorites in one
sitting. But at the price, I would be very surprised if you were
disappointed. So far as the machine gun effect is concerned, the DTX
doesn't provide positional sensing on pads, but it does have a
respectable dynamic range; minimum velocity and gain are fairly
responsive. It also permits velocity crossfading, which is another
guard against every hit sounding the same. As long as you don't
expect these drums/cymbals to behave and respond like acoustic drums
in every way, especially right off the bat, and you respect the
learning curve, you're destined to get good results. I definitely
wouldn't start seriously recording with them, however, until you've
come to grips with how to program and hit the pads to get what you
want and how to set rejection parameters to eliminate crosstalk.
Remember this is a digital medium: hitting a drum or cymbal
incorrectly doesn't get you an unexpected sound; it may get you no
sound at all. Studio drumming is usually basic, anyhow, but
electronic studio drumming is certainly best kept basic and not too
fine. Post if you run up against snags. There's probably very little
that gets to this board that someone in this group can't address.
Ed
--- In DTXpress@yahoogroups.com, darren <darren.hussey@v...> wrote:
> hey, thanks very much walt, thats answered just about everything i
needed
> confirming!!!
>
> just one small thing, when i talked about suitability for gigging
and studio
> work, i was more angling for an opinion about the actual sounds and
> triggering intelligence than pure build quality. Can you really
play these
> things at gigs and not suffer from machine gun rolls and stolen
notes etc?
>
>
>
>
> on 2/14/03 2:27 PM, Walt at wgardus@y... wrote:
>
> > Hi Darren,
> >
> > yes, yes, yes and yes.
> >
> > Anyway, let me try to attack your questions. First,
> > you should be able to do the bi-directional MIDI stuff
> > you mentioned. Many users interface with other
> > devices (or with software like Cakewalk) to export the
> > drum hits, and also send MIDI info to the xpress for
> > it to produce the sounds.
> >
> > Gigging and studio use are also things members have
> > experience with. For gigging you may find over time
> > that some of the hardware - especially the plastic
> > clamps may need upgrading (someone recently posted
> > that in real cold weather, it is easy for them to
> > crack if you don't let them warn up before tightening.
> > They are of a standard size so Gibraltar clamps work
> > too. These plastic clamps are common on all of the
> > lower priced kits, so you can't avoid them. I even
> > met a drummer using a DTXpress on a recent cruise - so
> > they're even sea-worthy!
> >
> > As far as being able to upgrade pads, this is do-able,
> > but many us have found compatibility issues with some
> > of the hardware that is out there. Usually it can be
> > resolved with parameter tweaking - sometimes it takes
> > discussion with the manufacturer of the device. I
> > have used Roland PD-80s, Pintech mesh head pads, Hart
> > Ecymbal IIs and a bunch of other stuff. The Hart ride
> > and HH were among the 'problem children', but the
> > others worked good.
> >
> > Walt
> > --- darren <darren.hussey@v...> wrote:
> >> hello, i'm new here and about to buy a dtexpress II
> >> (i'm pretty sure
> >> anyway). Unfortunately there is nowhere within a
> >> hundred miles of where I
> >> live that stocks all the different edrum kits to
> >> play and compare, which
> >> sucks obviously. So I am going to get one sent, and
> >> as a result of a weeks
> >> worth of exhaustive research, I seem to have decided
> >> on the dtexpress II but
> >> wanted to check a few facts with you guys before i
> >> go for it:
> >>
> >> Am I right in saying that there is no way of
> >> assigning drums to discrete
> >> outputs, so that (for example) you can let a live
> >> engineer balance your kik
> >> and snare the way he feels is right from front of
> >> house? does that mean it
> >> is literally stereo only output? Does this mean that
> >> during a soundcheck, if
> >> the engineer is moaning that he's not getting enough
> >> kik, I would have to
> >> start trawling through menus and punching buttons to
> >> turn it up?
> >>
> >> There are two things that i would like to use midi
> >> for, can i just briefly
> >> mention them and see if its possible? here goes;
> >> firstly i would like the
> >> ability to play a drum track and transmit the midi
> >> data to a sequencer for
> >> firing better sounds from a sampler at mixdown. I'm
> >> sure it can do this but
> >> is there any limitation? does it transmit absolutely
> >> everything that it
> >> recieves such as high hat pedal changes etc?
> >> Secondly I would like to do the same in reverse,
> >> i.e. to allow an external
> >> sequencer to play the kit from a midi file of me
> >> playing the song at an
> >> earlier time. Is that facility good enough for live
> >> use? because sometimes
> >> i'm required on guitar, and short of growing limbs
> >> this seems a good
> >> solution.
> >>
> >> One more thing, i've not managed to find out the
> >> extent of the
> >> cross-manufacturer compatibility and because i am
> >> new to this lark i'm not
> >> sure i fully understand what goes on. Could I
> >> replace those funny pie shaped
> >> cymbals with a v-cymbal at a later date? Likewise if
> >> I wanted to upgrade to
> >> a mesh head snare from a competitors range, is it
> >> compatible?
> >>
> >> Lastly, I know this is a bit of a stupid question,
> >> but could I possibly get
> >> some opinions about whether this kit is generally
> >> good enough for live and
> >> studio use. I will be a bit dissapointed if i end up
> >> suffering from machine
> >> gun rolls and stolen notes etc etc. I guess I need
> >> to cut through all the
> >> marketing hype and biased reviews and ask some real
> >> people - is this an
> >> interesting and fun practice kit, or is this a
> >> seriously decent drumming
> >> tool? I really dont want to fork out for one of the
> >> kits that cost
> >> three/four times the price but in fact dont sound
> >> any better, plus i'm a bit
> >> of a yamaha fan!
> >>
> >> many thanks in advance for any info
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
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