Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Vintage Simmons Drums (UK) Users Group

Just had my first chance to try the SDS-800 I picked up at a French market the other week...

It's okay, but I don't think it's right.

The bass channel is the least satisfactory. If I turn the overall level down to zero, it's fine. Otherwise I get a constant "howling" sort of noise. The volume of the howling is governed by the Click Level pot. With this turned fully clockwise, the howling is loud - with this pot turned fully anti-clockwise, the howling is quiet but still there.

I can still trigger the bass channel despite the howling, but it doesn't sound anything like a bass - it sounds quite high pitched, more like a tom.

The snare seems reasonbly okay although doesn't sound a lot like the classic Simmons snare I was expecting. I can't seem to get that sharp Kraftwerk-esque sound I want. Sounds more like a tom sound with resonance.

Tom 1 seems absolutely fine - and triggers the run generator nicely.

Tom 2 is a little strange. The Decay pot doesn't seem to have any impact on the length of the sound being produced. It's constantly a short sharp sound. In fact this channel seems to produce sounds which sound far more like a kick drum than the bass channel does!

And finally the output I get from the Headphone socket is a little noisy, compared to the individual outs and the stereo / mix outs on the back of the box.

It's a bit of a shopping list of problems! Bearing in mind I'm a complete newbie to this, and have never opened one of these machines up before - where would you suggest I start?

Fingers crossed you guys can help - and thank you in advance for all advice given.

Aaron