Yamaha DTXpress/DTXplorer/DTXtreme

One more thing I forgot to mention...

While Joe sound goof was struggling with the mixer I was stuck behind the
kit tapping the pads. Duh. I should have just run a decent pattern with hat,
snare, kick and crash (like #5) which would have freed me up to get behind
the board myself, and also see what I sound like in the audience.  What a
great feature! A real out of body experience.

The downside is that the other band members might say "What do we need the
drummer for? You and your rack can go home, but leave us the module." At
which point you fire up one of the preset songs, and the rich awesome
musicality (like Citydogs) will totally blow away the club owner prompting
him to send all the musicians home.

I'm kidding.

p.s.: Just because Canada won the gold cup soccer tourney last weekend don't
get to thinking we've become a nation of sissies. We could have taken any
team there in bench clearing brawl too, if we had to.   :)

=========================================================================

pete

Hot Java, Cool Tunes: Visit Caf\ufffd Pierre www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/4024/







> From: pdk <pdk@...>
> Reply-To: DTXpress@onelist.com
> Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 15:42:41 -0500
> To: <DTXpress@onelist.com>
> Subject: Re: [DTXpress] Played live...want to hear about it?
> 
> From: pdk <pdk@...>
> 
> The band was a bunch of old-timers who heard about me through my boss and
> asked me to sit in at a pub gig.  The song list was fifties rock n roll,
> some r&b with some MOR crap. Not bad all in all.
> 
> To practice, I found a few of the songs on CD, and the rest I dug up on the
> internet as MP3s. I ran a lead from my mac to the DTX and played the MP3s
> with Audion which worked pretty well. Not CD quality but good enough to
> learn the rhythm and the changes.
> 
> I prepared three kits, a jazzy one, a pop rock one, and a bluesy one.
> 
> The band's singer assured me ahead of time that the bar had a really good PA
> and speakers used by bands all the time, and that I could plug my kit
> straight in.
> 
> The pub was larger than I expected, more of a bar or roadhouse. I thought
> the band members might sneer at my non-traditional set-up but it was quite
> the opposite.  They thought "robo kit" as they called it, was totally cool.
> 
> Unfortunately, the house-guy who was supposed to know how to run the sound
> system proved pretty inept, and I was not satisfied with the sound check at
> all.
> 
> Finally I just said forget it, and got my own amp and speakers out of the
> van. Luckily I'd been uncharacteristically smart enough to bring them (even
> though they're old and tired), in case the house PA didn't pan out.  Good
> lesson.
> 
> It was a lot of fun after that. The guys proved to be very experienced, and
> very talented. The kit performed well, although my crash symbol stopped dual
> zoning towards the end, even after rebooting. It's fine now, mysteriously.
> 
> My overall playing volume was lower than my acoustic kit would have produced
> un-miked, meaning that the guitar players and keyboard guy didn't have to
> crank their amps. At one point the singer asked me to turn down a bit for a
> slow number, and I happily obliged (try that with acoustics). I played along
> using the brushes-on-snare sound effect and the guys were just blown away.
> 
> On the down-side, my kit just reeked of smoke and booze when I got it home,
> and someone spilled a full Killkenny on my carpet (okay, it was me).
> 
> I learned that my kit doesn't sound as good through my old speakers as it
> does through headphones, so I'm going to audition some new bins. Especially
> since I'll be taking them with me from now on.
> 
> The other thing I learned is that I'm going to have to bone-up on sound
> systems. As a drummer I used to let someone else worry about it. But now I
> think it's my responsibility to know how to tinker with the mixer. In
> hindsight, I think the bar speakers may have been powered units, and the guy
> was just too dumb to turn them on.
> 
> Anyway, the old-timers want me to gig again next month, so I guess the Yammy
> passed the test.
> 
> 
> =========================================================================
> 
> pete
> 
> Hot Java, Cool Tunes: Visit Caf\ufffd Pierre www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/4024/
> 
>> From: pdk <pdk@...>
>> Reply-To: DTXpress@onelist.com
>> Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 12:49:48 -0500
>> To: <DTXpress@onelist.com>
>> Subject: [DTXpress] Played live...want to hear about it?
>> 
>> From: pdk <pdk@...>
>> 
>> Played my first bar gig with the digi-kit on Saturday. Anyone interested in
>> my observations?
>> 
>> 
>> =========================================================================
>> 
>> pete
>> 
>> Hot Java, Cool Tunes: Visit Caf\ufffd Pierre www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/4024/
>> 
>> 

>