Yamaha DTXpress/DTXplorer/DTXtreme

> I don't know whether I can help, but I'll try. The ultimate answer
> may lie, at least to some extent, in the physical characteristics of
> your homemade mesh pad. What kind of trigger are you using? Do you
> have the piezo inside a foam wedge (like the Pintechs) or inside a
> foam cone (like the Rolands)? Is the mesh head touching the foam
> cover, clamping down as you tighten? 

It has a Radio shack piezo tranducer on top of a piece of foam, with a Roland 
foam cone on top, and it was designed so the cone would touch the mesh head 
just before the mesh head would sit on the bearing edge, so the cone has good 
contact with the head.

> The easiest solution would be that, whatever trigger setting you're
> in, you simply have your min. velocity setting too high and/or your
> gain too low. If tinkering with those settings gets you back in the
> game, then you're done, though I don't think that the TP65 defaults
> are ultimately your best bet. Another setting to check is self-
>  rejection; if that's too high, some of the buzz hits will drop out.
> Lower it until the problem goes away.

Here's what I did - My guess it might have to do something with the pad type 
setting for the trigger input.  When you go Shift-Trig Edit and go to 7 (for 
a user trigger setup), you can select the pad type.  I tried the RHP-pad 
(which is for a mesh head type pad), but there were too many gaps in the 
sound of the buzz  roll.  The DT series settings were even worse.  I went to 
the misc-1 pad setting and bumped the gain all the way (to get THE most 
sensitive setting.  With this, just barely touching the pad with my finger 
would trigger the pad).  I was able to get a coarse buzz roll pretty good, 
and I wasn't able to tell if it's my playability or the setup making it sound 
a bit uneven, but it sounded a lot better.  I couldn't tell if there were 
drop outs with a finer buzz roll (remember, hearing's not that good).  I go 
after this because I had a dream one night in which I was playing a buzz roll 
on a snare drum.  I was really roiling over the drum head, and it sounded 
perfectly even.  That must have gone on for about 7 seconds.

Thanks!
Stephanie