Yamaha DTXpress/DTXplorer/DTXtreme

--- In DTXpress@yahoogroups.com, "temp1111" <temp1111@w...> wrote:
> Here are some first impressions on the DTX2S from a 25 year veteran 
acoustic drummer.  I have never touched or even seen up close an E 
kit until my recent purchase of the DTX2S, so I have no other kit to 
compare to, I'm simply throwing out some impartial, first impressions.

Vic,

Your posts (along with those of drumsonly, cheakster, and OGD) are 
valuable insights into the DTXT2S. You've probably gone as deeply 
into the module as any consumer at this point. Although it's not 
possible to please everyone all of the time, even when you're trying, 
Yamaha at the outset did not commit to calling this module their 
fully "professional" unit. If I remember correctly, the idea was to 
test the waters with the DTXT2T and proceed with something more 
elaborate if it caught fire. I personally didn't think that this plan 
made much sense; nor do I know whether it's still operative. That 
said, however, taking what drum modules usually do and cost into 
consideration, this one seems to be a winner, despite your legitimate 
observations and without soft soap. Drum modules have notoriously 
lagged behind their synth brothers in computing power and 
versatility, largely because manufacturers are not convinced about 
their market. They just don't get the resources (meaning money and 
R&D) that other electronic equipment does. The DTXT2S, however, shows 
that the situation is improving, but it might take some familiarity 
with the past market to notice. Hell, the technology of my main 
module (ddrum) is 10 years old; computers have changed almost beyond 
recognition since then. Shameful. And even Yamaha, for all its 
advances at a price point, is anachronistic in many respects, 
possibly because it was in development for so long.
 
> - Love my vendor for being helpful and flexible with my order 
(Drumbalaya)
> - Hate Yamaha distribution for changing delivery dates 6 times 
ranging from very early Spring to what turned out to be late July.

Are you listening, Mr. Morin? Does everyone know how Ed (no relation) 
and Charlotte started Drumbalaya from a labor of love and turned it 
into edrummers' paradise, with nearly every possible e-drum product 
and accessory covered and tested? Customer service has never wavered. 
It's safe to say that without Drumabalaya, we wouldn't know about, 
let alone have, many of the components that make the rounds today. 
 
> - Love the fact that the rack is sized the same as my Gibralter 
hardware so it was easily integrated.
> - Hate the flimsy build of the hardware.  The tubes are extremely 
delicate and I have trouble envisioning them taking the beating on 
the road that my Gibralter/Pearl equipment does.  The clamps are 
cheap plastic and I have concerns about their longevity as well.  
Additionally, unlike the Gibralter clamps which have a clamshell 
design which allows them to be easily removed and replaced, the 
Yamaha clamps require complete disassembly of that portion of the kit 
to slide the clamp off or onto the bar.  Not so convenient.

Price point, price point, price point. To sell kits at $2500, $1500, 
or $1000, Yamaha needed to cut corners. Sometimes you shoot for the 
lowest common denominator and let the buyer pick up the slack when, 
or if, he needs to. 
 
> - Love the ball and socket adjustment for the tom holders, by far 
the easiest, fastest adjustment method I've ever seen.  Should become 
an industry standard for acoustic drums.
> - Hate that they didn't put a mounting port in the SD so I didn't 
have to have an extra stand in my way, also hate the height of the SD 
stand isnt high enough when legs are fully extended.

OGD made the same point about the snare. It will be a nuissance for 
DTXpress users, for example, to integrate one into their stock 
configurations without a rack mount.
 
> - Love the intuitive interface of the module.
> - Hate the fact that the manual is written from the perspective of 
someone who is already familiar with E-kits, there is no clear 'start 
here', 'do this next' context for the complete novice to E-kits.

Even those familiar with e-kits aren't convinced that the manual is 
well written. At one point, a core of us (with Stewart at the helm) 
were working on an alternate DTX-type manual (Stephen dubbed it "Drum 
and Drummer"), but it has proven difficult to complete. Now we can 
add information about the DTXT to the rest of the unfinished 
business. 
 
> - Love the quality and diversity of the voices
> - Hate that there are only 4 tom voices for each kit.  For a kit 
with 2000+ voices, they couldn't foresee that someone would add more 
E-toms or be triggering an acoustic kit with more than 4 toms?  I 
haven't gotten to deeply work with tuning the preset sizes, but 
without a shell diameter and depth setting, I don't see this as being 
a great way to go.  We really need additional tom sizes and this is 
one of my biggest gripes right now.

COSM. :-) 

> - Love the InsFX option
> - Hate that there aren't 4 instead of 2, and I really hate that we 
can only assign 1 of the InsFX channels to a voice.  In a situation 
where the user is trying to recreated a preset voice, but must send 
it to an IND channel, we depend on the InsFX channels, but if we need 
to combine both REV and CHO we are stuck choosing either/or.
> 
> - Love the fact that all necessary cables were included
> - wish they were a little heavier duty and not prelabled.

Price point and practicality. E-drum cables, unlike those that carry 
actual instrument voices or recorded sounds to amps and speakers, 
carry only an electrical impulses that get translated into voices 
stored elsewhere. From that perspective, hefty cables are 
unnecessary. Any comments? Some people love the labelling, having 
lobbied long and hard for it.
 
> Overall, I am pleased with the kit, but I think they took some 
shortcuts.  I'm really miffed about the lack of additional tom sizes 
and I'm hoping a download site will pop up.  I also am thankful that 
this forum exists, because it provides a great place to get and give 
ideas and feedback.

Calling them as you need them is the name of the game. No arguments 
about the shortcuts, but maybe an argument about the extent to which 
they detract from the kit. For many, price and manner of use mollify 
them considerably. Our initial information was that DTXperience would 
include sounds for downloading. 

Ed

emf said:
>
> COSM. :-)
>

Thought I knew most of these... whats COSM mean?

-- 
Vern Graner CNE/CNA/SSE    | "If the network is down, then you're
Senior Systems Engineer    | obviously incompetent so why are we
Texas Information Services | paying you? Of course, if the network
http://www.txis.com        | is up, then we obviously don't need
Austin Office 512 328-8947 | you, so why are we paying you?" \ufffdVLG

>They are missing the boat here, the untapped market is huge, and I'm
>evidence of that.  Die hard acoustic drummers looking not necessarily
to >fully convert, but to supplement and support their acoustic kits.

That might be "a" market, but I don't know if its "the" market. Last time
we had a "what r u using your kit for" type of discussion, there was a
surprisingly large number of users who were drummers in their "younger"
days (circa 1970's or so) looking for a quite way to get back into the
fun of drumming w/o waking the neighbors/kids/wife and found the DTXpress
a perfect solution for that.

For my purposes, the "cheap" plastic is fine since my set will more than
likely never leave my home.... :)

Vern


-- 
Vern Graner CNE/CNA/SSE    | "If the network is down, then you're
Senior Systems Engineer    | obviously incompetent so why are we
Texas Information Services | paying you? Of course, if the network
http://www.txis.com        | is up, then we obviously don't need
Austin Office 512 328-8947 | you, so why are we paying you?" \ufffdVLG

--- In DTXpress@yahoogroups.com, "Vernon Graner" <vern@t...> wrote:
> emf said:
> >
> > COSM. :-)
> >
> 
> Thought I knew most of these... whats COSM mean?

Vern,

As I told Vic, COSM (Composite Object Sound Modeling) is the 
proprietary framework used by the Roland TD-8, TD-10, and TD-20 
modules to shape their sounds. Among other things at its highest 
reaches, it permits programming diameter and depth of shell for 
certain pads.

Ed

Thought I knew most of these... whats COSM mean?
 COSM (Catastrophic Omnipotient Signal Mutation) 

Heh, just kidding.

--- In DTXpress@yahoogroups.com, "temp1111" <temp1111@w...> wrote:
> Of course.  I didn't say live performers were the 'only' market.  
My point is, if they want to sell enough kits to keep making 
improvements, while at the same time maintaining a price point, then 
they can't afford to miss a market opportunity.
> 
> If they focus solely on the home user, who never take the kit to 
the end of its envelope, they will never improve and will eventually 
be pushed out of any opportunity to penetrate the semi-pro/pro market 
by companies who recognize and at least make some options available 
to that market.
> 
> As I said, nothing wrong with maintaining a certain level for the 
home user, but make premium options available for those who need/want 
them.

That's the point I was trying to register earlier about where to 
locate the DTXT in the market. Though certainly not a be-all-end-all 
product, the DTXT is hardly relegated simply to the home user. Just 
how much even the pro or semipro user needs the module to do, 
however, is a slightly open question, depending on context. Modules 
don't generally do as good a job with certain higher-end options as 
separate boxes do. No contest. Not a knock against modules at all, 
but sequencers, effects, tuned GM notes, et al. are arguably not the 
features that should get much of a high-end budget. It's not 
altogether inconceivable that an ultra high end module would dispense 
altogether with such bells and whistles and concentrate completely on 
sampling capability, sound quality, and comuputing power. It should 
have discrete output options for sending individual components to 
much more elaborate boards or recording facilities. To create an 
analogy with home audio, the better modules at this point are the 
equivalent of decent receivers, which locate many useful (and not so 
useful) functions in a single place. The better audio equipment has 
separate boxes for power supply, amp, preamp, and tuner sections.

As for the semipro and pro market for electronics increasing, I don't 
think that there's any question. But many acoustic drummers still 
have a prejudice, ignorance, etc. about electronics, some of it 
understandable given the limited dynamics and compromised sounds of 
the not too distant past. Ask the manager of the drum sections at 
your local GC to give you a good account of what electronics can do 
these days or to distinguish the market, and he'll probably default 
to the standard, vague line about Roland being the only legitimate 
option. Then ask him about sales. A lot of hip drummers integrate 
electronics into their kits to some extent, but rarely do they depend 
on the module to do all of their sound work. 

Vic's challenge is the kind of feedback that Yamaha needs, and 
presumably wants, to hear if they have any intention of putting 
together what a cross section of drummers would consider a completely 
pro module. I'll bet the answers will be varied for a long time to 
come.

emf said:
> COSM (Composite Object Sound Modeling)

Ahhh thx.. must have missed that. For some reason I thought it was an IRC
style TLA like BRB or LOL and thought IANAL, FWIW, and IMHO, I thought I
knew most of those. l8r! :)

Vern

-- 
Vern Graner CNE/CNA/SSE    | "If the network is down, then you're
Senior Systems Engineer    | obviously incompetent so why are we
Texas Information Services | paying you? Of course, if the network
http://www.txis.com        | is up, then we obviously don't need
Austin Office 512 328-8947 | you, so why are we paying you?" \ufffdVLG

--- In DTXpress@yahoogroups.com, "emf" <liberatusvirus@y...> wrote:
> --- In DTXpress@yahoogroups.com, "temp1111" <temp1111@w...> wrote:
>  
> > - Love my vendor for being helpful and flexible with my order 
> (Drumbalaya)
>
> Are you listening, Mr. Morin? Does everyone know how Ed (no 
relation) 
> and Charlotte started Drumbalaya from a labor of love and turned 
it 
> into edrummers' paradise, with nearly every possible e-drum 
product 
> and accessory covered and tested? Customer service has never 
wavered. 
> It's safe to say that without Drumabalaya, we wouldn't know about, 
> let alone have, many of the components that make the rounds today. 

Yes, I try to be listening somewhat regularly (read: several times a 
month when I get some spare moments that I'm not updating inventory 
or something!).  Thanks (again) for the kind words.  It's been a 
long, hard "row to hoe" getting this company off the ground (we only 
recently started to get any sort of modest cash draw for ourselves 
back), but thanks to many loyal and devoted customers, whom we 
continue to work at earning their on-going business, we have been 
able to steadily grow. 

We have continued to be one of the most significant, possibly #1 -- 
not 100% sure, independent dealers for Hart and Pintech.  Roland and 
Yamaha certainly are also in awe of -- and very happy about -- our 
business level (but not enough to help us fund national, let alone 
global, advertising -- they would prefer that we just be primarily a 
local store in Seattle!).  From what I am told, and from reading 
between the lines, we are (by far) our Roland and Yamaha rep's #1 e-
drum dealer in their territories which includes multiple GC's for 
each!  Not bad for a little over a 2-year run at it FROM SCRATCH...

Anyway, as always, we appreciate the recognition and continued 
support -- without you, it wouldn't have been, or continue to be, 
possible.

Thanks y'all.

Ed