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Today's Bonus:
- 8 natural feeling, velocity-sensitive drum pads with Dynamic Articulation(TM)
- Built-in professional drum machine so you can record and play back your own beats
- 50 Preset / 50 User drum kits with 233 sounds assignable to any pad
- 2 foot-switch inputs for external kick and HiHat (sold separately)
- High-quality 24-bit stereo and headphone outputs
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This kit is a lot of fun. It didn't take long for it to really grow on me. It sounds good and although the sensitivity isn't totally optimal for some snare sounds, it definitely sounds good enough for me. There are a couple of major gripes I have about this product though...First, it doesn't use traditional electric kick products. You have to buy one of those foot-switches that you use for keyboards. With those switches, it's next to impossible to get double bass (unless there's a special product out there specifically for that that I don't know about) because even if you split two switches, when one is down the other won't pick up. You could maybe put one of the switches in the hi-hat jack and set the hi-hat pad to bass as well, but then you would have two bass heads taking up two of your kits' pads, which would be annoying. By the way, you also can't choose where the heads for your bass drum and hi-hat are located if you use a foot switch. The switches are set to play the sound on the bottom left pad and the one that's two pads down from the right. You can see how this would get annoying if you don't like the traditional setup of the pads. The last thing I want to say about this subject is just that it makes no sense to me why they didn't include electric kick functionality because those keyboard switches aren't made for stomping repeatedly and will break quickly. You need to buy a very sturdy one like the boss fs-5u. This actually isn't a huge deal since those aformentioned boss pedals work tremendously well and don't take up any space at all, but let me tell you, if you're used to normal kick pedals, it will take some time to get used to them. Speaking of things breaking quickly, this leads me to my next complaint...
I've had this unit for 6 months now, and I'm having to send it in a second time for repair of the same head. The head I use for the ride cymbal is once again not working at all. This is ironic because it's the head that I hit the softest. Also, I'm not a drummer by nature so I hit drums very softly. I had a real kit of my own and I never even had to replace a head on it until a friend of mine who was a drummer played it and ruined two heads in one sitting. I think it's unfortunate that I've treated this kit well and this is the second time I'm repairing it. Also, beware that there's always a wait for Alesis phone support, even during hours you wouldn't consider "peak." Thankfully, they're providing a pre-paid shipping label for me again, and it's due to that that I'm giving the product a 3/5 instead of a 2/5. I really, really love this thing when it works, but it seems wrong that a product meant to played like a drum should be so delicate. I will consider the possibility I might have just a bit of a lemon since it seems to be one head, but it seems more likely to me that it's the repeated use that is responsible for this because I'm assuming they must have replaced the parts in that pad already.
UPDATE 11/10/2011*************
The pad I use for the ride cymbal and the pad below that one has recently stopped working again. I'm not sure if this thing is in warranty but I kind of doubt it at this point. If Alesis repairs did indeed replace the electronics in the pad that stopped working twice I have no idea why that ride pad (plus the one below it) would suddenly stop working again. This creates a dilemma for me. I'm a student and I can't continuously spend money to fix these pads. If I spend money to fix it out of warranty, this time I'll have no idea if and when this product will stop working again. I spent the money on this product so it seems like a waste to throw it away or let it sit but I have no idea if paying for repairs will pay off. Not sure what I'm going to do but based on my experience with this product I'm downgrading the score to a 2/5. This shouldn't keep happening. The first day I got it, as I was moving it around my messy apartment it bumped its corner on the wall. It wasn't severe at all and at the time I didn't think anything of it. At this point I'm wondering if bumping it on its corner may have actually done something to mess up that corner pad given this is the third time. This is unlikely since A) It wasn't a very serious bump and the thing worked for about 3 months until my first repair. B) The parts have been replaced and re-replaced(I'm assuming). and C) Now two pads are messed up and I really doubt most electronics would be hurt from a bump like that, let alone one that's supposed to be hit with sticks. In any case I'm not a happy shopper at this point and won't be purchasing anymore Alesis products.
Buy Alesis Performance Drum Pad Now
I recently had the oppportunity to compare the Alesis Performance Pad against four other drum pad machines: Roland's SPD-S and Octapod, Yamaha's DTX-Multi-12, and DD-65.I ended up choosing the DTX because it has the most sensitive pads. The others I had to bash away on to get notes, and it was a constant frustration to have hits ignored over and over again. The Performance Pad came close, however--it's pretty sensitive to drumsticks.
The biggest disappointment with the Performance Pad is the sounds--they sound like circa 1995 drum sounds. but I believe this has been addressed in the PP Pro.) Not a big deal for practice/learning, but making a recording... well, I'll figure something out if I decide to use it.
The PP was made as cheaply as possible. The LCD is monochrome/reflective with several fixed text messages. It can be hard to read at certain angles and if you go too far it's totally unreadable. The PP has many editing tools, but I find them frustrating to use given the poor quality of the LCD. No backlight either.
Compared against the others: the Octapad has a much better display but isn't as intuitive to use. The Multi-12 has more pads and better drum sounds, plus "fingertip touch" sensitivity--you don't need Bamm-Bamm to be your drummer. The SPD-S is overkill if you don't plan on sampling, and has the same pad insensitivity issues as most of the others.
I really want to like the DD-65, it seems like a decent machine for beginners but it too suffers from numb pads. Given the way the pads are isolated from one another it seems to me they could crank the sensitivity way up and never have problems with crosstalk.
(Crosstalk refers to a situation where hitting one pad activates nearby pads. This is a potential problem for most electronic drum pads, but on the DD-65 the pads are far apart and set at different heights, making crosstalk almost impossible.)
If the lack of quality drum sounds bugs you, you could always attach it to a computer via MIDI and have the computer generate the sounds. This may not be that easy, since the PP uses channel 1 to transmit and i don't even know if you can change this to channel 10 (the traditional channel for MIDI drum kits).
Would I recommend this? Try it out, just make sure you hang onto the receipt. Amazon makes comparing equipment pretty easy since they take care of all of the return shipping stuff.
Read Best Reviews of Alesis Performance Drum Pad Here
I was highly impressed with this little drum machine. It has great sounds, a lot of sounds availible, and it's extremely durable and compact.You of course, need the pedals which are extra, but Roland makes some nice, inexpensive ones, I think mine were 70 bucks each. The only problem with them is that they tend to slide a bit when you play.
On the con side, as with Roland, this complany is Japanese, and as with Roland, it becomes very clear that English is not their first language when you try and read the owner's manual. However, with a lot of poking around and many times of re-reading, you can learn the machine. it's well worth it anyway.
I use mine with a yellow-coned KRK speaker. Mine is the tiniest one, which I bought for 100 bucks. You could of course, use two, but for a gig small enough to require a drum machine (such as an acoustic gig) as opposed to a full drumset, you really can't go wrong with this little guy. The KRK series speakers are powered, so you don't need an additional amp. Less stuff to carry. This drum machine DOES NOT have an external speaker, so unless you're planning to always play with headphones, you'll have to have a speaker, and a cable. There's an option to use RCA cables to plug into a stereo, but I didn't have the best luck with this. It was hard to get it to be loud enough to hear it as I wanted. granted, it's an old Bose wave radio, so it's possible it's the fault of the radio itself.
At 230 bucks, it's a great kids' first drumset. As I said, they're very durable, within reason of course. Just for appreciation's sake, I'd make the kid work to earn some of the money to get the thing, so he doesn't try to destroy it on purpose b/c you wouldn't buy him a 9 thousand dollar DW kit. I heard a woman tell me her son tried a stunt like that with a cell phone. My kid would be yelling across the yard to make his phone calls for a VERY very long time after that one, in my world. I was working since age 14, so my thinking is a bit different than a lot of people. However, I guarantee you that you'll take care of stuff when you had to work hard to get it. It's why kids are so angry and depressed for absolutely no reason today. As a grown person, I appreciate having worked for my own stuff. Even young kids can do stuff and help around the house. Let's not forget until fairly recently, 5 year-olds worked in factories and had jobs.
So back to our lovely product, the trigger pads are a nice size that makes it not too easy to hit the pad next to it by mistake very often. This is a problem with the Roland stuff.
plus, you can turn a drum machine DOWN, which is a nice touch.
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Received it in good shape however there is no audio coming from the device despite many efforts to try to produce sound from it. Very upset
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