Picked this up Yamaha DTExplorer off Craigslist on Tuesday:



It's used twice. Got it for 450$. Pretty good for the price I'd say. Like any entry level Yamaha product it's not bad, it's not great either.

My uses for it are threefold:

a) Night time playing.

b) Playing in an apartment or some other place where volume is an issue, when I move out.

c) I will use the module to trigger my kick drum on the acoustic kit.

I already tried triggering it with my drummer's DDrum trigger (I have my own Roland trigger still on order). Success. It did however indicate that tightening of my playing is still needed. Heel toe works okay if my focus is fully on what I'm hearing and what I'm doing. During blasts with slow foot speeds the left foot tends to jostle against the head and cause it to trigger more, so I am going to have to fix that technique.

OOOOOOH. Nice. I often wish i had a set of those about for doing demos and shizz at what would be more like the times that i generally do that sort of stuff, i.e. 2-4 AM or so. Like, for instance right now, i would like to record drums on something.

Recording stuff in the middle of the day just always feels strange.

THIS.

Also, those ain't bad, in my limited experience.

I have an ancient Simmons kit kicking around but no module for it. The pads kinda suck in that A) they're hard rubber and Really Loud and I might as well be playing real drums prettymuch, and B) the velocity is wonky so most hits sound like they're cranked to 127. So it sits in the attic.

Geoff, what model trigger are you getting for your acoustic kick?

Indeed, I should be able to have funtimes at night now. In fact, I think if someone needs a hip hop beat for their rap, I might lay a little something down with the hip hop settings. Or is outside help not allowed?

It is this trigger: http://www.roland.com/products/en/RT-10K/

That's cool. It looks like a sturdy, if tiny piece of kit. The DDrum triggers aren't, in the experience of drummers I know who use them, the most reliable, physically. They are easily damaged? And that's the nice ones, not the cheapies. And they're the industry standard, as it were. I hope it holds up.

Here's some retarded noise I made with the 'Sounds Black People Make' preset.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default ... ID=9815456

Is that really what the preset is called?

Best beat evar.

No it's called 'Mixed Voices'. But other than that one moan I'd say the mix is mostly chocolate.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default ... ID=9982855

There's my dicking around on the kit with the sounds I've settled with. The kick drum is quite loud because I need to hear it well to make sure I am playing accurately, or else it won't register the hits...

nice Geoff. I like my kick loud, you have filled the bill.

Does the kit allow for any touch sensitivity or rimshot options? Or does the snare just have a one hit zone, one sample, one setting, sort of thing?

I really wish i had something like this for to do quiet(er) demos wif.

It's a very simple kit. Snare has only one touch zone. You can set it for more dynamic range, but I haven't bothered since most of my drumming style is all loud all the time...

It only came with two cymbals, so I ended up moving one of the tom pads where my ride would go and assigning the ride sound to it. Now I can haz two crashes and a ride, with one rack and one floor tom.

I like your kick sound. It sounds... round to me.