Yamaha DTExtreme

[Butch]

Has anyone seen one of these yet or what?
If so, then what's the story?
I've been postponing the possibility (inevitability ) of purchasing a Vdrum kit
to see Yamaha's long awaited response to the V's. I actually thought they'd given up. By the look of the DTExtreme maybe they subconciously have.

[This message has been edited by Butch (edited January 31, 2001).]

[Marc.]

yeah, some people here posted a couple of url's that had pictures. use the search feature.

[Butch]

As I stated in my inquiry, I've seen the product through their brochures. What I want to know is has anyone actually sat down and played(studied) the kit.

[puttenvr]

I think we can't demo the kit because it still isn't there. A dutch shop advertises with it (price full setup aprox. $ 2200) but they do not mention a date or time for introducing.

What I read about the DTXTreme kit is more from the same Roland, Alesis and Clavia already offer. Although the DTX 2.0 already had good sounds, there will be no new revolutionairy technique or so ...

[jrcel]

The DTXtreme module will have 32 meg worth of sample rom, the same as Vpro module w/expansion, plus you'll be able to add another 16 meg sample ram @44.1khz or sequence ram with the addition of relatively inexpensive Smart Media cards. You can play 9 notes in alternating mode, 6 notes in stack mode, amd control complete songs in slice mode. Quick edit w/ rotaty knobs taken from Yamaha's line of "A" series samplers. It will read position and allow for brush play, uses real drum heads and real maple shells. The toms will have YESS mounts to vitually eliminate crosstalk vibration between the pads. It's not as pretty as the Vdrum module but it sounds like a bomb for functionality. It will most certainly cause Roland to try to up the stakes yet again. I think we're seeing the begining of a war of the giants betwen the two biggest edrum makers.

[This message has been edited by jrcel (edited December 07, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by jrcel (edited December 07, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by jrcel (edited December 23, 2000).]

[Marc.]

HOW QUIET IS IT!!???!!

Many people go to e's for the 24/7.

Real drum heads and real maple shells?


ssshhhh ...
be vewy, vewy qwiet, I'm huntin' wabbits

[Boingo]

Originally posted by jrcel:
uses real drum heads and real maple shells.... It's not as pretty as the Vdrum module...

I'm missing the point here. What contribution to the kit is made by the addition of maple shells if they are not even pretty? This IS an electronic kit, right?

[jrcel]

This is odd, with all the features mentioned above, the only thing that is commented on are the shells and drumheads. That's brilliant.

[Boingo]

I told my wife I was considered "brilliant" by one of my cyber-drum buddies. Then she gently broke the news to me. I was mortified! But now I'm over it. I am confused because you just did the same thing that I did and pointed out the oddity of a post.

Your reacting to what I didn't say. So now I am going to give you my impression of the competition. I looked at the real player video http://www.giles.com/yamaha1/whatsnew1.html
and read the press release at http://namm.harmony-central.com/SNAM...DTXTREMES.html .

They seem to be doing a lot of catching up to Roland. I am not a diehard V-Drummer who thinks Roland can do no wrong and I'd consider upgrading in a heartbeat with good reason. The sample based sounds and high sampling rate seem to create the need for the extra ROM. They got 1000 sounds. This isn't more but is is different (sample vs COSM). It's hard to have an opinion on how well they have done without playing and hearing so I'll stop there. I will assume the samples are equal to or better than the V's. Don't know how much tweaking you can do with them. YESS mounts - gets an "A". My brilliance is showing when I admit I don't know the real significance in the three modes you mention (feel free to provide a brief explanation). I got the impression it was necessitated by the use of samples, high sampling rates and 3 or 4 velocity crossfades (now there's something to make you lick your chops!). The move to real heads is a step backwards. It's still a trade off and not an improvement. More noise for better feel. I want less noise and better feel. Their PR is deceiving comparing them to "hard pads" instead of mesh pads. Same with 6 sliders - comparison is to non-exp V-Pro. And maple shells?? - I'm cornfused. (The press release and video don't mention maple.) Direct outs have caught up to V's. Yada, Yada, Yada...

They certainly don't appear to be toys, but Yamaha has had a lot of time to work on beating the pants off Roland. What you hear from me is not negativity, its disappointment. I expected them to knock my socks off. Time will tell as we get more facts, hear some demo's and get to test them in the stores. At this point, I'm not going to put the V's up for sale.

[puttenvr]

Originally posted by jrcel:
This is odd, with all the features mentioned above, the only thing that is commented on are the shells and drumheads. That's brilliant.

Tells alot about Vdrum users who only play their e-drums at home (hence they want a silent kit) and don't care about any other features at all. Yegggg...

[Boingo]

Now just hold on a cotton pickin minute here Mr Puttenvr! I constantly read the argument about the quest for E-drums to imitate A-drums. Since when do you get tapping, clunking or other bonus noises when you play acoustics? What, you just play crank it up to the max kind of music that never has a soft, tasteful passage or two. I have heard the sound of the pads in live performances. I don't consider it a desirable part of the music. And yeah, some of us aren't full time musicians and only get to practice after our day jobs, after dinner, after helping the kids with the homework, and after spending some quality time with the family. I had a nice set of acoustics. I hardly got to play them at home because of the conflict between available time and the noise factor. Electric opened up a new world for me. Are we supposed to apologize and hang our head in shame and never get to play at all because we want e-drums which only make drum sounds? You're out of line mister! It's an hour in the time-out chair for you.

You really set me off this time.
Boing! Boing! Boing!

[puttenvr]

(is Boing, boing your favourite drum sound?)

Have a break. I only joined jrcel saying the only thing that is commented on are the shells and drumheads. This is strange: isn't it?

I have nothing against drummers who play at home, but when appearance is so important the e-drums almost become a piece of furniture. Does the drum shell fits the color of the carpet? Yeggg....

[Marc.]

Nice posts Boingo

My final post on this thread. The only reason I purchased v-drums was for it's "quiet quotient". Saw this dude at GC one day wailin' on this dorky-lookin' set (V-Pros), hardly makin' a sound, and thought it was some kind of practice set. Then I noticed him wearin' headphones & saw that they plugged into some kind of module. I walked over for a closer look, waited till he left, and gave them a try.

WOWEEEE ZOWEEEE! Well, the next thing you know ol' Jed's a v-drumaire. No regrets. So what if I'm not so brilliant? My boat is floatin'!

Hope you find some happiness some day jrcel & putt - good luck,

[Boingo]

Originally posted by puttenvr:
(is Boing, boing your favourite drum sound?)

Have a break.

Should have included a smiley, I suppose. I like to have a good time with the posts and occasionally get a point accross. Actually, like you, I'm not much on the toy sounds. They have a place. Every once in a while my son will get on the set. Kids go nuts over that stuff. Alas, I can't seem to get him interested in playing. He's not quite a teenager yet. Maybe someday.....

[bpaluzzi]

The DTXtreme is not designed to be a quiet practice kit-- it's designed to be a professional level live performance/recording set. It's made using the same technology as Spacemuffins (Yamaha licensed the technology from Al Adinolfi). That means extremely fast triggering and very low incidence of false/double triggering. The DTXtreme also has CLEAN outputs, something that the Vs can't claim.

You can't use this kit as an acoustic-- it's no louder than a Remo tunable practice pad, and the Digi-trap is not easily removable.

I think it looks 100% "prettier" as far as the drums go-- the real shells and real bass drum add a lot IMO. Then again, the original person said that the _module_ wasn't as pretty (no cute little drum key turning when you tune, no palm tree lined beach for reverb effects)

There are actually 10 sliders, not six:
-Main Outs
-Headphones
-Click
-Accompaniment
-Snare
-Kick
-Tom
-Hi Hat
-Other Cymbals
-Misc (Percussion, etc.)

Re: samples vs. COSM. It's been debated into the ground, but remember that with COSM, the module has to "remember" all of the settings you have tweaked, then process the sound out. With the samples, the module can simply "spit out" the sample. This is part of the reason why the Spacemuffins (and I'd assume the DTXtreme) can trigger so fast.


The three modes--
alternate - you can program up to 9 notes that will advance with each hit of the pad
(i.e., you could put an 8 note bassline on your kick trigger and have it advance with each bass drum hit)

stack - you can layer up to 6 voices on one pad that will either all be triggered at once (i.e., a chord), or can use a velocity crossfade to change the sounds as you hit harder.

slice mode - you can start and stop songs direct from the pads, as well as have each hit of the pad advance to another section of a song (Intro, A, FillAB, B, FillBA, Outro)


Some other things that didn't get mentioned yet-

-Upgradeable sounds!! The thing that everyone wishes the Vdrums could do, these can. You can add your own sounds via SmartMedia cards (as well as saving/loading whole kits, songs, etc). CDROM sounds can be put onto the SmartMedia cards from your PC. Sweeeet!

-Samples taken from real drum lines. In other words, instead of DryTom1, RockTom, StudioTom, etc., you have: Recording Custom 10", Maple Custom 12", etc.

-Better rack with real clamps (they unhinge so you don't have to pull them the whole way off)

-Real Yamaha ball/socket tom arms

-Upright kick trigger standard


And, the final decision for me-- it's cheaper than the Vs

Check out the pre-release brochures at: http://harrier.sneakerlabs.com/brandon/dtxtreme.html