Hi everybody

[fulvioc]

Hi all,
thanks for accepting me into this forum. I'm an Italian drummer back to drums after 18 years of inactivity :-(.
I have a Pearl Worl Series acoustic drum kit with Zildjian K basic set of cymblas and, since a few weeks, a Markdrum YES e-drum one.
At the moment I'm trying to remove the rust from my wrists...

[dazjam]

Hi man, I too had a long hiatus from drumming but it WILL come back - just gotta get some hours in and that rust will be gone

[jimorlando]

Caio Fulvioc
Benevento to the forum. Please excuse my Italian. I am not familiar with Markdrum but chances are there are members here who are so good luck with your edrum quest and have fun.

[Kenster]

Please post some pics and a review of the MarkDrum YES...no one here has one that has spoken about it! Welcome!

K ;-)

[John.b]

Ive not heard of a Markdrum either but if you plug it in and hit it your in the right place. Welcome to the nuthouse.

[fulvioc]

I'll try to write my first review on this instrument. I'm italian so sorry in advance for my wonky english. A part from a few minutes on a basic Yamaha e-drum (and a 20 years old ddrum ...) I don't have any other experience on e-drum.

The rack is made of aluminium and, as you can see from the pics, there are no cables from the different pieces to the head module, because all components are plugged directly into the rack and the rack itself is connected to the head module using just one cable.
The kit's pieces are connected to the rack with RJ-12 (with 6 wires). You can plug the wire in any of the holes in the rack: the module will recognize the type of instrument you have plugged.
I think this is quite different from the solution adopted by other vendors so if you need to expand the drum set you need to buy specific Markdrum pieces, but at the same time it makes setting up the kit very quick and easy, so that you cannot make it wrong.
At the same time this solution avoid to have cables all around the rack and the module.
Clamps are make of plastic but they seem to be solid and allows a very good degree of configuration: I don't know, however, how much they can last if you need to move the kit very often tightening and untightening them. Moreover there is no 'memory system' in order to set them in the right place after you have moved the drum.
Talking about the sounds and the feeling, I have to say that you feel like playing on an acoustic set: the module comes with 33 kits and some of them are very very realistic.
I'm almost happy with everything, but I'm having some troubles with the hi-hat (it takes some wrong hits when closing and splashing) for which I'm in touch with the helpdesk that I hope will solve it quickly.
Ride sounds really like a real ride and the same is for snare and the other drums. I probably would have appreciated some more gently transition for the crash, but I did't tried all the possible crash sounds, so I need to have a deeper look.

In the next days I'll post some other considerations ...

[sascha]

Hi,

just like fulvioc, I'm also new to this forum (I'm German, so I also apologize if my wording sounds odd every now and then). And I'm also one of the possibly rare MarkDrum customers... and a happy one, apart from a few issues (either not so important or some I found workarounds for)...

I signed up after browsing and reading along for perhaps numerous months, and to post an in-depth review of the YES kit sooner or later. Purchased the kit in 2014, I'm still a beginner on drums (after 25 years of bass guitar and occasional drumming during cigarette breaks of our band's drummer...), but I have an in-depth knowledge of studio and live sound engineering, and my day job is doing audio software development (in the field of DSP), I also have an EE background and am in regular email contact with the R&D head of MarkDrum on issues, feedback and proposals. Perhaps I'm the most knowledgeable customer of this kit around, from the hard- & software end. There are a couple of unprecise of wrong statements of the underlying technology around that I could possibly help clear up, since I know 'how stuff works'. (Just as a disclaimer in case I might sound like I'm affiliated, but I can clearly state I am not)

Anyway... Fulvioc, what's your opinion after another few months usage? How is your Hihat going? If the problem persists, did they check the revision or date code? Mine was of the first units and I had it upgraded at their place. They changed the FSR (the sensor underneath the pad) to a better one, and later units no longer need calibration, although I've done a completely different modification myself (although not suited for non-EE people). I'm curious to know how yours performs now.

Sascha

[fulvioc]

Hi Sascha,
thanks a lot for your post. Good to know that you have a kid of 'direct access' to Markdrum labs! I'm a software developer too, but in a complete different area. I think I found some bugs in the current software version (1.9.1), like options are not correctly saved, instruments volume that seems not to be taken into account, and I'll be happy to be helpful somehow. Globally, the feeeling on the current sw maturity, is not very good ....

Regarding my troubles with the hi-hat. after the customer support sent me the metal plate, the hi-hat begun to work better, but it's very far from being sensitive like a real hi-hat and sufficiently reliable (how to check if the FSR is of the latest kind ?).
A part from loosing some hits and a lot of the close-pedal sound, one of the main problems is the absense of smooth transition from close to open and vice-versa. The other problem (as I've said before) in that the hi-hat volume is too low and I'm not able to change it to the desired value (with respect to ther pads).
An other problem I found, is a very annoying noise (like some ground cable was not properly fixed) using the main output (is not present using only headphone output) event if, using a jack-cannon conveter, the noise could not be eliminated; that one, and the other problems above, prevent me using this drumset for gigging: that's really a pity!

I play as a hobby, (I'm not a professionist) but anyway, unfortunately my feeling is that the drumset is ok for studying, but I'm not confident in using it for gigging. I hope they will come out with another sw/fw upgrade that could fix some of the problems above, but since the latest update have more than one year, I fear they wil leave all the customers sticking with the current version.

Again it's really a pity, because the sounds are really good, and the drum pads (included the bass-drum) are well made and have a good response.
Unluckily it feels like it's not a competely mature project either form the sw, either form hw point of view.

[sascha]

[sascha]

Fulvioc, about your module noise issues:
I have a bit of hum when I turn up the AUX volume, and the phones out is very hissy, and I can hear strange noises when a preset loads in (although not on the main output). The AUX thing is normal when nothing is connected and grounded, and I was told new designs of the module PCB have better signal-to-noise performance. I don't experience any noise issues with the main outpout, though. I suggest to contact Marcello from their support team and perhaps have the module checked. I personally never questioned gigging with the kit if I had the opportunity.
What should definitely be changed is the small phones jack. The module feels professional but that small flimsy connection is a no-go, in my view. Most music equipment has 1/4" outlets. All my phones always had 1/4", so I need to fiddle with adapters. After all, I always prefer jacks that are actually screwed to the housing.

Your hihat amplitude issue could be due to the fact that some samples don't use all available headroom. The older natural and studio hats are much lower than the later ones from the 1.8 upgrade (presets 41/42). I'm mostly using the newer studio and the heavy hihat, which are well-balanced.

I can confirm that sometimes the volume setting is not correctly retained. Haven't reported it myself since I can't securely reproduce it (I tend to report things only when the other end can check in the same way). My current method is to stay away from 0dB settings for the instrument's volume, which sometimes seems to be a problem. Also, the module sometimes messes up levels when it's still loading in samples and you already start playing. I was told that newer FW designs have a different loading mechanism, but I'm not sure if the current hardware can keep up with it. It's great to have gigabytes of samples at hand but for a module and its memory handling this is not trivial. If I remember correctly, 2box also suffered severe issues with their first FW versions.

[sascha]

Ok, managed to upload 2 pics as png finally...
1. The original felt washer with a hall sensor sitting on top, all covered with a disc of foam rubber
2. Two circuit boards stuffed in the pad; the small one for the voltage regulation (+6V), the bigger one for the negative voltage conversion and a dual-stage OP amp. ADC wants 0..3V, but sensor data is zero-centered, hence a bit of work is needed. The hall sensor and the ring magnet are put aside in the picture. The FSR is disconnected and the new sensor connected to the ADC instead. The cable and connector jack for placing the hall sensor externally came later, this picture was an early stage

[sascha]

Oh, just as a disclaimer: IMO the current stock design is perfectly fine, just needs a good stand. It's just that I love taking stuff apart and solder things

[fulvioc]

Hi Sascha,
thanks you for your 'deep inside view' of the drum. I agree with you that it's a complex thing and it need a good number of experts and effort in order to reach the maturity level of the already accustomed competitor (I understand it's kind of Davice-Golia battle, and being Italian, I'm of course very happy that an Italian brand has done such a product). As a user, anyway, I can't hide a bit of frustration too with respect to expectations for this product.
Going back to your modifications, I'm not sure I've completely undertood them, and for sure, unluckily, I'm not able to reproduce them .... Did you also told about them to MarkDrum ? Did you got a good benefit with respect to 'standard' implementation ? My stand is not the best on the market (it comes from my acoustic set, Pearl World series), but I think it's fine.

I don't knonw if the samples I've in the SD card are the latest, but I just downloaded the latest available and I'll test, in the next days, if hi-hat volume problem can be fixed (may be I can just lower all other instruments volume).

For the noise on the master output, I think I'll contact MarkDrum support to understand with them how to proceed.
The noise during samples loading is something that I can hear and that I was already aware of (I've read about it before buying the set), but for me it's not a big trouble and I think I can live with it.

The other point you told me about (latest used sample shoud be loaded on startup), is one of the first thing I asked to MarkDrum support when I called them for the hi-hat problem

[sascha]

[fulvioc]

Hi Sascha, in the past days I got in contact with Markdrum support, because my feeling is that one of the piezo in the hi-hat (I think there are two in there) and one in the crash are not working fine (e.g. if I hit the hi-hat in the left, the sound is loud as expected, while if a hit it in the right, the sound is low, like it has been picked up by the other sensor). This probably can explain my current unhappiness with the hi-hat.

I tryied updating the pads firmware and performed a factory restore (as they adviced me to do), but I ain't got any appreciable improvements, so I think I'll need to sent them to the support for a hardware check. The same it's probably for the background noise: using a D.I. box didn't helped as expected. Which is your serial number ? My one is B6000438 (for the hi-hat). Is your hardware newer than mine ?
As you, my favourite presets are around the 41-42, even if the one I prefer most is 41 (Natural) which I think sounds as a great acoustic kit: I just added a crash to the tom two rim.
I would have liked to build a custom pad (I've seen a lot of video on that, for standard e-kit) to add extra cymbal sound to the kit, but due to the different Markdrum HW solution, I think too much internal knowledge is need in order to build one.