# NDD! Alesis content.



## JPhoenix19 (Aug 23, 2015)

After several years of not having enough (money/space/living accommodations) to own a drum set, I found an opportunity I simply couldn't pass up. I was surfing Guitar Center's used site looking at e-kits and happened upon a screaming deal on a kit in good condition. I called as soon as the store opened up to ask for pictures and to make sure it was the right model, since the price was really really low. It wasn't even completely in their system yet.

The guy emailed me the pictures and I was shocked. It was indeed the model that was listed... an Alesis DM10X!

I pulled the trigger immediately, and now I've fulfilled one of my longest running desires of owning my own drum kit!

Here it is in my newly created "drum closet":









It feels amazing to be able to say that I now own my own drum kit. And not just whatever drum kit I could afford- but a good quality e-kit I can use for anything and has everything I could need! Can you tell I'm excited?


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## Vhyle (Aug 23, 2015)

Nice. What kind of kick drum pedal are you running?


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## Konfyouzd (Aug 23, 2015)

I couldn't decide between this one and a Yamaha... I went with the Yamaha, but part of me wishes I'd gone with this one sometimes.


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## JPhoenix19 (Aug 23, 2015)

Vhyle said:


> Nice. What kind of kick drum pedal are you running?




Right now?

...nothing  I've got to hock some more gear to drum up the cash for a double kick of some kind. Whatever pedal I go with, I'll probably end up putting beater balls on it (like KAT's Silent Strike).


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## Konfyouzd (Aug 23, 2015)

I have a set of DWs that you can have... They need a piece, but pretty much most of them are there. I think the piece may run something in the ballpark of $80 or so and I don't know much about drum pedals to tell you what it is, but if I can find them, you can have em. I don't think it's difficult to rectify


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## JPhoenix19 (Aug 23, 2015)

Konfyouzd said:


> I have a set of DWs that you can have... They need a piece, but pretty much most of them are there. I think the piece may run something in the ballpark of $80 or so and I don't know much about drum pedals to tell you what it is, but if I can find them, you can have em. I don't think it's difficult to rectify




Dang, PM me. I might just take you up on that.


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## Alex Kenivel (Aug 23, 2015)

Wow four toms and three cymbals for a steal, you say? Thats pretty badass. Does it have midi outs?


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## JPhoenix19 (Aug 23, 2015)

Alex Kenivel said:


> Wow four toms and three cymbals for a steal, you say? Thats pretty badass. Does it have midi outs?



Yup! And you can do Midi USB too.


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## Alex Kenivel (Aug 23, 2015)

Have you tried tracking with it yet? How good is the latency?


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## Konfyouzd (Aug 23, 2015)

^This! We needs to know! That and how is the crosstalk? That's one of the main things I heard folks complain about with these kits... That they get a good bit of cross talk if you don't tweak them right and that the heads are a tad noisy.


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## Alex Kenivel (Aug 23, 2015)

Ooh, I never even heard cross talk on digital drums.


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## Konfyouzd (Aug 23, 2015)

I've had some issues with my ekit before where hitting a tom triggers both the tom sound and a cymbal at the same time because the vibration made it to the cymbals somehow.


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## Alex Kenivel (Aug 23, 2015)

I have had very little time playing on an e kit, but I've had/played acoustic drums for over 10 years now and the same thing exists if you have lots of pieces on connected hardware, like toms connected to cymbal booms or kick drums mounted toms..


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## Konfyouzd (Aug 23, 2015)

Ahh... I lack that experience. How bad is it? It might be that the actual drum you're hitting rings out a good bit louder when you're just in the room. As far as recording real drums I'm not very good at that either but I pretty much always end up being able to hear just about every piece in every mic to varying degrees.

Lemme take a quick step back... How are you defining cross talk? I may be using the wrong term.


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## Alex Kenivel (Aug 23, 2015)

well I don't think it really compares to what you would call crosstalk on the electronic drums. 

From what you're saying and from what I'm think I'm understanding is that when you hit a pad, another pad gets *triggered*. 

What I experienced was *vibration* from a crash cymbal causing vibration in a connected floor tom. I don't think this qualifies as crosstalk because it's not like it's the sound of a stick hitting the acoustic tom in question, isn't that what you're talking about?

If not, then does hitting a crash cymbal also cause the hi Tom to vibrate? that would actually be it really cool amount of realism


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## Alex Kenivel (Aug 23, 2015)

drum modeling!


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## JPhoenix19 (Aug 23, 2015)

Alex Kenivel said:


> drum modeling!



That's the idea!



Alex Kenivel said:


> Have you tried tracking with it yet? How good is the latency?



Haven't hooked it up to the old laptop yet, so I owe you all a report when I do. Even without a kick pedal, I think I'll set it up to trigger some VSTs and let you guys know how the latency is.





Konfyouzd said:


> ^This! We needs to know! That and how is the crosstalk? That's one of the main things I heard folks complain about with these kits... That they get a good bit of cross talk if you don't tweak them right and that the heads are a tad noisy.



The heads are indeed noisy, but with the sticks I ordered I also got some rubber tips to help with the noise.

As far as crosstalk: when I first unboxed it and set it up, the crosstalk was HORRIBLE. Instead of going through all the settings (since it was used I have no idea what they were set to) I did a full firmware update from the files on Alesis' website. That seemed to have eliminated the crosstalk.

Also worth noting is that the DM10X's rack is apparently much sturdier than the DM10 studio, which factors in to the crosstalk equation. I've not played the DM10 studio, but I can attest that the rack on the DM10X is very sturdy.


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## Konfyouzd (Aug 23, 2015)

Alex Kenivel said:


> well I don't think it really compares to what you would call crosstalk on the electronic drums.
> 
> From what you're saying and from what I'm think I'm understanding is that when you hit a pad, another pad gets *triggered*.
> 
> ...



Sometimes it's a full on triggered hit but other times it only sounds like it was lightly grazed which I suppose would be close to simulating hearing the vibration inside the tom from a neighboring piece. I wonder if it's SUPPOSED to be mimicking cross talk and it's just not there yet.


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## JPhoenix19 (Aug 23, 2015)

Konfyouzd said:


> Sometimes it's a full on triggered hit but other times it only sounds like it was lightly grazed which I suppose would be close to simulating hearing the vibration inside the tom from a neighboring piece. I wonder if it's SUPPOSED to be mimicking cross talk and it's just not there yet.



Well, considering that (good) e-drumming relies on multi-layered samples (different samples for different velocities) it makes sense that the more realistic e-kit/VST sound sets would have that effect. A hit to the snare might trigger a low velocity hit on the floor tom- a sample with less of the fundamental stick hit and more of the resonance of the tom.

I suppose if cross-talk was eliminated completely it might not sound as realistic, especially in a live stage setting.


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## Alex Kenivel (Aug 23, 2015)

Well I know there's definitely no crosstalk in Addictive Drums then 

I really doubt it's meant to do that for the sake of vibration realism. And if there was drum modeling within an electric kit, there would have to be options for what kind of hardware using, and at that point I wonder if it would directly affect the tone of the symbol be modeled as well. 

who knows, modeling Evans heads vs Remo heads or even microphones and their distance relative to the drums...

too bad I dont know how to program things


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## Rev2010 (Aug 24, 2015)

Konfyouzd said:


> I couldn't decide between this one and a Yamaha... I went with the Yamaha, but part of me wishes I'd gone with this one sometimes.



Nah, you made a good choice with the Yamaha kit. I have the Alesis DM10 Pro kit (with the metal cymbals) and it's a good inexpensive kit but has some drawbacks. The heads are _very_ loud and the kick, forget about it! I have my double bass beaters set to the felt side and it's still insanely loud. The pads are rather flat and dull feeling, don't be fooled by the "RealHeads". The good news though is there are some easy mods that can greatly improve the pads to feel more realistic and not be so loud. 

Another thing, the rubber rim trimming blows donkey balls! When I had a Roland kit the rubber they use is sooo incredibly durable I never had to change out the rubber rims in the entire time I owned the kit. With the Alesis a few rimshots and you'll see the rubber splitting, it's that poor.

But again, the kit _IS_ a great kit for the price and totally does the job. Roland and Yammy kits are often 3 times the price or more for equal number of pieces. I have no issue with the triggering, once you take the time to set it up properly, and it works great to control Superior Drummer. Just be aware that if noise is in any way an issue this kit will need to be modded.


Rev.


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## JPhoenix19 (Aug 25, 2015)

So I got the chance to hook the kit up to my laptop and trigger Studio Drummer in Reaper. For just an audio test, I used ASIO4ALL and Reaper reported a total audio latency of 6.5ms. I took a short slo mo video to see if I could hear the delay- I can't. I'll post the video here later when I get to some WiFi.

Overall, I would feel comfortable using this kit to track Midi. I'm no expert by any means, so take my word with a grain of salt.


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## anunnaki (Aug 27, 2015)

I think I'd like a kit like this for tracking. I saw online that you can swap out those plastic heads for the nicer feeling mesh heads with a bit of work


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## Rev2010 (Aug 27, 2015)

anunnaki said:


> I think I'd like a kit like this for tracking. I saw online that you can swap out those plastic heads for the nicer feeling mesh heads with a bit of work



Yes, you absolutely can. There are a ton of tutorials from users on how to do it. Some differ for different reasons.


Rev.


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## Fretless (Aug 27, 2015)

That's my old drum kit!!! I sold that into GC a few months ago!


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## Fretless (Aug 28, 2015)

JPhoenix19 said:


> So I got the chance to hook the kit up to my laptop and trigger Studio Drummer in Reaper. For just an audio test, I used ASIO4ALL and Reaper reported a total audio latency of 6.5ms. I took a short slo mo video to see if I could hear the delay- I can't. I'll post the video here later when I get to some WiFi.
> 
> Overall, I would feel comfortable using this kit to track Midi. I'm no expert by any means, so take my word with a grain of salt.



Kit works great midi with, you'll want to work on the cross talk though. I did a lot of tweaking to the defaults and turned a lot of the rimshots off for the Toms for recording


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## JPhoenix19 (Oct 18, 2015)

So, an update for anyone who cares or is considering this kit:

I grabbed a throne and an Iron Cobra power glide for a good deal on the evilBay. Between that and taking the time to both set up triggering EZDrummer 2 and create a custom kit on the unit itself I consider it complete.

*Triggering/Tracking:
*No complaints. EZDrummer 2's built-in e-drum configuration got me about 85% to where I needed to be in order to track drums. A little time tweaking the kit's midi settings got me further. I still have some fine-tuning to do to get the most out of all the kit's triggers, but as it stands I could cut a drum track right now with no major issues.

*Heads:*
What Rev said about the RealHeads is absolutely true. They are quite loud for an e-kit. Also, over long playing sessions you'd definitely feel the impact in your hands/feet- especially if you play hard. And holy sh!t the bass drum is especially harsh in both feel and sound. Granted, I'm playing on concrete instead of carpet (which only makes vibration/sound worse), but still. I will definitely be investing in a mesh head conversion kit in the near future.

*Crosstalk:
*As I said before, between doing a firmware update and a little tweaking I've eliminated almost all crosstalk from the get-go. My stick choice mattered as well, but that's discussed below. Currently my only major issue is that the ride cymbal does trigger one of the toms. I've narrowed this down and I think putting some pipe foam in the rack's metal tubes will dampen the vibration transfer.

*Sticks:*
I first got a set of 5As and some rubber tips. I picked 5As because it was what I got comfortable with in my brief foray with acoustic drums. I got the rubber tips in the hopes that it would help dull the noise of the mylar heads.

The rubber tips did not help the noise much at all. They did allow me to practice rudiments on tables and other non-drum surfaces in a pinch, but that's about it. Ultimately the 5As were too big. Not only did they produce more crosstalk, but the impact against the heads was noticeably more harsh over longer periods. After a decent session of wood-shedding rudiments I definitely felt it in my hands/wrists. Not good.

Switching to 7As helped everything- ease of play (bounce), sound, and impact. While I have to adjust my playing/sensitivity to compensate for the lighter hit, 7As with no rubber tips quickly became my first choice.


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## iron blast (Nov 4, 2015)

Congrats on the new kit I rock one of those thru superior metal foundry and love it


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## JPhoenix19 (Nov 4, 2015)

^ That's a pretty sick kit!


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## vkw619 (Nov 6, 2015)

Highly recommend looking into the Zildjian 7A Anti-Vibes! They work wonderfully on E-kits and help prevent some of the vibration typical of these types of kits


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