18 out of 18 people found this review helpful.
Bring the noise... without being too loud.
Date of Review: Jan 4, 2008
The Bottom Line: The DTXplorer is a great, cheap tool for new and old drummers alike. The ability to play the drums without upsetting neighbors is priceless.
Many people, myself included, live in apartments and do not have the option to play an acoustic drum kit at home. The neighbors's reactions would likely lead to an eviction. So how does an aspiring drummer practice relatively quietly? The answer comes in the form of an electronic drum kit.
As a brief qualification of the statements I will make in regards to this product, I am an experienced drummer who has played on a few different sets, both electronic and acoustic. On weekends I play an old Pearl kit, but during the week I practice in my apartment on my Yamaha DTXplorer, which I have owned for about a year. On top of this, every couple of weeks I play a Roland V-series electronic kit.
If the Roland V-series is the Ferrari of the electronic drumming world, the Yamaha DTXplorer would be the Pontiac Trans Am. It is not quite a Corvette, but at the same time, it is no Honda Civic.
The kit includes the frame, two cymbal pads, four drum pads, a pad for the hi-hat, the bass drum pad, the hi-hat control pedal, a basic (yet robust) pedal for the bass drum pad, and the control module that ties it all together. First off, I play with 5A wooden-tipped sticks, and I play hard. These drum pads and the frame have taken all the abuse I can give them and have never skipped a beat. I would point out that if you use poor form while playing, i.e. using too sharp of an angle of contact between the stick and pad, stick marks will appear on the pad. If you did the same thing to an acoustic snare drum, you would ruin the head very quickly, so that is to be expected. My cymbal pads have a few good stick marks due to the angle at which they hang. Tilting the cymbal stands away from you a little will decrease the angle between the stick and the point of contact on the cymbal pad.
The pads have a relatively good feel, but there is obviously no substitute for the real thing. The sticks do not bounce as much as they would on a typical drum head, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. This forces you to use better technique with each stroke because you need to concentrate on lifting the stick off the head after striking. I believe this has helped my technique on acoustic sets. The cymbal pads do not feel like cymbals, but even the top of the line Roland cymbals do not do the real thing justice. The reaction of the pads is fantastic. I have not had to adjust the timing on them. The pads can accurately handle the fastest single-stroke roll that I can do without losing any hits. Double-stroke rolls are not viable on this kit in my experience because the rebound off the pads is not like the rebound off of a snare head. For this effect, I replaced the snare pad with a different drum, but that is a subject for a different review. The pads do react somewhat to varying strike intensities, but I would not try to feather on the pad, because it will not work. I stick to hitting either hard or soft when using my electronic kit. The in-between levels of power do not register that well. A medium power hit could come out quieter or louder than expected. Also, hitting the toms hard can cause the cymbals to trigger quietly. This is due to the cymbals being attached to the same part of the frame as the toms.
The bass drum pad has a sensitivity adjustment on the back so that the user can adjust how hard the beater needs to strike the pad in order to get a response. This is very useful. If you sit down and hit the bass pad and nothing happens, first check that no one has messed with this adjustment. Been there, done that, wasted 15 minutes troubleshooting. The pedal that comes with the kit is a simple single-beater pedal that works very well for the average player. The spring is nicely adjusted and allows for quick double strokes. Just to show the sturdiness of the bass pad, I use an Iron Cobra double pedal and smack the pad very hard in a fast manner. So far, so good. The pad has yet to show signs of wear or any signs of failure. I am really glad about this.
The hi-hat control pedal is my least favorite part of the kit. The spring is adjustable and the sensitivity is controlled through the control module, but I have not been able to perfectly recreate the feeling of a hi-hat pedal yet. In fairness, I am being very picky, and it is definitely close enough to the real thing for the sake of practice. It reacts well in terms of simply opening and closing the hi-hat. The problem comes when you try to splash the hi-hat cymbals. My definition of this is kicking the bottom of the pedal with your heel to "splash" the cymbals together. This is not very easy to do, but possible.
The frame is easily adjustable. I have managed to fold the kit and stick it in the backseat of my Trans Am. This says a lot about how space-efficient the kit is. Even when fully extended, this kit is much smaller than an acoustic kit. It is a lot less hassle to transport, too.
The control unit has a very simple interface, but there is a lot of functionality hidden inside the box. To be honest, there are more adjustments than even an advanced drummer is going to need. If you want to be really picky with the sound of each pad, this module will let you adjust just about any aspect of the sound that the pad is making. This ranges from selecting the base sound (a specific snare, tom, or cymbal) to the timbre. I would say that hitting the buttons with a drum stick is a bad idea, because it is possible to jam one of the buttons semi-permanently. Do not ask why I know this.
If you are learning to play drums, this setup is great because there are preset tracks that you can play along with. These tracks have a drum beat playing by default, but you can turn just the drums off and play along with your own beat. Adjust the tempo up and down and learn how to follow along with other instruments. This is really a great tool. Also, there is a fantastic, fully-customizable metronome which can be played over the top of the preset tracks, or by itself. I use this feature everyday. On top of all of this, you can plug an mp3 player into the module through a standard headphone jack connection and play along with your own music. This is definitely a top-five reason for me playing my electric kit. For output, there is a standard stereo output (you will need a small adapter to be able to plug most headphones into this jack, but that costs a couple of dollars), or Right and Left channel outputs. I have used the electric kit with a PA system before, and it worked like a dream.
Overall, I think the DTXplorer is a fantastic piece of hardware. Even if you have an acoustic drum kit, the flexibility for playing and recording that comes built into this set make it worth the relatively cheap price. A full acoustic drum kit that only costs $700 is probably going to be trash. A friend of mine recently borrowed my kit to record some songs with his band due to the ease of recording with an electronic kit. He could pick the exact sounds that he wanted and record without any problems that may come with mic-ing up an acoustic kit. I will never say that there is a replacement for playing an acoustic kit, but due to financial and/or decibel constraints, this kit is definitely a valid substitute, especially for the beginner. This is due to the great learning and practice functionality in the unit. Even if I buy a new acoustic kit, I would never part with my DTXplorer.
As a parting comment, if you live in a second or third floor apartment, the people unfortunate enough to live below you will think the apocalypse is coming. You may be using headphones, but stomping on the ground will always transfer through the floor into the apartment below. I found that out when an irate neighbor banged on my door at 3am.
