Alesis D4 Drum Module

One of the things I like best about the D4 is how easy it is to call up the sound you want, and then quickly tweak the volume, panning, and tuning. Alesis gets a pat on the back for the configuration of the front panel controls on this unit.

I use the D4 as a drum module connected to my computer-based sequencer, and for that it works great. The sounds can be panned to seven preset positions (i.e. dead center, soft left, hard right) I would prefer full control over the panning, or see at least nine positions available.

The D4 has a lot of useful as well as useless/dated sounds. Working on a 1980s power ballad? How about a 1990s country rock song? The D4 will fit in perfectly. The sounds all have the frequencies you'd expect to find in quality samples, so any need to EQ will be minimal at best. The tom sounds are too commercial for my taste. They seem to have that perfectly-tuned "boing" rather than that natural, somewhat-dead "thwap" you might want for today's music. The cymbals sound great, but as is typical of drum samples, they decay too fast. That's fine for fast music, but if you have a cymbal crash or ride ping at a pause in the song, you'll need to record real cymbals. Nice-sounding bongos, timbales, claves, etc.

The unit has worked flawlessly in my studio for years (I am the original owner) but two years ago, the LCD display started going haywire on me. Most of the time, half of the characters won't display.

Let's be realistic. No mere drum module is going to capture the subtle nuances of a real drummer on a real drum set. I would not use the D4 for anything too expressive, like traditional jazz, or to emulate a drum solo. The D4 excels where a solid beat is needed, such as country rock, ballads, heavy metal, etc. It also excels where you might need to compliment real drum tracks with some Latin percussion.

i own 2 alesis d4 drum modules that i bought for the same price. they are both running 1.04 version. i use these modules only for kick, snare and tom sounds - which in my opinion are sound second to none. kicks are fat and tight, snare and toms are sweet. unlike a lot of yamaha and roland modules, and for it's sheer value - i find this modules presets to be way more usable than those companies. lets face it, it ain't a ddrum module. editing patches is super easy to do and works logically - no need for any patch editors. i have a manual, or you can download it and print it up. manual is easy, but it is so easy to use you don't really need one - unless your a spaz.

16 polyphonies, i have two plus i don't think i will be doing 16 triggers at once any time soon - therefore i have no issues, great. this module is a plug and play triggering action machine. velocity is easy set 1 - 7 and works a treat. you can tune and pitch trigger sounds. all triggering is very responsive. works perfect for my use, especially for kicks, snare and toms.

the samples don't sound realistic and i don't want them too. if i wanted a realistic sound/sample i would just record drums with mics. all i wanted if for was for the impeccable kick sounds. the snare and tom sounds i use more as a reference. these modules work perfect for death metal and industrial music. this module is practically made for those genres as the samples sound tight, and make an impact with a hint of process tone - but much better sounding samples than the dm5 module

if you look after anything, don't let idiots set up your gear, this module will do you much proud - as it has done more me. this is alesis guaran-damn-teed reliable hardware in my opinion. plus look after your gear. i have 2 modules so reliability is not an issue.

i have never dealt with alesis, and i hope i never have to as these items are quite rare these days. one of my so-called friends blew up my 1st one by plugging a distortion pedal psu in it. don't let spazzes touch it, ever.

for the price and surprising availability of an item which is discontinued, you cannot ever get a better module of the price and tone of this one - i don't care what anyone says. it is limited capability by todays standard but that is the beauty of this device, it works easy and fine - toss free, guaranteed. if someone stole it, i would hunt them down and put them in the graveyard - and then get my module back of them.

1.01 but will update to 1.04 the next days...

As there is no longer a support except the manual - poor...

But there are the Yahoo groups and Route66:

If you have no eprommer you can buy the OS 1.04 update from Route 66:


But there are 2 Yahoo groups:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DMdrums/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dmdrums2/

The first one has the binary eprom image of the OS 1.04
in the file section!!!
Load it and burn you an eprom!

I have no idea what software version it is..how can you tell? The presets are pretty good, though I mainly use the jazz/fusion setting as it seems the most real to me. Editing patches isn't that hard, just hit the external trigger button and select the one you want to edit, and then go to voice and turn the knob..simple. The manual is fairly straight forward though I haven't looked at it much since I read it when I first got it to set up my triggers.

It has midi output and 500 on-board sounds. So if you want more sounds, you can just download some soundfonts, I haven't tried this yet but I believe that's how it works.

There's a mix of some good and bad sounds, but chances are you'll find one you like. This module is mostly suited for rock, though there is a nice little preset for a dance/rap kinda thing. As for the guy who said that crosstalk is a pain, just edit the triggers...it takes some time but I got mine to work flawlessly and I'm using the $6.00 cheapie triggers from musiciansfriend. It is velocity sensitive, to a degree. I'm using mesh heads with this for silent practice/recording and I've found I have to mess with the head tension to get a decent balance between responce and sensitivity, but for what I paid I'm happy.

It was made in 1991 and still ticking, I have no reason to believe it will fail.

Haven't dealt with them.

I love this thing, I converted my rhythm traveler to electric for $250.00 ( I had the mesh heads and the cymbal pads which I triggered) If you're looking for a cheap way to get decent sounding recordings and practice in almost silence without disturbing the peace...I highly recommend an alesis d4 and some mesh heads. Then just buys some cymbal pads and trigger them.

At first it was a little weird, but after i got to playing with it it is a peice of cake to move around in the machine.

not bad, could be better

For being an older module it is not bad, but compared to some of the new ones, it could be a lot better.

Of course you can depend on this thing it is immortale

I have messed with them a little and they were very helpful

I like the module a whole lot, i would say i would try the newest version the dm5 to see if it had a lot more selections on it and if it was more realistic sounding.

OS is 1.01 I WANT the latest OS which is 1.04 if anyone can burn me a copy of the OS eprom I would pay you :o)
SOUNDS: The sounds are not too bad... bit of reverb or other effects and they're ok... plus I can trigger my sampler...
EDITING: well you can edit the patches but not really the sounds... different drum setup - dead easy
MANUAL: OK

stock sounds ok... all the polyphony you need. no effects. no expansion - midi capabilities basic. no sequencer but I wouldn't want one in it.

AGAIN please contact me if you can get me a copy of OS 1.04 eprom that's on expansion I would like.

Cross talk between pads can be a bit of a pain.

sounds are ok velocity sensitive and in a mix no to shabby. and I can trigger my 808 and 909 and other sounds off the sampler.

oh yeah...

no bakcup needed - damn near bullet proof

Alesis Rhode Island says they have discontinued support for this device so you cannot update your OS unless you have a friend burn you a copy of the 1.04 EPROM. now a flashable eprom would have been more useful.

If I lost it I would probably buy the newer version.

triggers very well...

I don't know what software version I'm using. What I do know is that the D4 has great hihat sounds and tom sounds. The kick drum sounds could be good if you could tell me how to get more low end 50hz out of them. Snares sound a bit dated, but if I could edit them it would be good, Help!!!!!

Yeah ALL OF THE ABOVE. I know that it doesn't have an onboard sequencer.

Easy to use, as soundmodule as anything else

No built in effects, but many drums sampled with effects. A built in effect with ability to mix the efeects internal should be great

Clean sound, but not enought attitude. Nice crispy cymbals. Lack of technomashine sounds

The backlight has bean broken, but the rest of the mashine works well

No idea

Nice with many drumsounds, and special 12 triginputs

Please visit my D4 page on www.soundofmusic.se

Unit is a little hard to use in a sense that you need to find the right balance between many of the settings in order for it to trigger just right. Often moving a setting by one or two places can be the difference between mis-triggering and triggering perfectly. I am using this unit with acoustic drums, which makes things a little more difficult. With an dedicated electronic kit it would be less hard to work out.

This unit is handy in a sense that you are able to use it to trigger other midi devices, such as samplers, or midi in a computer. This means that if you want more sounds or want to experiment a bit the option is there. Unfortunately there is no way to add sounds to this unit, however you can change each sounds' pitch over 8 different pitches. Often you can get something that may sound a bit dodgy to sound pretty good just by changing the pitch, which is handy to have. There is no reverb or anything built in, some of the sounds have reverb in them already, and some of them sound pretty decent, although there is no way to add reverb to any other sounds unless you ahve a dedicated reverb unit.

the bass drum sounds rock! i've recently done some recordings using the kick trigger and my D4 and it sounds great, really phat beefy kick sounds. I'd recommend this unit even if you only want to trigger the kick. I will only be using it to trigger my kick, i paid $400AUD for it but it's money well spent. I never want to use kick drum mics ever again, no D112's for me, no showing up to gigs or recordings and having the sound guy shove the mic on the front of my kick and getting a sloppy kick sound, triggering allows me to get the massive heavy metal kick sound i want. To trigger my kick i use an old radio shack type microphone, held on tight by various pieces of string to the inside of my kick drum, pointed directly at the skin where the beaters hit, about 2 centimeters off the skin (so that the skin doesn't hit the mic). This triggers beautifully, doesn't miss a beat, this works much better than any piezo.
Snare sounds aren't too bad, only reason i don't trigger my snare much is because it's hard to trigger an acoustic snare without picking up on other noises (such as toms). There is a function to eliminate this issue, however i haven't experimented with it yet. Some snare sounds are ok, hooked up to reverb they don't sound too bad, there are some decent cymbal and percussion sounds.
When first researching this unit before i bought it, i tried to find any of the sounds online to see what they were like. needless to say it was very hard. I'm thinking of actually getting a bunch of the sounds together and putting them online for people to listen to... not sure if this is legal... hmm

pretty reliable unit, except it's possible for the adaptor to fall out of the back of the unit. So just tape it on there and you'll be fine. Other than that, unit is tough, wouldn't be easy to break.

never tried, so can't comment

Good price, drum modules are a bit hard to find, but if you find one of these scoop it up. Even if you only use it for the kick drum sounds, it's worth it. You'd easily spend that much money on a microphone for your kick drum, and even then you are not guaranteed a good kick sound, with this you can fine tune the sound to a "T". It's useful for any style, hip hop, rock, ballads, heavy metal, pop, 80's stuff, whatever, it does it all.

Very easy to use. Presets sound very good. Manual was very helpful. Editing patches is fairly simple, just remember to turn off your sequencer before you edit an individual sound because it will always show the sound that is being played at that moment regardless of whether or not you editing another one. You may end up changing the sound of the snare instead of the kick.

No polyphony problems. Beyond changing pitch, assignment or V-curve there isn't much you can do the sounds internally. No expansion.
Here is the cool part: 16 note polyphony! At best I can get 8 notes going at once using "tip $ butt" method with the sticks, simultaniously pedaling the kicks (I use 2) and hihats (once again, I use 2). This sounded like crap but it was an intersting experiment. One big bang with a decaying sizzle.

Heh, heh. These modules are standard for a reason. For rock, metal, and electronic music, this is it.

I haven't had any problems and have had it for several years.

Never dealt with them on this piece, but I work for an Alesis dealer and it has, ever since their financial woes, been very hard to deal with them, before it was very easy. Hopefully now that they have new ownership, they will be more responsive to customer needs.

Great piece. I would definitley replace it or get a DM5, which ever was easier to get.

An excellent buy used from $150-$200. Keyboard Magazine did a test on midi response by drum boxes and the DR and SR16 came in tops with one of the Boss units coming in last! If you need just a piezo transducer to midi box look for old KAT MidiKITIs. I own two and wouldn't part but sometimes they show up like Yamaha TX802s and Roland MKS-20s. PAiA has something they call the Drum Brain which I am set to explore. It would enable you to keep your cherished drum machine and not have to buy a D5 which I would not recommend. Some bothersome bugs in that unit.

As stated above-Keyboard Mag found the D4 had the quickest response to piezo transducers. Radio Shack sells them for $1.79!

I have D4s at two schools and the sounds are very useful-not super cutting edge electronica but most drummers want fairly standard sounds. I prefer the drums in the D4 over most drum machines. I own a Boss DR770 triggered by two MidiKITIs for a total of 18 triggers. I use no more than 13.

I have taken units apart to "tighten" up the front controls. I also upgraded a first generation D4 with a $20 upgrade from Alesis which was very simple.

Hopefully Alesis will have some autonomy but that seems iffy with Numark now in control. Time will tell. In a year maybe Alesis will be reduced to DJ oriented stuff.

If you see a D4 buy it! Hold on to it. Pass on the D5.

I bought this unit to replace the sad drum sounds on my Yamaha V50 (not the world's best board, but I have too much sequenced into it to lose it now.) Editing is pretty easy, and though I've read the DM5 has some other parameters, I really can't complain about the D4's offerings. It's pretty straight forward. I don't think I've ever opened my manual.

Great basic sounds, but I do wish there was an effects system in the downstream instead of built into the sounds themselves. I also kind of wish there was a card slot for sound expansion, even if I've never used all of the ones I've got.

The first weekend we took this thing out I hadn't quite matched all 61 sounds in my V50 to the D4. One of our programs had a symbol crash we'd not tweaked down and it absolutely ripped my head off, like standing next to a real drummer. That's how I knew I'd spent wisely...I've used it for live rock and recording, and it sounded great both ways. It doesn't call attention to itself by sounding like it's electronic, and that's the most important thing in a drum synth.

I can't imagine that much would go wrong with a rack mount, short of all out meltdown.

I give it a less than perfect score because the volume pot on the front gets dirty too easily, and I have to deal with the crackling noise from time to time.

In fairness, I haven't dealt with Alesis for this product. However, I have an Alesis mixer, and they were less than helpful with it. I'll leave this 5 for marginal previous service.

Lost or stolen, I'm looking for a new one tomorrow. $200 ? El cheapo.
I MIDI it from the drum machine sequencer on my V50, a workhorse I really should retire. I also have an EMU Proformance Plus piano unit and a full PA system, and I play guitar, and it sounds great with everything. Unnoticed as anything but drums in a recording, but plenty of punch through the big PA at live gigs.

I didn't compare it to anything else, I heard this unit triggered by an acoustic drummer and knew I had to have one. It has the distinction of being a piece of gear that does exactly what I bought it to do with minimal fuss. I'd like to move to a DM5, but there's no real reason to do so.

I was looking on Harmony Central and I noticed some DM-5 reviews, but no D4 reviews. Since the D4 is still popular and out there on the used market, I thought I would contribute a review.
Alesis advertised the D4 as having the best sounds from the HR-16 and SR-16 drum machines. While it does probably have some of those sounds I can tell you from experience (I own an HR-16, and three friends have SR-16's, which I've programmed extensively for them) that the D4 sounds WAY BETTER THAN THE SR-16 and HR-16.
If you've heard an SR-16 (and who hasn't) don't assume the D4 sounds just the same. I don't know what they did, but the cymbals in particular (except for the short cutoff, which they share with the SR-16) sound a lot better.
The D4 was released in late 1991, and was later replaced (in 1995?) by the DM-5. While the DM-5 was an improvement over the D4 (better display, 18 bit converters, more sounds) it wasn't a big enough improvement to make me want to upgrade.
The new Alesis Drum Module, the DM-Pro is really all new, whereas the DM-5 (which I understand is still in the lineup, at around $350 street price)is really a "turbo" D4.
Not sure of the software version - I bought the unit in mid 1993 about a year and a half after it's introduction. I'm not sure if an update was ever offered or not.
The presets (drum sets) I never really used. I programmed my own sets right from the start. The preset sounds though, except for the cymbals are excellent. Lots of variety in Kicks and Snares, not so much in toms or other percussion. Most of the sounds are kind of bread and butter sounds, not too much for techno fiends or really odd sounds.
The cymbals due to the short decays are not so good. The intitial tone is ok, but they cut off very early. If you bury them in a track, you don't notice so much, but solo'ed they are not too hot. They really should have provded more hi-hat sounds also.
Editing patches is really easy, especially using the "note follow" feature. This lets you strike a pad or key and the editing screen will advance to the correct drum. Be careful programming it with a drummer striking pads though - drummers tend to hit the drum you want, then get antsy and hit two or three more drums. Then the note window changes as you are turning the dial and you've just screwed something up.
A patch editor helps a good bit, especially because you can see the volume levels of all the individual drums for balancing the set, as well as all of the individual instruments. I use Midi-Quest, by Sound Quest, which works great. Just be sure to turn the midi through function off when dumping a drum kit to your computer.
This thing is so easy to edit though, I rarely use the computer to edit kits.
HERE'S A HOT TIP. If you are using a D4 (or DM-5, or DM-Pro) with a pad type setup, you are only going to have maybe 16 sounds going at once max. Go into the mix screen and set all the drums you are NOT using to a volume level of 0. That way, while editing, instead of wondering if "wet tom" is part of the kit you are editing, you will know IT'S NOT IF THE VOLUME IS SET TO 0.
The Alesis drum modules allow you access to 61 sounds (one for each key on a 61 note keyboard) at once within a kit, but if you are not going to play more than 16 at once, it's much easier to just deal with those 16 drums rather than trying to figure out which ones are being used and which ones are not.
You can store 21 kits, which seems kind of small. I would like to be able to store 128 or so, to allow a different (if even just slightly different) kit for each song.
You can't really edit much on the sounds, nothing like decay or nuance like with the Roland drum modules. You are pretty much limited to pitch level, and panning, along with output assignment (main or aux).
The manual is very good, especially the triggering section. They really provide a lot of good advice.
This thing is real easy to program, I'm taking off a point for the small number of drum kits, and the small display w

Polyphony is 16 notes, which doesn't sound like much, but for a drum module it's plenty. Who's the last drummer you saw that could play more than four notes at once?
Even with cymbal overring, and adding some percussion tracks, you usually won't run out of notes. I know that I never have.
No built in effects (the new Alesis DM-Pro has effects, but costs $650 - $700), but many of the drums are recorded with a bit of reverb or ambience. If you like a fairly dry drum sound, these are fine, but if you like it wet, use an outboard unit. This unit combined with a decent digital reverb can achieve outstanding results.
No expansion capabilities (again the DM-Pro has a card slot, but hey it costs a lot too), the stock memory is 3 Meg of samples, which is a lot for drums (a lot of synths from that era [1991 - 1995] only had two to four meg of waveform rom).
Obviously no keyboard action, it's a module. It is very responsive when used with a pad type of controller. I use a DrumKat setup, and the D4 really shines with it. You can get good results playing the drums from a keyboard, but do yourself a favor and buy a pad setup.
There is an "audition" button on the front, which is velocity sensitive. This is a real nice touch.
Another nice feature (shared with the HR-16 and SR-16) is FOUR audio outputs. The stock D4 assigns all the drums to the Main pair, in stereo but the thing to do is to put your kick on the aux output, pan it to the left side and the snare on the aux output, and pan it to the right.
Then send all four outs to your board. This way you can process the kick and snare separate from your other drums (with reverb, compression etc.) and turn the kick and snare up or down without having to go into the mixer screen.
The one feature I feel is kind of lame is only 7 positions of panning. Basically you get center, and three positions on either side, one of which is all the way over, so unless you want extreme panning to your toms and cymbals you are limited to two postions each that are off center.
The Roland TD series are better in this respect in that they have 15 positions.
Where the D4 is a lot better though is the tuning and volume resolution. The D4 volumes go from 0 to 99, and the tuning goes from about plus four semitones to minus five semitones, and then you can edit the pitch to 1/100 of a semitone (that's right, you can do a pitch like +2.69).
The Roland TD-5/7/7 Turbo series in contrast only have a volume range of 0 to 15 and a pitch range of 0 to 15, which corresponds to about the same overall range as the D4, but you can't fine tune the drums. Imagine tuning a drum kit where you can only tune in half steps, yechhh!
The big thing about the D-4 and it's successors are trigger inputs.
There are 12 trigger ins on this unit (12 on the DM-5, 16 on the DM-Pro). I've not used them much but what little I have they have worked excellent. I used a D4 at a studio I worked at (which led me to buying my own D4 later on) with pads, AND to replace drums recorded on a 24 track. The live drum replacement took a little work, but in the end it worked well. Most external pads work great, there are 5 main parameters to tweak, but it's easy to understand. There's a "gain level" meter in the LCD to facilitate setting up the triggers. Works like a charm.
Now here's the cool part - when I first heard about the D4, I thought it was just a midi module. Then I found out it had triggers on it. I figured ok, you can trigger it by pads, but how do you record that into a sequencer?
I assumed that at that price point ($240 is what I paid for mine) you were not going to get trigger to midi conversion. Well it turns out this little box will turn your triggers into midi, and do a damn fine job of it!
Amazing - at the time the only competing box (the EMU Procussion) didn't even have trigger ins, much less trigger to midi conversion, and it cost 3 times as much.
Most trigger to midi converters back then cost about $500 - $1000.
If you check out the web sites

The instrument sounds (except for the cymbals) are very realistic. In fact one criticism of the D4 is that it was a little too clean, that the drums did not have attitude. I wished there were more cymbals, and hi hats, and some more exotic percussion (I really miss tympani drums and gongs in particular) but for regular sorts of rock music, this module has it covered.
Works great for rock, especially if you are trying to emulate a drum set. Not enough old beat box samples to satisfy the dance/techno hip hop crowd though, which reflects the time (1991) this was released.
Not enough orchestral percussion for classical.
Not enough weirdness or programmability for Dance/Techno.
Like I said, great for rock, go imitate a drum set, leave the weird stuff to all those new "groove boxes" made by Roland...
No onboard effects. The built in ambiences are nice, in that they are good enough to get by without effects, but subtle enough to not be overbearing. I find I only really need to add a reverb to the snare drum, and this is more for programmability reasons, not because the snares with reverb on the D4 don't sound good.
Very responsive to a good midi controller, the sounds change character a bit with velocity, just like real drums. Alesis's marketing hype term for this is "dynamic articulation", but it really does work. Again it's like the effects, it's good enough to hear, but subtle enough to not get too old.
No response to aftertouch that I'm aware of.
It can respond to pitch bend, but in a very strange way. You can't bend a drum in pitch after you strike it (to get a talking drum effect) but you can bend the pitch BEFORE you strike the drum, and the module will play the drum back at the higher pitch.
One quirk (or Alesis might call it a feature) is that you can get more pitch range by using pitch bend than you can program into a kit by using the pitch parameter.
Not something that gets used a lot, but it's there if you need it.
One final bit. This module responds to midi volume (controller 7) messages, which was kind of novel in 1991 (the HR-16 did not). This is nice as you can use a midi controller to change the volume of the entire kit, which saves you having to set up the drums on a submaster on your board.
This feature (midi volume control) works great, I use it all the time.
I'm taking off two points for the quaility of the cymbals. I'm sure this was a sample ROM issue, to include cymbals with a full length ring would have required a lot of sample ROM and raised the price of the unit.
Also Alesis may have assumed that higher end users would use a pad setup, but with real cymbals.
In any event, the cymbal sounds, like that of most drum machines and competing modules are the weak point of the Alesis D4.

Very reliable, with one major exception.
The volume pot, which I almost never touch (I use midi volume control instead) got REAL Scratchy after a few years.
I don't know what the FRIGGIN DEAL is with Alesis, but every time they put a ROTARY volume pot on one of their products, it gets scratchy over time. Ever seen an SR-16 that did't go SCLKFKKSCKRWWEE when you turned the volume pot - same applies to the old version of the Quadrasynth. They must have gotten a gross of crappy pots, and took until 1995 to use them up.
Interesting that they went to a volume SLIDER when the came out with the QS-6/7/8 synths. The quality of the volume pot was a big bitch from users of the original Quadrasynth.
I would gig without backup, althought the external power supply would make me real nervous (nothing like having your drums just stop in the middle of a tune while the drummer frantically tries to plug that little cable into the back of the module after it fell out...
I'm taking off three points for the scratchy volume pot, and the damn wall wart. I would have paid another $50 for an internal power supply but Alesis seems to be in love with wall warts.

Two words - TOTAL SHIT
Don't ever buy an Alesis product that you might think you need to contact the company about.
IF you can get through on the phone, don't count on talking to someone that knows what they are talking about. I've described problems with my Alesis effect units that the techs just couldn't even understand.
I've emailed them numerous times and NEVER got a response. Either they just blew me off, or figured my questions (about my effects, NOT my D4) were too hard to bother answering.
I've had to buy replacement rack ears for a MidiVerb IV and a 3630 compressor, and since they don't list the number or email on their web site for getting parts, they just tell you to contact tech support
After waiting for half an hour to get through on the phone, the tech support people give me another number to call. Thank god that # was easy to reach.
Hey Alesis, just print the damn number for parts so people can call it directly!
I realize that everybody, including a lot of clueless people own some Alesis gear, and that's why their phone and email is jammed, but it would seem to me that a company that sells more product than just about any company out there OWES their customers better service than they are giving. It's not like they aren't making enough money from all of us to afford it.
Alesis should take a look at Mackie's tech support and try to emulate it. Right now Alesis makes Microsoft look pretty good.
I wouldn't be so pissed about this if they had answered one of the four emails I sent...

As you can tell I really like the D4. I can't think of any other piece of gear I've bought for under $300 that has gotten as much use as this little puppy.
If it were lost or stolen, I'd probably get another one, mainly because I've recorded a lot of sequences with it, and used ones are around for $125 - $150. At that price point it's a fantastic value.
I've got my eye on a DM-Pro though, as I want to got to a pad type setup and I need more than 12 trigger ins. Also the built in effects, larger sample ROM (16 meg vs. 3 meg) for better cymbals, and positional sensing hi hat switch are very enticing.
Still I'll probably keep my D4, just because it's worth more to me than I could sell it for.
I've been playing for way too long, but I've been heavily into midi and synths, AND electronic drums for about 12 years.
I have a bunch of midi synths and other gear, but I've always loved electronic drums (must have been a Bill Bruford thing) even though I'm a bass player not a drummer.
I started out with an Octapad (original version, not the II), and a Roland TR-505 (still in use, I use it to generate click tracks), but then got some more Roland pads and the HR-16.
Then in 1993, the Octapad's triggering flakyness started to piss me off and I decided to get a Drum Kat.
I wanted to get a new module, and at the time other than overpriced Roland Drum machines (I think their R-8 module was $900, with NO trigger ins) and modules, and the Procussion, the Alesis D-4 was the only box on the market. Between the sounds, user interface, trigger to midi conversion, etc. it was no contest. I've never regretted buying it, and in fact that one D4 is still in use at the studio I worked at.
The only wish list itemsI have (all of which have been addressed by the DM Pro)are:
1. Longer decay on the cymbals 2. More interesting percussion, especially gongs, tympani, etc. 3. 6 audio outs instead of four (to separate kick/Snare, toms, cymbals) 4. Built in effects
Obivously, with the exception of maybe #1 or #2, I wouldn't have gotten these features in 1993 for $240 out the door.
It's helped me make a lot of music, and people still comment on how good it sounds.
The final thing I would like to pass along is my impression of some competing modules. Roland has been very successful with their TD series but mainly on the basis of offering an integrated system, with all the pads and cables, connectors, clamps, etc. With the Alesis, you have to buy a kit from somewhere, hook it up, make it work, program it etc.
Now the V-Drums are great, but in a whole different price universe (I think the V-Drum module alone sells for about $1200 - $1400), but frankly I don't think much of the TD series modules.
I have two friends with TD-7 kits, and I've played and programmed them extensively and frankly I was not impressed. The tuning and volume resolution of the programming interface is way too coarse, and the drums all have a DDDDOOOMMMMMM kind of "simmons" quality to them.
The TD sounds don't "lay" in a recorded track as well as the Alesis and overall I find the sounds to be kind of soft and mushy. They sound big and fat, but to me they don't sound real. With the D-4 you can hear the stick hit the drum and the decay of the drum is pretty fast, like a real drum sounds.
The TD modules sound kind of muffs at the beginning, then kind of blooms and goes booohhhh.
The midi response of the TD series to playback via midi is not as good as the Alesis, and frankly I don't think the Trigger interace is as good.
The effects are ok, but here's a big one that roland doesn't tell you.
If you want to use the aux outs (to get four outputs) you have to bypass the effects, which means if you want to pull that kick or snare out of the overall mix, you better have an extra effect unit laying around.
Also - the ONE BIG THING THAT ROLAND DOESN'T TELL YOU AND IS NOT DOCUMENTED IN THE MANUAL.
There's not edit buffer!!! That's right sherlock, as soon as you edit a kit on the TD series, you've just overwrit