Alesis DM5

Hi, I just finished a tour of Nevada casinos using my DM5 as my only drum source and I loved every second of it. The DM5 is built to tweek and it took me a few months of fooling with the parameters to get what I wanted, but like any instrument, you need to learn to play it. 60 songs a night, 6 nights a week and NO PROBLEMS. Every time I open the manual on this thing the better my sounds get. I use all 12 inputs for my mesh head and Alesis cymbal kit. I also use 3 Roland foot pedals (bass drum is daisy chained for double bass) and a Yamaha BP-80 double tube trigger. ONCE YOU LEARN how to tweek and maintain the unit it is totally reliable. For the beginer, you can be up and running in an hour and for the pro, you can creat a great kit. I use 10 different kit settings on stage and change them inbetween songs on the fly. Our band has zero dead time on stage, so I have 3 to 10 seconds to lock in my next kit setting. I could not do that if it were hard. Another thing that is important to me is being rack mounted. I have a 4 space rack with my DM5, stereo EQ, Data disk, and effects next to my hi-hat. Before you say those items should be included in the module, remeber what most guitar players show up with.

I purchased my DM5 used and it is a 1.0 software version. The 16 note polyphony could be better as it needs serious tweeking to obtain 32nd note rolls (but it can be done). For live sound, the stereo out is killer. I run stereo through the mixing board, add a little chorus and reverb at the board and adjust my outboard EQ mix to adapt to the room and BAM, killer stage ambience. I'll let someone else describe all the features. I like the easy to read disply. I do not have to interpet a bunch of blinking lights on stage. My kits are named by me and tell me what I need to know when I'm working.

The touch and feel of any drum module is half drum trigger and half the module. I built great mesh head triggers and the response from the DM5 is great. WITH TWEEKING the cross talk is minimal and the dynamic range is the best I've tried. My band does rock, disco, country and light jazz and my DM5 is good for all of it. The effects on the DM5 are all built into the sounds, I would like to have reverb built in, but adding it post is no problem if you understand the connection between EQ and reverb for live performance. I'm sure you studio guys have a different opinion of this, but I am a live stage proffessional with 40 years of drumming.

A lot of people complain about the DM5's reliability. I almost sold mine until I re-read the manual and started soving problems instead of complaining. Every instrument has issues and here are some tips for the DM5. 1) when you turn it on, rotate the selection wheel back and forth before you touch any pads or triggers. I don't know why, it is a program bug, but that solves most reliability issues. 2) do not plug straight into the wall. It is a computer and you should be using a floor model power supply strip. Get a good one that filters the electric signal. 3) the manual says it is designed to be backed up by a midi storage device. I was lucky enough to find an old Alesis DATA DISK unit on ebay. It backs up all my hours of tweeking to a floppy disk. Once, on stage, my bass drum beater came out and I unplugged the pedal to put it back in. I forgot to turn off the DM5 and reconnected it-wipng out my programming in the process. I turned on the DATA DISK and had all my kits back in 15 seconds.

I fix my own stuff so I have no opinion, however all Alesis manuals are available for free on the net.

I have owned 11 different brands of electronic drums going back to the Simmons and Tama kits from the 80's. I try out everything new set I see in the stores. The Rolands are nice but way over priced and carry a lot stuff I do not need. I am the happiest with my DM5. I am a working musician not a rich guy with a home studio. For the price of a DM5, you cannot even come close to the goodies you get with any other brand. It makes me my living and I am going to buy a new DM5 soon. This is a fine instument that needs to be learned just any fine instument. If you want instant gratification, you will never be a good musician.

it very easy to use once its set up, but it did take 2 hours to put the kit together. I got this insted of the ion- and having played both, id pay the extra hundred fot this. Id definatley recomend it.

the pre made kit are ok although i think some are a waste of space as they are guitars, etc. There is midi i hant used this yet. There are a lot of sound there, most of which i havnt used.

the sounds are all pretty realistic, althoughif you hit a pad really hard, the vibration somties sets of other pads, althogh this wont be an issue if you tighten everything up.

it hasnt fallen apart yet

never had to call

Overall this is a good buy. The only other problem iv had is that when you play without headphones, the stick on the pads make a lot of noise, but i get round this by putting rubber bands on the sticks

Very Easy to Use. Note Chase Feature Makes editing drums a snap.
The Guy after me does not know what he is talking about.
Note Chase on: Automatically selects the "Note" when you are selecting Voices (Drum sounds).
Note Chase off: It is off, it blinks... Big whipdy doo...

Works with just about any brand of triggers.
12 Trigger Inputs.
I really love the Note Chase feature when editing Drum sets.

The Sounds are Pretty good. I had to edit the Drum sets because as you know, every opinion is subjective.
I love the Piccolo Snare, so I put it in just about every Preset Drum Kit. Tweaked each set to the way I like it.
My only complaint is that I am not crazy about too many of the Tom Sounds.

So far I have had zero problems my first few months with the DM5-Kit.

Never had to call

The Drum kits take some editing to get to your taste, but that is to be expected.
Overall for a DM5-Kit that I paid under $500 for, well you can't get much better for a complete drum set.
Plus with Spare Inputs you can add extra cymbals and pads as desired.

Love it.Running V1 SOFTWARE,Clean Samples,so simple to edit and if you need to use the manual,then thats simple also!

As stated earlier,no FX but once i've converted the parts into Cubase,the Possibilities are endless.I run this in conjuntion with Other drum software so I have endless options.With 4 outputs its flexible in the studio and live.

With a bit of tweaking you'll get every style of rythem you want.

The only Part that lets it down is the power supply.It's a bit weedy and the protective sheath breaks up over time.I can't see that being a problem in a studio Rack.

I've had Quadrasynths and S4's etc and never had to repair anything and I still have them running alongside the latest gear!

I would look carefully as some retailers charge far too much for Alesis Gear.

V 1.0 Set factory presets sound sorry. Have to make your own personal selections but when unit fails, and it will, then you got to reset all your personal setting.

"Value" selection dial will not follow normal progression of items for selection. It jumps forward, backward, misses items. It is really sorry for the money you pay.

Note Chase button will blink whether you select it or not!

Most sounds are good but most is trash relating to good sound.

BEWARE! Almost every time I turn mine on it will not work right. Most of the time I have to "Reinitalize" it back to factory setting then change each set back to my selections. Not dependable for paid contract gigs or studio work. It will cost you money, time, and a lot of embarassment!

BEWARE! My unit messed up just before warranty was out, was directed to service center, paid $100 plus to be told they could find no problem. Which now that service center is not recomended. But still have the problem 2 out 5 times I turn it on and other issues starting to happen making unit worst. Have contacted the manufacture get the "Sorry for the problem" excuse with same advice to sent it to another service center.
My advice is to NOT BUY this piece of undependable junk. It will cost you more than the purchase price in the end!

If stolden the thief would bring it back to you! Because it is worthless relating to dependability and will cause additional repair cost, and headaches.
Contact me if you want the whole story.

Softwareversion 1.02

The presets are nice startingpoints, but need serious tweeking for being usefull. Editting patches is simple as could be, and the manual is crisp and clear. Reading the manual and spending 15 minutes on the machine, and it's all clear!!!

16 notes polyphony, no FX's, not expandable, no sequencer, midi in - out/thru.

This is a drummodule only, not multitimbral.

It has 12 trigger inputs, but I don't use them only the midi side of things. I use it my composerstudio in my spare bedroom LOL.

It is a drummachine, not a real drummer, but some of sounds are really good. It covers the range of popular muisic styles well, and is usefull in a midisetup in a studio like mine.

It has NO fx's at all, but is responsive to playing - and no it hasn't got aftertouch.

It would never gig with me, it stays in the studio. I heard a lot of glitches and resetting - but mine worked for hours without any problems so far.

Never dealt with them, so I would not know....

I love the sounds that it offers, and would buy it again. I'm no drummer, but program drums in Cubase SX 2.2.

I own a fully equipted studio based around a Roland VS 2480CD - a 24 track recorder. Beside that I'm a bassplayer owning several amps and basses, and then some guitars and synths. Oh what fun we had with all these toys LOL. Yhe DM-5 helps me with it good sounds to produce my drums in my recordings, and does it simple and effective.

I find it easy to use and the manual is good.

The LCD is decent. It's not large, but it's clear and gets the job done. No effects. No expansion. There's a pad on the faceplate to trigger a sound so you can preview it. No sequencer.

Never had a problem with it.

Haven't called them in years which says something. Last time I called them (circa 1998) they were polite, knowlegeable and helpful.

It's been in one of the studio racks for the past 5-8 years. It gets turned on and off with all the other equipment, it is hooked to a mixer channel and MIDI but I've never used it on a song. I have a lot of other drum sound sources and I've never had a reason to use it in a recording...although I have fiddled with it from time-to-time. It appears to be a solid selection of decent drum sounds. Perhaps I should sell it. Maybe I'll use it some day.

The software version of my DM5 is 1.0
Are there newer versions available??? I hope so!
Editing is OK and quite easy to understand, however you do need the manual to make optimal use of its capabilities. Especially the hi-hat set-up really needs manual reading first.
The manual is quite complete but more technical information as well as an cirucit diagram could be added.

I really miss possibilities for expansion and/or adding new and BETTER sounds. MIDI capabilities are OK and well documented

Well, I am a bit disappointed about the quality of the available sounds. This is no drum sound set for 2005. To much reverb!!! The tom-tom samples sound quite 'electronic' to much "boooinngggg". The different snares are OK as well as the percussion sounds. My conclusion is that it's a fine unit for delivering percussion sounds, but the drum sets are out of date.
There are no effects available, but I don't miss then. The only missing button is: "add no reverb"

Reliability seems OK apart from the programming wheel, that seems to have it's own life. It's not very accurate and sometimes changes chosen values on it's own.
I am not planning to use the module on a gig because of the bad quality of the drumsounds.

no experiences with this.

If the unit was lost, I think I would go for a DDRUM unit.

Software Version 1.0 (is there even any other versions?)
Pretty foolproof to set up. I plugged in the mesh Pintech heads I bought and went to town pretty quick. The manual has it all layed out, even all that MIDI info I've never used.

So it's got MIDI in, MIDI out. I don't do MIDI. Oh well. Stereo outs are good, have yet to use the aux outs, but that could definitely be useful if you're looking for at least some partial separation. No FX, which would be okay, except you can't edit the pre-existing ones. Changing patches is simple, and pretty much mandatory as most other reviews mention.

It's a shame there's no way to change the internal patches to your own samples, but here's thinking that expansion is a feature which would probably drive the price up significantly.

I'm going to rate this category extremely low, and the biggest reason is REVERB. It's 2004. I don't want my recordings to sound like Whitesnake. There's some great sounds lurking in there, but too many are buried beneath these insane reverbs. Sure, it makes it big and impressive sounding when you try it in a store, but other than that what can you do? The same with some of the samples. Finding good cymbals in this thing is a bit of a task.

I've been using this kit as a quiet practice alternative, and I've also been doing some home recording with it. It works great for doing a demo at 3am in an apartment complex, but I think I'd be a bit embarrased with some of the drum sounds if I had to use it professionally. The main kit I built to record with has the driest samples I can find.

To be fair, you can tweak the samples to suit your needs, at least partially. The recordings I've done with it do sound pretty good. Clean, clear recording, no fussing with mics (or landlords!) But if I'm going into a pro studio, I'm going to use the pro studios rooms and gear for fx, not a drum unit.

I have to say I would never take this thing to a gig. Having played acoustic kits for 10+ years, the feel change is just too drastic for me at this point.

Haven't had problems with it, except my scroll wheel seems to not work properly in two specific areas (at 2oclock it scrolls back one, and around 10oclock it doesn't move for 2 or 3 clicks.) But hey, it was $100, I ain't complaining!

Feh.

Overall, I would probably advise looking for something that has an option for sample upgrades, since that's the biggest problem I've had so far. Great for practicing and demos, but just doesn't have the features to really get into nit picking of a studio or live situation. If you can get it cheap, go for it. If you're dropping some serious money for it, get something better.

Reasonably easy to use- but you will need to edit EVERYTHING. Sounds, trigger sensitivities, everything.

The DM5 gets a low rating from me in this category simply because of the idiot sample banks. What were they thinking? Vast numbers of snare and bass sounds are totally stupid- like 'okay, now hit the bassdrum again while I knock over the ashtray into the microphone' useless. I'm not exaggerating. Millions of absolutely useless sounds (not even that good for techno- it's like snares etc. produced by a BAD techno musician) and very few cymbals and very few really good sounds. There's also debacles like apparently a Ludwig Black Beauty snare- set up horribly, with the snares all rattling. It's like these guys didn't understand the subtleties of drum sounds at all, so they did stuff like 'we already recorded a normal snare, so let's loosen the strainer on the Black Beauty and hit it with the end of a pool cue just to be different'.

OK, it recovers a bit on the grounds of generally having that ONE sound that'll work. I wish it had lots of 'em but if you put the work in- I'm playing a mesh-head Pintech kit and going through a soul drummer phase, and damned if I haven't got a good-feeling kit put together. I'm using the 70's snare, speed metal bass drum, 'Inside' mid and floor toms and a 'Low Jazz' tom tuned up +3 for the high tom- and it's GREAT to play those sounds in that style. I think that snare is some kind of Acrolite- it's a really quick bark that fits the genre perfectly, and is my pet 'sounds real' snare. Mind you I've spent a hell of a lot of time futzing with the triggers etc. to get that.

This is the killer- I almost would recommend not getting this unit unless you're prepared to deal with the reliability issue.
The power jack's connection to the wallwart is problematic. This is what causes the 'garbage characters in names' issue. It's a 9V AC adapter, and my feeling is that it's just way underrated and not capable of feeding the device. I haven't tried the over-voltage idea (over-wattage might be a better idea). What I did do was take apart the module and hardwire the wallwart cable to the circuit board. I had a real bad case of garbage characters- now it has yet to do even one weird thing. Except for the oversensitivity on the dial- and even then, given solid power it's not jumped wildly about. I swear the thing was designed on the verge of flaking out from low power conditions. Don't underestimate this as a potential headache. Tarnish on the power connectors will put you in a world of hurt, I've never seen an electronic device so vulnerable to flaky power connections.

wouldn't even ask them for help. They're the ones who designed it that way ;)

With the power modification, I can work with this module. I used to have a D4 that was much less flaky but its sounds weren't quite what I wanted. I'm not at all sure I'd want a DMPro if the trend towards useless sounds continued- or the trend towards overloading the power supply. I daresay with all its faults it's still the best module for my budget mesh-head e-kit: I'm not sure what you can get out of the Roland brains but I do know they want fancier pads than I have, to access all the features. The DM5 is a good module for an electronics hacker who can do things like hardwire the power cord to the board- in other words, what would be a fatal flaw for some people can be kluged around for others. Like me with the 70s snare, you might find one particular terrific sound for each part of the kit. Don't expect to find lots. And I don't think this thing is anywhere near as good at 'electronic', effected sounds as it thinks it is. 99% of its weird sounds are also crap... I made a nifty 'really weird electronic' kit and a 'industrial explosions' kit and sorta ran out of sounds after that.