Alesis DMPro

I have the exact same problem as another reviewer " I constantly have problems with the unit locking up for a few seconds then resuming or leaving out a hit once and a while since day one."

DMPro: v2.00
Trigger: v2.00

Presets sounds are awesome. It is great fun simply playing already tracked parts through the various kits. That has helped with some inspiration on how to use the patches as well!

Patch editing is a little weird, I am using MidiQuest 9 XL and it seems to cause problems with the unit. Maybe a change in the system exclusive implementation? Is MQ expecting v1 and v2 is different?

The manual is as all Alesis manuals. Great coverage of the unit. Not quite as thourough as some of the Roland manuals, but it will tell you what you need to know.

64 voice polyphony. Having 5 different drum modules alone I have no issues with polyphony. I have not maxed out the voices yet.

Have not twiddled with the effects as of yet, they sound great on the presets though.

Card slot for which I have no cards :-\

More complex than the D4 or SR-16, acts more like my S4Plus, so more of a drum synthesizer than straight-up drum module. For that I love it!

Great sounds, I have used it for Jazz Rock and ethnic music. The DMPro always comes through for me.

So far so good!

I seem to be relegated to using the Librarian aspects of MidiQuest for it, but having that, sure I would gig with it.

I would definately not lose it and go to great lengths to ensure it is not stolen but, in either eventuality I would replace the unit! Far and above the other drum modules I have owned through the years!

Intuitive interface for most features. Important things like pan and trigger volume are buried too deep.

minimal effects, great trigger response, midi is plug-n-pray

for a drum machine, the variety is good, but some of the sounds are just plain useless

yup - no problems here

they suck - Alesis has been offloaded and no longer supports this model

I'm in the process of expanding my practice set....I wanted to add another DM-Pro but now I'm considering the Roland TD-20 - more inputs, better response, better tech support

Firstly, this is a follow-up from a few years ago when I reviewed. Learned a lot since then.
Ease of use. It is still not the easiest thing in the world to program, but once you learn it it does get easier. But my Lexicon and Midiverb IV are the same way. Takes patience to get into and fine tune all of the available parameters. Gave a nine because relatively speaking, it is about as difficult as other devices I am using.

It has a plethora of features. I don't use the internal effects because I assign different drums to the six outputs, send to my board, and assign effects from my processors there. It is expandable via the card slot, but I'm not sure if these are still being manufactured. Gave it a nine because the Roland units have the shell size, mufflers, etc that are nice, but they are more of a synthesizer and this is more a machine of very tweakable samples.

This is what I wanted to change from my original review. A lot of very cool, but unusable to me, sounds in that box. Now I have spent hours tweaking the samples and building acoustic kits, and have some great ones now. I checked out Roland TD-12, TD-6, Yamaha DTXpress 2 controller, and I choose the DM Pro CLEARLY above these units. I messed around with them for hours to see what they do and besides the TD-6, they do a lot. But the sound is still not convincing. My DM PRO kits are. If you want to hear the kit on a clip, I used it on a song called Wild-Eyed Jim's at soundclick.com Type in artist Dale O'Brien. That was recorded to a 488 MKII 8 track cassette. I have a 16 track reel I'm working with now, and have modified the settings extensively since, but the clip will give you an idea of how it can sound.

Well, I hear some complaints here and yeah my display is a little faded on the left side of the screen. So far nothing major and I hope that doesn't change. Not sure what the "watch battery" is the reviewer below mentioned, but I guess I need to find out, as maybe that is the cause. Anyway, I can still see everything on the display, just wanted to note it.

Haven't dealt with them.

I love this thing now that I have learned how to use it. I would try and find a used one or get it repaired if something bad happened. I don't think I would buy the DM5, though, and haven't heard anything convincing enough to lead me to Roland or Yamaha, though in fairness I haven't heard the TD-20. If the TD-12 is representative of the sounds, though, I would have to pass.
Awesome machine, just takes some work to build some kits. Presets are NOT impressive IMO.

Version 2.0. Manufactured in 2000. Bought on Ebay. Mainly using presets. Will customize only a certain trigger for a needed sound. I'm not messing with decays, reverb depth, etc. So, to change a sound to a trigger and save is a breeze.

If I want to get more into it, I'd probably get MidiQuest software, but don't see the need. Even for recording, the presets work fine (and the other 1,600 sounds).

Meets my needs for worship team and tons of fun at home.

Put your creative juices to work here - I've found uses for some of the more unusual sounds in some of the presets. What's also makes a difference - try triggering your acoustics and play BOTH at the same time (don't muffle or restrain the acoustic sound at all - drums and cymbals). You can achieve some very effective "effects".

At first, no, but now YES!! I had the same problems many of you are mentioning here. Just called Alesis - There is a watch battery that needs replacing about every 5 years. Replaced and now everything is fine. Battery holds the RAM when unplugged. Without juice, no memory!

Take off the cover and you'll see it. Support told me it may be soldered in, and, it was. No big deal to get out though.

Called at 9:30 am EST, was on hold for 10 seconds, had answer in 15 seconds (after my lengthy explanation!).

Remember to replace watch battery every 5 years and I think you've got a winner here!

I'm using Version 2.0. It seems straightforward to me, but then again I have another alesis product, so I'm used to the interface. It gets tedious editing too much... so I pretty much stick to the presets.

It seems to do everything I need... if it worked properly - we'll get to that later.

I use the module mainly for drums, and some of the sounds are better than others. I expected more for the price of this item. If you're making house/electronic mixes, then it's great. But for a nice real sounding kit, I just feel there's room for improvement. Maybe the next model...

Okay, here's the kicker (no pun inteded): this thing just can't be relied upon. Maybe yours works, in which case I envy you because it seems to have a lot of potential, but my experience isn't great. First of all the LCD brightness level goes in and out when I'm not even touching the thing. If I wiggle around the headphone jack it gets even worse, so there's clearly something loose or a bad pot/resistor in there. Also the volume pot is scratchy... again cheap parts. The difference in a good and bad pot is like what, maybe a dollar? I don't think this is too much to ask.

Now onto the worst problem. It just stopped working the other day and I did a hard reset. Wow, to my amazement it magically started working. I slept like a baby only to wake up the next day and find the same thing. Only this time the hard reset does nothing for me. The device is clearly receiving midi input, because the trace works in the drum edit mode, but all the kits are set to USR sounds (which all seem to be empty) and I have to go in and edit each individual drum to an actual sound, but I still can only get the drums to sound through the "preview" button, and not my midi keyboard. *sigh*

Well, this is next... since the item has been discontinued (while the DM5 lives on) it's obvious that Alesis really screwed up on this one, and they know it. If yours works, just wait, problems will surface.

I would probably buy a DM5, or just wait for DM6, or whatever will be out next. There's a lot of potential here. I like alesis. My keyboard was $2K and worth every penny. I've never had a problem with it. It's rock solid. They did the right thing in discontinueing this product, because from the looks of the other feedback it's blemishing their name. I will definitely expect more from Alesis in the future. Very disappointed here.

Ver 2.0, good kits, editing not too easy. Decent manual.

64 note polyphony, midi in, out, thru, etc.

haven't used it with a trigger kit, just playing sequences from pc. good kits though

disappointed here. must do a hard reset on every start up and one bar of LCD display has already gone bad even though it's had very little use in studio only, no road/gig work with it yet.

ok, but not stellar, they emailed me and faxed me on how to do the hard reset

Got it from Full Compass who always seems to have the best prices. Other reviews dinged it for reliability and that has been my experience too, unfortunately. Does sound good though with tons of features for a good price

This is a quick follow-up to my submission below. Although I stated the preset "real" drum sounds are limited and mediocre, I did run the DM Pro through a Joe Meek MQ3 and the "natural" drums sound GREAT. This little compression/EQ device made them sound more like they should...a good set of microphoned acoustic drums. I still strongly feel that Alesis should expand their "natural acoustic" sounds, or better yet, release a Q card containing such. On another note (no intended pun), the snare trigger has occasionally not been firing (internal, not the pad). Turn the DM Pro off and back on one or two times and it seems to cure the problem(mine was a demo unit, though). FYI. In lieu of new sounds through the MQ3, overall is a 9.

Depends on how far you go. For me, a simple songwriter who programs "real" sounding kits for recording, it is quite simple to operate. However, to edit the actual drum sounds, whoa!! You need to know what you are doing. That's the only reason it got an 8 and not a 10. I am not satisfied with factory drum sounds, and programming new ones is way over my head. I don't have the kind of time it would take to learn, nor do I wish to do so. That's why I paid money for a product, to get those sounds.

What DOESN'T it do? If you are familiar with programming/operating and stuff like envelopes and amplitudes and whatever other terminology I've heard and read, this unit must be a wet dream! It definitely is loaded with flexibility and features, just not all user friendly(for the average Joe, that is). I took a point off for velocity(could be a bit more sensitive)and the fact that I don't believe there is a "master eq" for the unit, without getting into the effects end of it and then it is for each individual drum.

As with previous reviews, Alesis needs some real sounds in here. I like a couple of the snares, more of the kicks and cymbals, but the toms suck. Even the best toms (only a couple of "real" sounding ones) are papery. To avoid the "cannon" sounds of the lower ones, I have to use a high tom sound for all three and tune it accordingly. Maybe if Alesis comes out with an expansion card of "Real" drums (PLEASE!!!!), instead of more hip hop, orchestra and whatever other expansion cards besides real drums they have, I will be able to keep this thing and be happy. I love the feel, operation, etc. and WANT to keep it...just need some decents drum sounds, that's all.

I have had NO problems with my unit. I am not a drummer, but if I were, and did gig with one, I would feel confident without a backup. My unit is like clockwork.

I did e-mail with a question and never received a response. Maybe this will change soon in lieu of the still "settling in" management/ownership.

If Alesis offers an expansion card for the expandable slot with "real" sounding drums, I would replace it in a heartbeat. That is really the only problem, but a big one. Everything else I love...even non-operational things such as that cool lime green display! Kit part (Hart Dynamics) is awesome, no complaints. If any PROGRAMMING GURUS out there have made "real" drum sounds that can be put on a DMPRO expansion card, drop me a line and we'll talk. I would be very interested in getting some if the terms were reasonable.

Very easy to use with my sequencer. All the drum hits names are sent by midi to the sequencer so when I call up a kit all the names are there so I know what sound I use. This is very helpful. It has a chase button which calls up the drum hit when played which is also very useful. Editing is a little more complex but still ver logical.

Loads of samples which is the main reason I bought it. Good effects and loads of editing capabilities which I havent fully explored yet.

The sounds in here are the dogs bollocks. If you cannot make a good groove with these sounds then give up. Before this I spent a long time messing around with samples and cheaper drum machines but this to me beats them all. I normally start with a groove I like and then edit the sounds and get it how I want and then record it and put it through a compressor and it truly sounds great. The sound really is pristine. Every time I am searching for 'that' sound that I want I can find it. I also come across many sounds I didn't think of and it really inspires you into making really fresh beats. My music has definately improved with this module. For a wide range of sounds from electric to beat box to ethnic it has them all. People have complained on this site about the sounds not being very real but with some processing and carefull sequencing they sound fine to me. No module will ever completely replace real drums so if you are going to be that anal learn the drums for real.

I bought it second hand and when I first had it the unit seemed to freeze between changing kits and sometimes got stuck on the same kit. It was very cold when I had it though and I just put this down to condensation inside or something. After a couple of days it was fine and no problems ever since. Had it about 6 months now.

No need to deal with Alesis. Was a bit worried late last year about them going out of business but they seem back on track .

If it was stolen I would definately want something similar. I would maybe check out the Nord ddrum or the Roland Vdrums but I'm not sure they have such a diverse sound set as the DM-PRO. I don't like to think it is what you have rather than what you do with it that makes great music, but with a bit of know how and this machine you can come up with something really special. I would have given it a 10 if it wasn't for the fact of the drum kit sticking when I got it, and I really hope this won't put people of buying one. I have seen the comments of other users who have had problems with bugs but as I said, since after I first had it everything has been fine.

Fairly easy to operate, mainly using it as a sample playback device.....

I notived several people complaining about sample quality and that they wanted more real sounding drums or more"produced" drum sounds like on current pop songs.

To be honest, I am a producer of R & B and Hip Hop and Pop,
and I quickly found most of the sounds I hear on the radio in this box, everything from the Backstreet Boys snare sounds, to the
Flextone Triangle on every Destiny's Child and Nsync song.
With creative layering, I find alot of these sounds to be great, My one complaint would be that the perc for most kits doesn't change from kit to kit, stays mostly the same.

I have found that this unit easily overheats, and has since caused a software glitch on both of my units, I have to reboot the unit to change patches, it freezes.....

There currently is no support, as NuMark purchased Alesis, and they are running on a slim crew of people.

I need this unit, I just need it to work, help?

Well, if you figure that you're accessing about 1,800 functions from a single little screen and a couple of buttons, yeah, it's easy to use. Easy in the same way that, oh, typing with 2 keys, and a rotary wheel would be easy. There is some software that comes with it that makes it easier to edit, but the software itself is a little weird-acting. It's really as easy as can be expected. The menu hierarchy is at least well-thought out.

The ease of use of this unit for me is tied to my ability to get good sounds out of it. In that regard, this thing falls way below the Roland top-of-the-line drum module. You can get this box to sound great, but you have to hose around with amplitude envelopes, blah blah blah, and with the Roland, you say "I want a metal snare drum 8" deep, in a room with carpet on the ceiling", it does it and sounds great, and you're done. That's ease of use!

This thing is loaded down with layers and layers of features. It's mind-boggling when you think about it. It has a decent reverb, cross-fades between samples, you can edit your own drums, tune them, pan them, there's a ton of triggering features, lots of MIDI capability. No onboard sequencer, but honestly, I don't know how they could fit something like that in the 1-space rack case. It would be a joke to use.

The first thing I noticed about this box when I started playing around with it is that it sounds really REALLY clear and pristine, especially compared to the DM5 I also own. That thing sounds like it's playing through a crappy fuzz box and the speaker is behind the couch. This thing has lots of clear, deep low-end on the samples, and they just sound great.

The FX are pretty good. I like them okay, and the reverb is plausible-sounding.

I would characterize this box as being very expressive, because you can create and edit your own drum sounds. This is a big deal (see below). Once you get used to mapping pitch, filter, and amplitude envelopes to velocity, you'd have to say this is extremely expressive, almost as much as the actual drums you're trying to emulate. Probably more expressive than comparable units from other manufacturers. I don't know that the Roland V-Drums module lets you get as specific with sounds as this machine does.

That said, I still think that the people at Alesis ought to listen to some rock music so they can hear what a drum is supposed to sound like. The stock sounds are really lame. I know it's impressive to have a floor tom that sounds like a cannon going off, but it's not musical, and it's certainly not very realistic. Don't get me started on the snares... The stock ones are lame, lame, lame! A few of them sound something like drums I've heard (On, say, the theme for "Love Boat" or "Starsky and Hutch"), but most of them are well nigh unusable. This unit's saving grace is the fact that you can create your own drum sounds, and the raw materials for making decent sounds exist in the machine. You have to dig for it though.

Overall, I'm far happier with the sound of this box than the piece of junk it replaced (see the scathing reviews of that waste of silicon elsewhere on this site).

I give it a 10, and then take a point off because the good sounds are hard to get out of the unit. Then, I take another 2 points off, because the folks at Alesis have released a lot of drum modules to date and ought to have a better idea of what good drum sounds are!

Here's the deal: I've owned and operated gear from a multitude of manufacturers, from guitars, to amps, to keyboards, drums, basses, recording gear, mics, mixers, FX units, etc., and hardly ANY of it has failed me, ever. I take really good care of my gear. I imagine that when various pieces of musical equipment tell their children bedtime stories, my studio is mentioned as a land of milk and honey, where they will enjoy an easy, eternal life of luxury and easy work. However, even with all of this pampering, every FRICKING PIECE of Alesis gear I have EVER owned or used has crapped itself in some way or another. I borrowed an HR-16, and it died. I have an SR-16, and it crapped out a few times, and then mysteriously revived itself. My DM-5 was a case full of bugs: Random lockups, and weird whooping noises. I hate Alesis gear! I bought this DMPro used at a price that was so low, the salesman got in trouble for quoting me the price. (I saw him get chewed out by his boss and felt bad for him, but hey, it's Alesis gear. Fair's fair!) I wouldn't have paid any more for this box than I did, and I was fully expecting to get it home and have all kinds of trouble with it (The price was really good though, so I still bought it). I have not had one lick of trouble with this machine. I am puzzled. I am pleased! I am also of the opinion that this machine is a fluke. I hate Alesis gear.

This particular machine has been totally reliable, but I am taking a point off, because I hate Alesis gear.

I called them once, and got the distinct impression that I would be better off throwing the defective piece of equipment away and buying another than to trust those clowns with fixing it. That's why I 1) hate Alesis gear, and 2) always buy used gear that's cheap!

This is a cool drum module. I love the pristine sound quality, the flexibility, the reliability (!) and the fact that there are inputs on the back for more triggers than I can afford. I also love the fact that Alesis and Mars music didn't make a cent off of my purchase of this module. Yee haw.

Easy to use after everything is set up but betting all the triggers and that sort of thing set up can be a pain.

Loaded with features. I bought for use in the studio. The 6 outs were important in my case but that may not hold true for everyone.

I would tend to agree with some of the other reviews that I would like to have more samples that are closer to real drums and less of the un-usable samples provided. The overall quality of the sound of the unit is very good and impressive.

Ok- here is the problem. I constantly have problems with the unit locking up for a few seconds then resuming or leaving out a hit once and a while since day one. This does not make me happy. I called Alesis and they offered to so a software upgrade to 2.0 but that will take 3 weeks. I guess I have to close the studio and tell the customers to come back at a better time.

Have not done the upgrade yet

I think it is a bit over priced, should sell for around $450. or so. If they could get the lockup and missed hit problems solved I would buy another one if mine got stolen.

As an owner of the roland TD-7, I'd have to say the DMPro is great. So is the TD-7. The CHASE feature is great, since you can use it to change whatever drum you hit, OR not use it so you can edit one drum while comparing it to another (good for tuning:) As for the preset patches...I'm of the opinion they always suck. No machine with >1,000 sounds can make presets that make pop drummers just as happy as electronica. The sounds themselves are great, and I got a PCMCIA 8MB card (ebay..$40) so I get to dump lots of samples in to it because all the software makes using this thing a snap. The manual is VERY comprehensive, and could probably take you a whole month of bathroom trips! The key is to read what you need, get experience, then read into other features. The use of filters and envelopes is great, when you combine it with the controller matrix.

Pros: TONS of sounds. and millions of ways to modify them. The PCMCIA flash card feature is great. I don't need my sampler to do drum sounds anymore! And the best part is...the FILTERS. ENVELOPES. you don't get to see those words in too many drum modules. Effects are decent, fo an on-board deal. just enough to thicken drums, but not enough to be the end-all-be-all of your rig. The MIDI implementations is BAR none, although I hate the lack of NOTE OFF. I guess with all the filters and envelopes, it's the 1 thing stopping the DMPro from being a great synth, too. Pluggin my TD-7 pads into it breathed new life into an ageing kit. Also, since it's intended to be "studio" gear, why isn't there any balanced outs? or SPDIF??? Thankfully, however, I haven't run into ground loop problems at all. They did good on isolating the output buffers.

CONS? You can't store patches onto a flash card. Only onto an SRAM card. But you only get 1 bay. More sounds, or more patches?? The fact that it doesn't have a built in sequencer is disappointing. So
you can't loop sequences with just the DMPro. Lastly, the worst of all, it doesn't accept MIDI Note OFF commands!!! That REALLY sucks if you like to program sequences on a keyboard and try to gate longer samples. I guess you'd have to create user versions of the sound and modify the gate times for all your variants.

SOUNDS SOUNDS SOUNDS. And 8MB more accessible via PCMCIA. Once you learn how to tie the filters and envelopes to the drums (velocity in particular...aftertouch is beauty on hand drums) the sounds become VERY real. I would say it would work well for just about ANY music. I play Jazz, electronic, & world music (hence the need for sounds sounds sounds). I almost never use my TD-7 brain anymore, other than for the 808 kit in there :)

Maybe only the people who have problems write. But I've never experienced a damn thing wrong with it, even when the rest of the studio's MIDI gear freaked out and I had to reset 1/2 the gear in the room. I've been carrying it around at least once per week, and still no problem.

No problems, no support calls.

Well, I don't know if I can afford another $650 to replace a stolen DMPro, but in 6 months of hard use I haven't had a problem and would gladly recommend it to any one else who I considered a serious enough drummer who loves diving into electronic gear. Anybody else I'd try to sell them my TD-7.

Overall, I LOVE playing this thing. It sounds so much better than other Alesis products, that typically resemble soundblaster cards. And I love making music with it! The availability of sounds has inspired me more than trying to recreate sounds & beats lurking in my head. I give this an 8 mostly because of the shortfalls I listed in the features selection, but I would never say I'm unhappy with this thing.

The unit layed useless for like 3 months, as only 2-3 of the preset drum sets were any good. Editing the sets from the front panels is, well, not for me, so I continued using my SR-16. But then, I came across a manual for the supplied Emagic SoundDiver Alesis software. Working with the SoundDiver editor has made building usable sets very easy, and I have had great fun with the DMPro since then. The rating is relevant only for those using the SoundDiver editor, as without it, the unit is not much more then a piece of metal.

I haven't really pushed the performence envelope on polyphony, nor do I ever use internal effects. It is misfortunate, however, that there is no patch exchange library. Building a coherent drum set is a job for experienced studio technicians and drummers. Composers and arrangers are capable of evaluating the sound of a set, but can rarely build one from scratch.

The sounds are pretty good. Latin percussion instruments and kicks are realistic, and even many of the hats, rides and crashes sound good (when mixed). The snares, however, are a disappointment.

It's an excellent instrument for someone with a good enough ear to build good drum sets. The limited set of factory presets makes it difficult for the rest.
Should NEVER be used without a computer editor/librarian.

I'm using the 2.0 software. The prior versions did have bugs in the triggering
most of which were fixed in the 2.0 version.

I am a drummer. This was my first venture into electronics after 30 years of working
with acoustics. I bought a DM Pro Kit which was a value alternative to V-drum or ddrum.
On paper it looks great. Of all the samples they offer, it would have been nice to have
sepent less time on pots and pans, space sounds and assorted BS and give more usable
drum set sounds. The orchestra instruments were good as where many of the Latin samples.

It's pretty easy to edit. ANd we did a lot. We found only about six usable snare samples. If you blend them
on a stereo pad and control the crosstalk, the blended sound is great. To this requires
moving the cross stick to a third trigger.

The manual isn't really much help for drummers. It assumes some level of MIDI
skill that drummers don't have. For example, they refer to backing up your edits on a PC
and that the software is provided. However, they don't tell you which
software package to use nor do they give you any instrctions on how to do the
backup via MIDI. This takes a while to sort out via trial and error. I not to print
a README or PDF file would have been a great help.

Polyphony is rated at 64 but I would tell you I could make it fail
consistently at THREE!!! Given how Alesis counts triger inputs, it
coule be counted as five. Basically, a kick, crash and dual triggered
snare al hit at exactly the same time (a drummer's job) cause the
crash to not play. We had to do several punches to fix the errors the
unit created. I nevered used it MIDI'ed to a keyboard controller.

It has built in effects. They are cumbersome to use. In the studio,
most engineers want the samples laid done dry. They add the Lexicon
reverb of choice later. Because you can layer four voices to create
one sample, it was sometimes difficult to get the effect completely
out.

The drum chase feature is great. Tuning and panning have significantly
more adjustment through software editing via the PC then the unit itself
provides. Panning for example, goes from 7 levels to over 100.

It store a lot of drum kits but you don't have a user "kit" bank. All
of your edits are over the factory kits so be careful. You can restore
all of the settings or any one kit but it's a delay to do it.

The high hat controller and interface flat sucks!! I recorded with a
real HH. The DM Pro didn't trigger right and the pedal controller was
not very good either. Combined, it did not give any playability as
relates to blues or funk where you work the HH.

I did a CD project with the unit. A VERY notable producer said he would
not believe it was sampled with a real HH if he had not been told.

Cymbals are the hardest part. Again, there are only a few good usable
samples on both rides and crashes. Crash 000 set to different pitches
is your best bet. As for rides, you have to extend the Gate Time from the
default of 001 to about 041. This give the ride the sustain it needs.

Alesis, in a poor design moment, decided that this Gate Time edit
would not be stored with the kit or the sample within the kit. To
save the ride edit, you have to create a user sample in the USER bank
and assign it to the kit. If you don't, Gate Time defaults back to 001
when the powered down and the cymbals sound horrible. Once you figure
this out, and it not in the book, you can get some good sounding cymbals.

I have to say the the touch of the unit through good mesh pads is very
good. The OEM for the DM Pro Kit pads is Hart Dynamics. Ghost notes and
rim shots all plays well. The e-Cymbals work amazingly well. The crash
cymbal sounds funny when choked but only when played solo. I the mix,
it sounds fine. The softest f ghost notes won't play. I think this is a
digital dynamics limitation. If you have ot have this feature, look
at ddrum with 1000 levels of dynamics. I found it adequate for the
price.

I had abosultely no double trigger problems. I had to edit the crosstalk
on the dual trigger snare and the dual trigger ride. Once set, no problems.

At the end of the day, I was grossly disappointed in the number of usable
samples. ddrum blows everybody away here witha t web site ful of usable
samples. When I go through 127 (literally!!) snares and find six, none
of which rock my world, you have ot wondor who Alesis has picking and
engineering samples. It's not about the specmanship of who has the most
samples. It's about giving me USABLE samples. Another plus for ddrum is
you can erase 100% of the factory samples and start over.

I'm happy with the record sounds I get but I'm very disappointed in
the usable sample selections.

It has none! I owned the DM PRo Kit for 32 days when the DM Pro
module failed. It took over three weeks to get it repaired. When I
brought it home, the preview button worked but the triggers didn't.
I reset to the factory settings and it worked. I reloaded me edits
from the PC and it worked about 10 mintues and failed. I reloaded
the factory settinga dn it worked again.

I packed the unit up after about 75 days of ownership and returned it
for a full refund. The tech say they're seeing a lot of they in for
repair compared to the D4 and DM5.

Does Alesis have tech support? Email falls into a black hole to never
be answered. The phone que is forever on to be tranferd to the front
desk and back to the tech support hold que.

I took the unit to an authorized repair center. After eight days of
waiting for Alesis to return calls, I personally called Alsis to get
them moving. I spent several hours on the phone, holding, trying
to get this unit repaired.

Above all, I need reliability. If Alesis was in the computer business,
they'd be out of business based on their lack of product knowledge,
their poor R&D engineering, lack of routes to market work, and poor post
sale support of the customer, retailer and service clients.

I returned it. I hope Alesis gets the problems worked out. Roland is
far over priced and ddrum is too small of a company. There are no "value"
priced electronic kits in the industry. It's entry level or it's $3500.
Entry Alesis DM Pro kit at $1850. It looks great on paper but leaves much
to be desired in terms of samples, reliability and support.

I spent a year researching what is availible and I played everybody's
stuff. I've been playing over 30 years and electronic drums are finally
getting to the point they're acceptable.

Alesis is clearly not a drum company. They have not done their homework
on what makes a unit usable and how it should navigate.

I returned my unit for a full refund. This was my Alesis purchase and I
suspect it will be my last!

The operating system is similar to the dm5, but even less intuitive, and more buggy. I am using ver 1.01, but they sent me release 1.02 to intall. I havn't installed it because you need to completely re-set the unit up, which took me hours the first time around.

I am used to synth operating systems, and this is about the least understandable I have seen. It really can drive you crazy. I don't mind too much that the operating system is oblique, because once it is set up, I leave it alone.

The presets are wierd. Even tech support agrees. You might hope that at least one set of drums would try to sound like conventional drums, but there isn't one. I understand ver 1.02 attempts to fix some of this, but I am not optimistic. The more I talk to tech support, the more I come to understand that Alesis' taste in sound is questionable.

Note that ver 2.00 is now out, and it sets the defaults to be setup for the new alesis pads.

The manual is just fine.

The features are covered by others, and by Alesis advetising copy.

The Q card expansion is not really usable to add samples. There are no Q cards that are drum oriented, and Alesis told me that they do not have any coming out any time soon. Yes, you can make your own with soundbridge if you have scads of time and energy. Why won't someone make after market third party cards?

The reason I bought this piece was to use the high hat controller. The only reason I put away my dm5 is because the dm5 hi hat is bogus.
The dm pro has continuous hi hat, and is supposedly usable.

I am not a drummer, but I have a small studio. I can't mike the drums well so I bought electonic drums. (Concept One pads). Also, electronic drums keep the level down when rehearsing.

The drummer in my band refuses to use the electonic hi hat, so the $900 I spent for the dm pro and the required Roland foot pedal is wasted.

The hi hat is no good for two reasons. First, it is not near as expressive as a real hi hat. It is close enough for some songs, and might get by, except for the second problem.

The second problem is that it sends continuous controller messages so densely that recorded midi tracts are out of time. There is no way to thin the C.C., and my drummer keeps time by tapping on the hi hat pedal, so there is always a huge amount of C.C. being sent. Alesis denies that this happens, and suggests that it must be my midi card, or computer, or sequencer. I have a mq-32 midi card , pentium III 550, and cakewalk 9.

The other upgrade I was interested in was the extra outputs.

When we track a song, the drums are monitored on a Peavey keyboard amp. When I play back, I dont want to hear the sound thru the keyboard amp, but thru my mixing board speakers. Since the unit has extra sound ports, I thought it could play triggered sounds thru one set of outputs, and midi playback thru other outputs, but in practice this will not work. One sound cannot map to two ports.

The only use for multiple ports is if you want to mix and process the drums separately.

I should note that triggering is accurate once setup, even though my drummer complains continuously about lack of expressiveness.

Alesis and I do not agree on sounds. I don't think I am weird, eighter, because all my musician freinds concur with me when I demo this thing.

Keep in mind what I want is to sound like real drums for popular music.

The best snare sounds good, as does the bass drum. My drummer complains about sensitivity, but I believe that the trigger sensitivity is as good as you will find anywhere. Electronic drums just can't match acoustic drums.

The best hi and mid toms are ok, but not great.

The floor toms are all way too huge sounding. Sure, it is impressive at first when the floor tom sounds like a bomb explosion, but over the long haul it becomes bothersome. I think they miked the floor tom by sticking the mike inside of the drum. Why don't they have at least one convincing floor tom?

The best hi hat sample is just barely ok. The trigger is discussed above.

The ride cymbals are poor. Alesis sampled the best sounding cymbals in stereo, and when you listen in mono, or pan the stereo signal to one side, the phase distortion causes a flange effect. I don't know of any pro studio that mikes the ride cymbal in stereo. Why did Alesis waste sample space on stereo cymbals, ony to get a weird flange? Why do the cymals decay so fast? Why are all of the rest of the samples specialty samples ( rivets, cracked, etc). Why didn't they have at least one that sounds normal? The dm5 sounded better; at least one drum kit could be built that sounds like miked drums. I also own a QSR, and it's drums sound better than the dm pro.

Alesis tech support says I am wrong and that the samples are plentiful and accurate to real life, but they acknowledge the flange effect.

I swear that the operating system has bugs. You set something to say, 85. When you look again it goes to 40 without any input.

It is possible I am wrong about this, because the operating system is so hard to understand, I might be mis-using it.

Once setup the unit seems stable.

I hope ver 1.02 is better.

I have no reason to think that the unit is un-reliable, except for the possible bugs. We practice as a band several hours every week and it keeps on working.

I would use real drums at a gig.

Customer support is very good, considering the price point. They always take the call, and they are polite when I complain about the various problems. They sent me the rom upgrade for free.

I just wish they would listen to my complaints, and fix the problems. It is so frustrating that this piece is so close to being great, but is weird instead. They really only need to fix the samples, and the midi C.C. problem and this unit would be really good.

I wouldn't buy it again.

If you need multiple outputs, and electronic hi hat, buy a Roland V-drums. If you don't need hi hat or multiple output, buy a dm5. The dm5 is simple, clean and realistic.

I have a studio with a Yamaha 03D, a Korg X2, roland rhodes mk60, tons of guitars and amps, a d5, QSR, and computer with Korg 1212io.
Plus alot of other stuff.

What I hate is the yellow dog review that a certain magazine
gave it. I trusted the reviewer, but the unit does not measure up.

I wish it had realistic sounding drums and cymbals, and a working hi hat. I also wish that the third party Q card market was active.

much more difficult than the dm4 or dm5

loaded to the max.

very real sounding

mine broke down. can't get it to work anymore.

couldn't be worse so far. all emails have gone unanswered.

never again will I buy an alesis product. the old dm5 was crap and this one is even worse. i will by going with a roland or a yamaha in the future.

DMPro v1.01 Trigger v1.01
The unit functions properly, so it was off to a good start. Editing patches is cumbersome with only cursor arrows, but not really difficult. Using even a rudimentary patch editor makes it that much simpler. Selecting kits is very easy, but the delay between loads is very bad (over 1 second).

64 Voice polyphony is ample. I give this a 6 because of the non-standard way it deals with multi-timbrality. I'd find this box much more usable if I could just assign a different kit to each of 16 MIDI channels.

Expansion? I'am in the process of checking this out. I got an AMD series D 8MB flash card, but it is the metal-case type and is not working properly. I've contacted Alesis about this known problem, and about getting it swapped for the plastic type.

I did not buy this for doing realistic drum simulation. I create industial/electronica music, and I just want a variety of kicks and snares that sit well in the mix. This much, I got, because of the vast number of drum samples. I scrolled through each of the 256 kicks and 256 snares, and loved about 20 of the kicks and 15 of the snares. Many more that this are usable. I'm sure if I dive into an editor, I can create even more.

None of the sounds are terribly expressive, but the kicks have superb low end. My NHT subs play flat to 19Hz, and they're kept plenty busy by this box (NB: My neighbors hate this)

Lastly, those in search of the holy grail, or an electronic kit that sounds convincingly like an acoustic trap set, will never find either.

Been on and in use for 30 days, no lockups. The screen starts to misbehave when the unit gets up to its full in-rack temperature, but this only affects the aesthetics, not the sound. Again, the jury is out on the Flash Card issue mentioned above.

The provided card-burning software, SoundBridge, is rock solid, and full-featured (at least on the mac, I can't comment on the Win version). The software impresses me, I was expecting it to be much more bare-bones than it is.

I've always found Alesis tech support to be patient and professional. When I got a batch of defective DM5s, they worked with me until they resolve it. My fixed DM5 is rock solid.

If mine got stolen, I'd replace it in a nanosecond. This has replaced my Emu Procussion as my main source of kicks/snares/hihats. I'm keeping my Procussion, it's just taken second chair. I also use and have reviewed: the DM5, Kawai XD-5, and Procussion, and will field questions from anyone planning to get one of these for electronica/industrial/goth/tekno/darkwave.

Pretty easy to use. Loads of tabbing to program patches, however once you get used to the basics it is not too bad. Loads of features which you may / not wish to touch are buried 5 screens down, which is probably sensible. Presets are okay to quite good. Setting up kits is dead easy - as is copying over them by mistake ! Patch editing is quite easy once you know what you are after. Manual is good and explains most things you need to know in a reasonably logical manner.

Features are pretty much what you would expect from a drum module with better than anticipated editing on patches, decent effects if not amazing - compression and granulate would have helped. Can't comment on drum triggering, however the Midi side is pretty deep.
Allegedly you can download samples onto a plug in card, which sounds cool if a little involved. I've not tried yet, there are quite a few combinations in this box already !

Key point - samples and patches - there are enough to make life interesting although I would still like a company to hire a pedantic sod like me to guide their sample choices next time. The bottom line is that samples range from quite good / predicatable to downright crap. 16 Meg ? try 64 Meg next time, for this money I would expect more. To echo a previous respondent - have Alesis surveyed what drum module users really, really want - you are 60% there people - I would advise you not to reach for the laurels just yet.

Kit load is slow slow slow. Why does this instrument not have instrument 1 and 2 on different Midi channels for multiple kits ?
Not everyone uses this kind of device for pad triggering.

Loads of patches, 16 meg of samples, plenty of possible combinations with layers of 4 samples per drum patch. So how could they fail ?
Well frankly this is NOT the ultimate drum module, not yet anyhow.

To be pedantic - not great out of the box. I would expect to be raving about how at least 6 to 8 kits sounded really usable straight away for this price level. I'm not. These are not realistic drums at
all and Alesis could probably do a lot better with this box given the features.

To be moderate - you can piece together reasonable kits pretty easily and then you feel 'it's okay I can work with this machine'.

To be generous - if you program the **** out of the thing and find the decent samples, introduce your own velocity layers etc things start to look up. Expect plenty of work though. There are 128 User patch destinations, I'm halfway to refilling them and I'm halfway happy with the results.

To be blunt - bottom end on bass drums lacking , middle on snares needs a boost, give us more Clearmountain quality samples AND plenty of 'produced' Dance stuff - you know, like the records. The vast majority of the samples are average to unusable. Tambourine - ever heard a produced tambourine Alesis ? Toms are pathetic frankly.

And then we get to every percussive instrument ever. Great, thanks very much. Some are very nice. I'm never going to use them though,
what I need are decent bass drums, snares, toms and hats. Then playable barely chromatic stuff you can hit in amongst it all.

Sound Effects ? - why bother putting these in ? Where are the orch hits, whip cracks, usable ambient hits, industrial stuff, unusual sample the kitchen stuff ? Buy some producers' sample libraries and QA the patches next time.

Multi-layered class drums in loads of variety and then you get a 9 or 10 - some way to go yet methinks.

Early days seems reliable.

Not tried yet.

I would consider replacing it, however probably worth buying the competition - MPC2000 - until Alesis put in the 64 Meg of quality samples they should have done this time around.

QA and amaze us Alesis. Listen to some real records by people who matter and then build a sample set.

Overall - Expensive, with potential to be substantially improved.

Pretty easy to use. I like how you can easily and quickly you can change a drum with a kit. However I've never been too keen on scrolling through page ... by page ... by page ... by page .... to get to the parameter you want. In addition, it takes a few seconds to load a kit - and to do so you have to turn the wheel and then press the kit button. It should be easier and faster than this. In other words, don't plan on changing kits within a song.

Very impressive feature list - which is the thing that probably attracted most users. I'm not going to explain them all - you can go to Alesis' web page for more info. The only thing that I wish it had was a digital out, otherwise I would give it a 10.

Alrighty ... here's my gripe. Alesis? Have you ever heard a real drum before? There's more to a drum hit than simply mapping a sample and applying a low pass filter to velocity. Drums change timbre, pitch etc when you hit them. No hit sounds the same. I'm quite surprised that they could take so long to produce this unit and they could oversee this. I'm thinking that (after playing around with a friend's QS 6.1 as well) that Alesis is too lazy to put the effort into layering their patches and actually making them sound realistic (like the real thing). They're main concern is features and marketing hype it seems.
I brought this to their attention and they said "well, if you don't like the default patches, you could make your own". Okay, for the price, something so simple as layering the waveforms should be done by YOU! I dont' want to spend my valuable time doing your job Alesis - smarten up. Besides, particularly in the case of the snare for example, the waveforms on this machine are so timbrally (for lack of a better term) different that it would be extremely difficult to do so. Ideally, a drum should be composed of multiple samples from the same drum and hit in different spots with different levels of hardness. Duh! It's almost like Alesis said to themselves: "hey, lets just load as many drums samples as we can cram into 16MB and worry about it later". No thought whatsoever.
Despite this, I must admit that the unit is very crisp sounding thanks to the linear waveforms and high sample rate. For sound quality I would give it a 10 but because of the LACK of expressiveness I have to give it a 5. Most of the WAVEFORMS are great - cymbals, SFX (shakers etc), toms are are a joke though.

Customer support is pretty good and prompt. However, don't ask their opinion on anything because they're not very objective. They would never admit that their products have a shortcoming. They would say: "yeah, but our units can do this this and this" and "but our units have sold more units in Japan than any other module" and "we got a pretty good review in blah blah magazine". Give me a break. BTW, be careful of magazine reviews because they never have to pay for their units and probably only use them for a short period of time (and who knows what kind of dealings are going on behind the scenes).

All in all I was pretty disappointed. I waited forever for this unit to come out. For what it would take to correct Alesis' shortcoming I might as well buy an Akai MPC (drum sampler and sequencer) or something. If you don't care about adding your own samples then do yourself a favour and check out a Roland TD-7,8, or 10 and hear what a real drum module is supposed to sound like. Trust me.

DMPro v1.01 ... Trg v1.01 ... The manual is very complete and straight forward about editing the drum kits, drums and effects, assigning triggers, MIDI setup, and how to use the expansion slot. But I am a DM5 owner, so I'm biased because the menus are pretty much the same except with more options.
I am giving it an 8 because the FX sends for each drum in a kit (64 in all) must be edited separately. I really wish they would have provided a "change all FX sends levels to..." just in case you want to give the entire kit the same reverb or something.
Also, the data wheel skips as bad as the one on the DM5. The Behringer DSP1000 I bought recently has the same problem with its data wheel. They probably buy them from the same labor camp in China.

64 note polyphony, definitely a must for my patterns. It was either this or another DM5, and I'm glad I waited for the DM Pro to FINALLY ship. (They announced it was due out 9/98!)
The effects are great for the price, not a Lexicon style reverb--but then who would pay $3000 for a drum module? The effects consist of two busses: reverb and over drive -> delay -> pitch (chorus, flanger, resonator). Their parameters are fairly comprehensive with a several routing options for each. Also, there's an overall 2-band EQ for each kit. This works fine for me, since their samples are fantastic to begin with. No inserts, of course.
One PCMCIA expansion slot that can take up to an 8MB card for additional drum sounds, kits and sequences. Here's the really cool part: from what I'm told, you can transmit wave data from your PC to the DM Pro's expansion card via MIDI! I haven't tried this yet, so I can't say for sure. But it doesn't have a serial port connection like the QSR. So either the above is true or I'm sending Alesis hate mail, because I don't want spend $$$ just to get a PCMCIA writer.
The MIDI capabilities are no better than any other synth. In fact, you can't change kits in mid-song like the DM5 because it has to LOAD the whole kit into memory. This causes about a 2 second pause, and it stops listening to MIDI, at least with my sequencer (Cakewalk Pro Audio 8). Moreover, like other geeky synth manufacturers, they didn't utilize the numerous unused controllers for effect parameters and such. It's all ugly SysX. (I'm still waiting for the new Midi Quest driver. I programmed one kit and never again want to spend 3 hours with that stupid data wheel!)
No sequencer. Just a sound module. Buy EMU if you want a high-tech drum machine.

Okay, enough of the specs. This module sounded better than I had hoped. In fact, it dazzled me. Granted, I haven't spent the last decade tinkering with the best drum modules around, but I have owned the DM5 for over a year, and the DM Pro is clearly better. The snares are punchier, the cymbals and hats cleaner. The toms, however, seem thinner. Friendly warning: Alesis did not preserve the DM5 samples or any version fo them. If you own a DM5 and have grown fond of some of the sounds, keep it.
I found the factory sets to be very good, with some tailored after popular styles (e.g. Led Zeppelin, L.A. Law). But of course, I wasn't truly happy until I built my own set. And it sounds so good that I'm looking into buying a full Pintech trigger set and learning play the drums (without upsetting my neighbors).
Mostly, I write rock and a little of everything else, which is why I bought the DM5. The DM Pro is an expansion of the rock drums. But they added a wonderful variety of tropical/jungle percussion, Latin, jazz and SFX. Even with over 1,000 sounds, it doesn't have everything. I still have to resort to my old Yamaha PSR-510 for mutliple jazz brush variations.
Like the earlier review stated, the SFX category is way cool. BUT they did away with the random sounds! How dare they? I am most dissapointed about this.
Then again, the demos were simply astounding because of the use of effects. They defintely showcase its great possibilities. And the effects weren't achieved via MIDI messages but were comprised of sounds contained in custom demo kits (which are still resident in memory after each demo, so you can store them). If you're in a music store, check them out--the instructions are on the front panel.

Only owned the DM Pro for a month with no problems. My DM5 is over one year old and was a scratched-up floor model. It's never exhibited any problems.

Sent one email question to them about the DM Pro before it shipped. Never got a reply.

If it were lost or stolen, I would definitely buy it again, no question. For the new sounds and capabilities, it was worth every penny. As I explained above, it has some dissapointing aspects, but I haven't yet found a single guitar, synth, computer, etc. that is perfect in every facet. The DM Pro is a great asset to blend with other drum modules or drum sounds on my favorite synths.

I wanted to revise my original review. Since that time I had bought a Roland XP30 synth. The sound from that synth was so good that it made my M-BD1 (external Roland Bass and Drums module) sound flat. Thus I needed a drum module that would compare. Thus I went back to the local music store and rented it again. This time, I sat down and read the manual from cover to cover and really put some effort into it.
Regarding the ease of use, it is a LOT easier than my M-BD1. The manual does a fairly good job at explaining everything. It's very easy to change out the individual drums in a kit if necessary.

It has the most features I've seen on a drum machine. 64 note polyphony, fx, 6 outs, 12 triggers, and you can load your own samples and sequences via PCMCIA. You can also set it up so that a drum trigger starts a particular sequence. This is great for guitar players who don't want to walk over to their sequencer to press "play".

Overall the DMPro sounds great. The samples sound crisp and punchy. Here's the thing though: the default kits and demos are horrible. They do not accurately represent the unit's sounds or capabilities. Velocity changes only affect a low pass filter. They should really layer the voices and have each voice's volume depend on the velocity of the keypress. The unit is fully capable of this, but for some reason, they don't take advantage of it.
There are lots of sounds in each catagory (acoustic bass drums, acoustic snares, cymbals etc). The best of all is the SFX catagory. They include tambourines, shakers (to die for), finger snaps, pots and pans etc. All sound as real as you could get. However, none of these beautiful samples are present in the demo or default preset factory kits.
I made a recording of the DMPro with the rest of my gear and I must say it certainly augments the overall sound. I'd rate this category 10/10 if it wasn't for the crappy preset patches and demo.

Haven't had it long enough to find out.

Alesis has great support. They have one of their marketing guys participate on the newsgroups and mailing lists. All email I've sent to them have been replied within 2 days. Very polite and helpful.

For me, this unit is a must have. I've always been a firm believer in investing in strong percussion - and this unit does just that. I regret not giving this unit a fair evaluation in the beginning. You really have to sit down and play with the thing first before you can unlock its full potential. I probably would have been happy with simply upgrading my Roland XP30 with the Bass and Drums expansion but the DMPros expandability, and SFX samples made me change my mind. The Roland V-Drums were an expensive alternative, but the fact that the DMPro allows you to add your own samples and sequences simply confirms my decision.

The massive amount of features makes it a little more complicated but the manual is fairly well written.

The most features for a drum module to date. You can even add your own samples, sequences, many outs, more triggers than the DM5 (+dual zone). See the Alesis web page for more info. The effects seem like overkill to me, as you can easily hear in the demo sequences.

Very crisp and clean - but not a heck of a lot better than the DM5. Much improvement in the cymbals though. The effects are okay - kind of excessive for a drum module IMHO. All in all, the samples are very punchy, but sound too "sampled" rather than realistic. I prefer my Roland M-BD1 for acoustic drums by far - they ring more and respond to velocity better on the M-BD1. I can't vouch for the triggers because I didn't use them.

Didn't cut out on me but I only rented it for a month.

Alesis has great support. They have one of their marketing guys participate on the newsgroups and mailing lists. All email I've sent to them have been replied within 2 days. Very polite and helpful.

The DMPro is the best bang for the buck for "virtual" drummers but it's definately not as good as the hype (and Alesis) would like us to believe. It didn't blow me away like I thought it would. Just consider it a DM5 with a few extra neat features. Make sure you try it out before you buy.