Simmons SDE Expander

Without a manual, it is pure luck if a patch sounds useful enough to use. Other than a 2-digit display and a few LEDs, little describes what is taking place behind the white on black facade.

4-OP FM and minimal control best describes the features of this beasty.

It is hard to say how good the sounds are. The machine I have is very noisy, and if twiddling the knobs whilst playing a sequence is anything to go by, you would be hard pushed to want one. Even pitch bend is 'stepped' with noise.

Given it's age the SDE is doing well.

Where are Simmons now?

Lost or Stolen? Who'd care unless it was the only synth in town. This is a poor implemetation of FM, even for its age.

This buddy is one tough cookie to use...took me quite some time to get it out of omni mode, and onto a specific midi channel without an instruction manual. For that fact, the only EASY thing to do on this module without a manual is turn it on. But I didn't ket that get me down...it's abilities make sense, it's controls are mostly in key-coded combinations though. Editing isn't to bad, unless you're trying to make a drum 'set'. I doesn't take sysex messages, so an external editor is not an option. It's presets are OK, I've never been to much for FM synths presets though, or any presets for that matter. You can edit some pretty raw patches on this baby though, from crunchy to smooth, and tweaky ass stuff as well. Great for accompaniament percussion or background harmonies. All in all, my K2000Svp3 is easier to find your way around then this little FM beast.

This is basically a 6 voice 4 operator fm synth rack module. I have yet to find a way to play all 6 voices at once...but you really dont need to. Trust me...if your looking for a fm lead pad or piano or something, buy a DX7...If all you want are quick and easily accesible tweakin sounds and harmonies, then this is your machine. As I said before, it's not the easiest to edit with no manual, but it's ten times easier than a DX7II to edit! It is midi controllable, and supposedly has 8 'different' midi 'modes', but I don't know what they are...it does work on all 16 channels individually though. It has a midi in and thru, and another 5-pin jack labeled 'cass'...for cassette? I dont know really. It also has an audio in jack, but it seems virtually useless, I cant get anything to come through it, and I don't know if is supposed to be a straight through, or if it's routed via the filters...No FX, but a good FM patch needs none...a BAD FM patch couldn't be saved by the best fx...It seems to have a 'sort' of a sequencer...I think it's somehow possible to arrange the order of the voices being triggered when it's not in the 'drum set' mode. THis can be very cool, seeing that each voice can have a different 'base' voice, and being in a sequence of six sounds, it creates a unique effect.

20 presets and 20 user spaces. Not near as expressive as a the grand daddy DX 6 op synths, but still very cool and much quicker to use.

Worked great so far for the 2 months I've owned it. I'll be gigging with it shortly, I guess we'll see how it holds.

I was contacted by an ex employee of simmons about the controlability of it, seeing as I can't find a manual and no one seems happy enough to share (or even sell) there's. He also mentioned an upgrade existed for it. All in all, Simmons gear is great, particularily the older analogue based stuff. Built to last AND perform...

I would definately buy this puppy for $36 any day...over 75 bucks and you MIGHT be able to find something a little more powerful in the DX synth world for your $$ spent. I have numerous sorts of synths and drum machines, analogue, digital, and inbetween as well, and the SDE blends right into the sound. My biggest complaint would be it's lack of sysex ability...mostly becasue FM is so much easier to program on a real screen, also, the majority of my gear is all editable via Sound Diver, so it would be nice to be able to do this guy in there too.

Let's see.. 6 knobs, 4 buttons, & a 2-character LED display. This guy is tough to get along with. As stated in the other review of this peice, you're nowehere without the manual.

It has 6 voice polyphony, with corresponding lights on the front panel that indicate which one of the voices is being triggered. There are no built in effects, but in my opinion none are needed. No sequencing either. This box is just sounds

There are 20 preset sounds, a bank for 20 "user" sounds, and mine came with an expansion cartridge (which I have yet to find another of). There are no effects, but on these sounds, you don't need any. These sounds are, well, interesting. If you're into crunchy or driving techno (swedish/slovanian sound) this is the peice. You can take most any preset sound on here, turn a few knobs, and you have a crunching bell-like tone that is great for background melodies. I wouldn't, however, use this as a lead peice. You can also set up drum kits on this.. but I have found that quite an undertaking and have givin up each time i've tried to do it. Your best bet is to just pull sounds off of it like you would off of any other synth module... forget the whole "drum expander" deal.

Never had a problem. It has always started and responded to MIDI.

1-800-Where-Is-Simmons-Now?

For the price I paid, I couldn't go wrong. But I still wouldn't pay over $75 for it. If you can find one for cheap, you'd best pick it up. It has been a great expansion to my studio and the sounds are ones I've been looking for for a while. The sounds do at times sound a bit obviously digital, but that's what gives it character in my opinion. It's quirky, it can be annoying, but it works well.

SDE stands for Simmons Drum Expander. The SDE ideally should be used in conjunction with other Simmons electronic drum equipment (ie. any of the SDS line, the MTM, the TMI, &c.); as one reads the manual, this much becomes evident. Editing patches is a nightmare, and I personally haven't had complete success in saving to the user area. Thankfully, the good folks at Simmons realized that the true strength of an FM synth lies in bells and mallets and synth sounds that are suggestive of bells and mallets, and thus don't waste any of the forty preset spaces with ill-advised attempts at string or piano sounds; hence, there is little need for having to delve into the unit's sound editing capabilities. I was disappointed to learn that the Simmons SDE simply doesn't respond to SysEx commands, and is thus incapable of having patches edited via a computer editor.
The manual is essential;-- this isn't so much saying something good about the manual itself as it is saying something bad about the SDE's user interface. Thanks to the arcane way the front panel is set up, I imagine I could have very easily gone my entire life never having known how to get the thing out of Omni mode were it not for the manual. The manual is printed in three parallel translations, which can be irritating, especially if the copy you have is photocopied in its entirety.

Polyphony is six, and there are six corresponding LEDs on the front panel that light up when the particular voice is activated,-- how cool is that!?! Particularly irritating is the fact that voices 1, 3, and 5 are assigned to the left channel and voices 2, 4, and 6 are assigned to the right channel, thus bouncing the part randomly about the stereo image; I haven't gotten about to remedying this situation. There are, naturally, no effects, as this is just an '80s FM box; it's not even really stereo. My particular SDE came with an expansion card that increased the available presets to eighty, though these expansion cards are supposedly pretty difficult to come by.
Since this *is* an '80s drum machine, MIDI implementation might not be what it should be; for instance, the thing choked on my PSR's SysEx garbage. As well, it stutters upon receiving program changes, so you kind of have to rearrange your sequences to accomodate it.

Bells and mallets. Really. If you want the sounds of wood or metal hitting metal or wood, this synth is for you. If you're looking for techno sounds, I imagine you couldn't get far enough away from this machine. As well, the sounds are limited in register, so good luck trying to coax an FM bass out of it. As it happens, I like midrange bells and mallets and find them to be musically useful, thus the Simmons SDE is right up my alley. Your mileage may vary.

Reliability? My SDE is reliable insofaras it powers up to receive MIDI data on channel 16 and otherwise keeps quiet. If you actually wanted me to use the machine as it was intended to be used, I imagine you would send my world crashing down around me.

Is Simmons even still around?

My MIDI setup doesn't have much, but it has personality; and my SDE is responsible for a great deal of that personality. As I mentioned earlier, I don't actually get around to turning the pots or pushing the buttons of my SDE very often; I have it power up so that it receives MIDI data on channel 16 and that's the extent of my interaction with its front panel. There's alot I *could* have said about (consults manual) voice robbing, MIDI modes, patch editing, voice editing, interaction with drum machines, &c., but these aren't really part of the reality of my use of the SDE, and if you're using it in a MIDI environment instead of a drum machine environment and are content only to access one sound at a time, I trust you will find this to be the case as well. My final verdict; a good synth for natural, dynamic sounds. Especially for $97. Music making hasn't turned profitable for me yet, so some might argue that that's $97 too much, but I believe that, if I continue using my Simmons SDE Expander as I have been using it, I'll be punching my Personal PIN Number into the Automatic ATM Machine in no time.