Yamaha DD50 Digital Drum Machine

This unit is very easy to use. I am a big guy and found that the pedals were hard to keep in place due to their light plastic construction. I am a drummer and thought the sounds were good and could change drums set sounds easily. I had the bright idea of breaking the plastic pedals and duct taping them to a pair of old
sneakers. When the unit works, this works great. I have to power off and power on to get the pedals back into phase.

This unit features music backing tracks. I never really used them.
I just play along with the stereo/cds. Has a lot of different sounds. I really like the ride cymbal bell sound. The bass drum
sounds great when amplified. The pedals are great for the bass and
hi-hats but sometimes go out of phase.

The sounds are pretty good. Can't complain. I think it sounds better
through a P.A. system or amplifier.

You can't depend on it. The pedals sometimes go out of phase. I don't know if anything could be done about it. It would be really annoying when all of a sudden you are playing along and the bass drum or hi-hat (usually both) change and when your foot comes up the sound comes out of the unit.

Never needed it. I think I bought this unit on ebay about 4 years ago.

IF it were lost or stolen I would not be upset. I would buy the newer model (dd55 I think) Maybe even spend a thousand or two on a full electronic kit.

Do they still make these? It's easy enough to use when compared to the complex stuff out today. You can just plug it in and hit it and make sounds right away. In fact I wasn't even done plugging everything in and I hit one of the pads by accident and got a drum sound out of the unit. So it doesn't get much easier than that, unless they are acoustic drums.

Idunno. I'd have to say that in the year 2007 the features are very limited. But I did not get it for features. I wanted one of these back in the early 1990's when they were new, because it had foot pedals. This one cost around $299 at the local Brandsmart. I was nowhere near a digital recording artist at that time (who was, other than wealthy pros?) but I wanted one of these to mess about with and hopefully record onto my four track cassette recorder to play guitar over. The Brandsmart carried two Yamaha drum machines, the other one was smaller and cost $100 less but it did not have the foot pedals that I wanted. I never did get either of them. And i always hated four track cassette recording anyway. It sucked. To all of those noobs today who worship tape but never worked on it - yes tape sounds wonderful, but if you were a broke ass kid like most of us were and all that you coulkd afford for home recording was a foour track cassette recorder then tape sucked. Not so much the sound, although those were cheap units. But the workflow, or should I say lack of one... You know that one track that you edited fifty times in one day? Well imagine that you had to find the part by ff and rw of the tape with no screen with a piano roll to look at, just stupid plastic number counters that were only as accurate as a half of a second or so, which may as well be an eternity. And then cut it out with a razor and tape it back togetrher and then try to mask the cut - you would not be editing anything fifty times! But as far as features goes today this is probably pretty lame. however I only paid $10 for it at a garage sale, and although I still want it for home recording, now I want to use it as a trigger for drum software such as Battery. I am not a drummer, but I could probably get more human sounds out of drum software by actually drumming on this thing, and especially by using foot pedals for the bass drum and hi-hat insyead of another finger or two, and I think that there is no substitute for being able to use your feet. Because even as limited a drummer as I am, it feels much more natural to use your feet where drummers would normally use their feet instead of trying to use more fingers on a midi keyboard that you mapped to drum software, or else having to either program some of the parts or record the parts that are normally done by foot separately as a separate track. I should mention that I am not great at programming drum software. Oh yeah you can use drum loops too, but it's not always easy to get them all to match up and this does not work for all types of music. On some of my more electronica stuff loops are fine, but for expressive, tempo changing hard rock songs loops can ruin the whole thing. In those cases I need a "real" drummer. But I can get by well enough by using the drum sw and loops and then playing the extra expressive fills and so forth with this Yamaha. You would be amazed at how a few well done expressive fills played by a human being can make a whole track that is mostly loops and programmed riffs sound like it is all played by a person. Because those parts stick out and get the listener's attention and they don't remember the rest of the drumming.

It sounds better than you would expect. But I got it for a trigger and so I don't really care one way or the other about the sounds. But like I said, they are better than you would think amd with a good amp that is capable of nice bass, you could actually have quite a bit of fun with this and maybe even play with a band.

You do have to hit the pads dead center though, like everyone says. It's true. This could be a big drawback for live use, at least until you get used to it. But there really is no expression with this thing that I can tell. It loses several points for this, because it actually does not sound half bad.

No idea. It's not going anywhere though, it's staying in my little bedroom studio. I'll give it a decent enough rating for the simple fact that I got it at a garage sale for a ten spot and it had been laying around the garage for a decade or so and everything worked fine the first time I powered it up. I'd say that it deserves at least a 5 for that.

Somebody would steal this?

I would replace it if i happened to see another one for ten bucks. Otherwise I would not be out searching for one! I wasn't even searching for this one. It's just a thing to mess about with for me, and hopefully it will prove to work well as a trigger for expressive drum fills, which is my planned use for it. If not then back into the garage it goes, or I could have some fun and give it to the children of somebody that I don't like. It does get loud enough with the built-in speakers to be annoying and kids go absolutely bonkers over these things,

As other have said, easy to configure and use. Manual can be found on Yamaha's manual library. Sounds are OK, typical Yamaha sounds we find on most of their boxes and synthesizers.

Other have said it about the 28-note polyphony, 75 drum voices, recording, 100 built-in songs, etc. One nice feature is the MIDI control, where we can assign channels and notes to individual pads. You can hook up the DD-50 to any drum module and use it as a trigger device. Neat!

Pads are kind of tough to get triggered, and you need to hit them right in the middle. Pedals are just on/off with no possible expression. But considering the price of the unit, I guess it's acceptable. Those who complain about the kick drum sounds should use a better amp. When plugged to a bass amp or a good keyboard amp the DD-50 produces neat sounds, and the kick drum really kicks. Cymbals are a bit cheezy. Latin percussion sounds are good.

Just had it for a short while, nothing to complain about so far. It's all plastic...

Manual is available from Yamaha's web site.

I bought a DD-12 many years ago to play in a party, and liked it. This one offers about the same features, with 7 pads and 2 pedals instead of 8 pads and 1 pedal. I guess nobody else offers a similar unit for that kind of price. Casio had a try a few years ago but their device did not have the MIDI features the DD-50 has. Not quite a toy, yet not a pro instrument either. I use it mostly for the church gigs, and to have fun in my basement, recording tracks. I also hook-it to an old RX-17 drumbox in order to get different drum sounds. I guess the next step would be a proper digital kit! At a 20 times the price...

This system in particular is quite simple to configure as you like. And the option of putting any sound in any pad gives you a lot of comfort.

The only shame is that it doesn't have any descent kick drum sound.

For the price you pay you get a very descent drumset.
The reaction time is very good, the sensitiveness could be better, but... well... remember the price.
It goes quite good in all styles, except punk rock XD.

Indeed is quite fragile but the repair cost isn't too expensive, so you can rely on it, but don't smash it till it begs for pardon, cause it will surely snap, a soft surface like rubber or something and a good distribution on the surface you place it will help.

Mine is used, so i didnt deal with it.

Yamaha DD50, is a cool solution for those who doesn't have de money or the space to buy a larger drum system. It could be used to record your drum track on your songs and playing in parties YAY!!!! everyone have a sound system that you can use to plug it on and rock with your band!!!!

but better wait everybody to be drunk before you star playing XD.

Actually, the unit is pretty easy to use. Turn it on, and play. Some of the functionality (like arranging the custom set) is probably a little TOO easy, as it's not hard at all to accidentally change something. But I give this a 7 because at least one function isn't intuitive at all, and that's the sensitivity setting. I bought this used without a manual, so there may have been other funtions I didn't discover.

If I told you this was a drum pad machine, you would have in mind a few features (pads, different sounds, etc.), and this unit would have them. And little else. By far the most powerful feature is the MIDI input. However, the MIDI isn't true General MIDI because the unit sacrifices some percussion sounds to allow for a wider range of kit sounds. Still, the ability to pipe in a full MIDI backing band is nice.

The sounds are OK but nothing special. There is no decent kick drum sound. The backing band sounds are horrible, but who would buy it for that? The reverb has two settings: ON and OFF. The sensitivity of the pads can be set individually which sounds much more powerful than it is.

The problem is, the pads don't behave at all like drums. They are both too sensetive and not sensitive enough. (You can change the pad sensitivity, but it has little effect.) I'll try to demonstarte this with numbers. These are entirely made-up, but hopefully you'll get the idea.

With a drum head or cymbal, even the lightest tap makes a sound, but the pads have a threshold you have to exceed before you get sound. Let's say that threshold is 20% of my strength. With a drum or a cymbal, the harder I play, the louder the sound--there is no upper limit. Since the drum pad supports MIDI, it has an upper limit of 127 (not a made-up number). This wouldn't be a problem if 127 required all my strength--or even half my strength. But it doesn't. If the minimum threshold is 20% of my strength, then the maximum threshold is about 30% of my strength. This leaves a VERY narrow window to try to play expressively.

Even this wouldn't be so bad if you could change the volume of individual pads, but you can't--at least not that I could find. So I never could play the hi-hat quietly enough to sound but not overpower the snare drum. And since the entire MIDI output is sent on one track (instead of each instrument on a separate track), going through and adjusting the volume of just the hi-hat would be a major chore.

The expressiveness drawbacks notwithstanding, I still would have kept the unit if it weren't for this. I wish I could give it a 0. As others have reported, it cuts out right in the middle of playback. Sometimes it stays off for a few seconds. Then to top it off, when it comes back on it switches to default mode: Kit #0, reverb on, etc. I wouldn't even use this thing for home recording. I'd be a fool to use it at a gig. I returned it the day after I bought it.

I didn't contact them about the problems, but in this day and age there is no reason not to have the owner's manual available for download on the website. To top it off, you have to pay for one by credit card, and you will be charged even if they don't have any to send you!

If it had been lost or stolen, I would have been mad because then I couldn't return it and get my money back. This thing isn't even worth getting it free. If someone gives you one as a gift, don't take it personally; they probably just don't know how unreliable it is.

DD50 is extremely easy to use. I wish my Roland TD7 was half as easy.

Great features for the price. Obviously not in the category of V-Drums or the like, but excellent for what it is.

Decent sound, though you can hear a little digitization noise on the decay of some instruments. Not normally a problem except when your song ends with a crash.

I've had to replace a pad (under warranty) and on three separate occasions I've had to resolder cold solder joints that went bad (banging and beating is pretty shocking to the system.) One was the input power jack, which got flaky, and the other was on the power amp IC (right channel was flaky).

Haven't dealt with Yamaha customer support. Warranty repairs were handled through Professional Sound and Music (San Diego). They do a fine job.

For those still looking for a manual for the DD50, visit http://www2.yamaha.co.jp/manual/pdf/emi/english/port/DD50E.pdf

Played pretty easy - two big problems prompted me to give up on it. Firstly wanted to record from it, found that it would not hold changes to pad volume, therefore could not balance the drum level. Second problem was with snare pad sensitivity - found it too easy to miss hit - not good from a recording standpoint

Good but unlike my old DD7 plays unusable songs instead of patterns that you can add to.

Good drum sound - especially through headphones - too digital on decay though

Hard to tell - it's a bit toy like

Unlike Digitech for example you have to pay so much a minute - that put me off trying to trouble shoot the volume issue.

Fun to play with for an evening - could be fantastic with a bit more development towards a serious musician - a bit of a lost opportunity in my book.

I didn't get a manual with it, but the basic operation is simple. I'm using it to play along to on bass and guitar, so I just turn it on choose a beat, set the tempo and hit start. I would like to get a manual so I could know what they call the beats,
any help out there?

I have not tried many of them But it seems to have quite a few.

The kick and snare sound great but the cymbals don't cut through as well. I'm running it through a PA and the kick sounds great with my Ampeg bass amp at loud volumes. It comes in great when the drummer doesn't show up for practice. We wrote two new songs with it last week.

Mine seems to have the same problem others have talked about. At times it resets on its own or loses power completely and I have to cycle the power switch. A couple of times it would't come on at all and worked fine the next day. This is why I got it for $20. I suspect a bad solder joint. If I use the on board skeakers or the pads it dies quickly but when pluging it into an amp or PA it rarely ever dies. I have taken the cover off and looked at the back of the main board but didn't see anything. I plan to remove the board for closer inspection. Any help with schematics or knowledge of common solder joint problems out there?

It's easy to use and sounds great. not bad for $20 even with the problems.

Fool Proof

The Mark2 model has 212 AWM sounds, a better build quality, a touch sensitive bass drum pedal, 32 note polyphony, loadsa reverbs and other* effects (although other* effects are only accessable via MIDI)

First impressions upon playing were good (Even though our drummer has v-drums) and being used to synthmodule drum sounds (which I was playing from keyboards for sequencing), I was quite surprised.There are a lot more sounds to choose from and the expressivness of the pads-sounds are very good for the price.You can even get a quite convincing hi-hat sound just from velocity (i.e sample trails differ from hard to soft playing)

For basic song writing and banging out ideas to send MIDI files to other band members, this is great.Being a keyboard player, I probably wouldn't use it for gigging as it is a bit small and dodgy roadies would probably stand on it (or something worse).
As for reliability at a gig, being used to MIDI stuff and sometime crashes(from keybaords and modules), I wouldn't use it without a backup.

N/A

Apart from our drummer laughing at it (cos he's got v-drums!), It fulfills the roll of sequencer recording much better than playing from keys (Why are toms on keyboards always backwards????)
For the money, you cant really beat it (no joke intended) and its quite playable (Once you get used to the pad sizes)

Yet another guitarist with the burning desire to understand the art of drumming and do some simple recordings with a beat. I bought this portable kit in '98. Basically, it's very easy to use, easy to configure what setup you feel comfortable with and if your a left even better because you can move what ever drum you want to which ever pad.

Double kick is great and you've got enough options in kits to get a thumping realistic drum sound.

The DD50 has a tempo keeper, has tutorial lessons, has background music and the foot pedals rock, even if you need gaffa tape to stick them to the ground. I have tried everything from jazz to death metal with this kit and it does the job. Would love more kits to choose from but I have found the perfect kick drum and snare on the system

Great reaction to the pads, hasn't missed a beat yet. As with some of the other comments I have as well witnessed ghost pads sounding a crash when slamming on the toms (larger pads) but I suppose they're sensitive! which is a good thing!

I have plugged the DD50 into a simple stereo amplifier with large speakers before and the sound i got with a little equalizing was great! really enjoyed the volume away from the little 3 inch speakers!

This is where the system has let me and a lot of people down. As I said above I have had the system for 4 years. Firstly the power supply died on the system which was easily replaced. And within the last year i haven't used it due to as soon as the power is turned on it makes a ripping noise through the speaker and gets stuck in a loop.

I recently pulled it apart and found that a resistor had snapped from the circuit board, I am sure this is the problem!! and as with a lot of the other resistors on the circuitboard are not reinforced with solder. I am awaiting on a soldering iron to put the resistor back on the board and see if my DD50 will work again.

I recommend this unit, but an extended warranty would be beneficial.

No comment .... I'm really cheesed off..... Resistors shoudn't fall off circuit boards especially when a company like yamaha should know what brutality a drum machine goes through...

I loved the DD50 while it worked however I wouldn't buy another DD50 styled model after 2 problems and after reading the other reviews. I am however impressed with the larger digital kits but due to $$ in the bank I am unable to afford a more advanced model.

A real drum kit's looking good!

P.S. if anyone has a schematic of the circuitboard or has opened theirs up before (not hard at all) would you be able to help me find where that missing resistor goes...EMAIL ME!

cheers!