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!

This is an update to an earlier review that I wrote, back when I bought this. I've now had it for nearly two years, and after not touching it for some time, have actually been getting a lot of use out of it. I'm not going to change my ratings, but since some folks have run into problems with their DD50s, I felt like posting an update because I've now been playing it daily and it's still working just fine.

Setting the DD50 on an amp stand and just buying a small stool to sit on, I've been able to get comfortable playing for extended periods of time. As I mentioned in my original review, I'm using this to come up with drum tracks for my songs, not programming anything. The small middle pad still seems silly to me, as a large pad would make more sense, but I've grown accustomed to it. Although I've been planning to get a Y-cable so that I can use the pedals for both double-kick and hi-hat, I've just stuck to double-kick for now. I use the small center pad for the snare, which isn't so bad with a bit of practice.

I've never bothered to use any of the MIDI features, or anything else for that matter. I'm just playing it as I would play regular drums...but at low apartment-friendly volumes.

The kick, snare and tom sounds are adequate for what I want to do, which is have a basic recording of drum ideas for songs I've written on guitar. Expressiveness is fine on the pads and pedals. The downside is that the available cymbal sounds are extremely lacking. They should have eliminated the "cute" effects and added more useful drum sounds. Then again, this is probably aimed towards kids. Since I don't expect the cymbals to sound good coming through a PC soundcard anyway, I just concentrate on the kick, snare and toms, and can always record a track for just the cymbals. Using both pedals for kick drums has worked great, especially with slightly different sounds assigned to each.

So far, so good...but I'm not using it outside of my home. It's just for basic recording use. I haven't had any issues with the pads, but if I'm playing at low volumes and find myself hitting it too hard, hitting a tom pad hard will get a light cymbal response too.

No idea.

After nearly two years, the DD50 remains useful to me. My band's drummer gives me a hard time about it, but he concedes that he can't play drums in his apartment either. I can actually sit down at a real kit now, and do a respectable job with both kick pedals, thanks to practicing on the Yamaha. It has served its purpose, and hopefully will continue to do so.

some sounds are good but there are also some sounds that are really awfull, especially when you use the machine's speakers

I've had problems with the power switch of the machine. two little springs inside the switch make contact with "pads"on the print.
I've replaced the springs by using a little piece of alu-foil and some tape. Now the machine won't switch off itself anymore because of any tremors.
(sorry for my bad english, I'm dutch)

It is a nice toy. I think you could play a gig with it, exept for the reliability.

digital drum pro DD-50

only problem with this product pad too small

not to bad for a toy

very very bad service no answers dont no the product cant explaine fonction ect

for a first experiance it s a good (pratiic or to lurn the basic like a
explains before pad are a litlle bit too small but for the value i could said it s a litlle bit more
then a toy
Sorry for my english am french

Largely a plug and play device. It can be a standalone drum emulator but I got it primarily for MIDI input to a computer. So much better than mousing in drum beats or, especially for a non-keyboardist, punching in MIDI notes from a keyboard. Pretty limited in sound choice and no individual pad volume/velocity adjustments, just some choice of overall velocity response. The supplied pedals are wimpy but bear the price point in mind.
I bought a cheapo snare stand to mount the unit and velcroed the foot pedals to a hunk of particle board. Not bad.

Most of the features are apparent from the front panel. No line out- use the phone output, works O.K. Limited MIDI implementation but enough for my immediate needs.

A beginner could also learn a lot from the preset songs and patterns.

It also responds to GM files, not just drums, but no-one with a "serious" synth module is going to line up to buy one of these for the sound.

The built-in sounds are fair. Usable but not great. Some tails drop off prematurely and benefit from the included reverb. More and larger pads would be nice, too. Yeah, I know about Vdrums, etc. ($$$$$)
Amazing for the bucks.

So far so good. It was a music store demo/refurb or something. All functions are currently intact. Don't drop it.

This is part of Yamaha's Portasound series instruments- don't look for
professional level support.

It has quickly become a necessity, really helps build drum tracks. A real drummer could probably do a lot more with it, although the tiny pads and pedals might drive him nuts.....(Who'd notice???)

For what I needed, this thing was fairly easy to use. Bascially, all I wanted was a midi controller for sequencing purposes.

Read other's reviews on what features there are. A MIDI through would have been nice. Maybe a more versatile volume control.

I don't really care how it sounds. That's not why I bought it. As far as expresiveness goes, I haven't had a change to experiment with that. My first impression is that it has a fairly narrow expressive range. The pedals are kind quarky to get used to and not exact. I'd suggest using a real bass drum trigger unit and/or hi-hat unit.

I've been reading all over the internet.. here, ebay, elsewhere, where you can get so many hours out of the damn thing before it decides to crap out. I bought mine as a blem from Musician's Friend and it was DOA. I thought it was a bad power jack, but no... it's a lose something inside. I tore it open and could see where it had been "refurbished". Anyway, I can get it work for about 2 bars at a time before it dies. A quick thump will jump start it again for another 2 bars. Unless you can find one for damn cheap (under $100) I highly suggest staying away from this unit. Musician's Friend is replacing mine, and if I have any more probs., I'm just going to get my money back.

I bought mine refurbished from Musician's Friend. They're paying to have it shipped back to them and another reburbished one sent to me. Haven't dealt with Yamaha yet, don't plan on it either. I'm wondering if the new DD55 has better design and construction. Like I said, this problem is pretty common.

The idea is a good one, but the end result is a piece of poop. For the money they're asking the DD50 is a bad buy.

a monkey could play this set

I like the reverb settings (3) and the overall sound is great

this machine is a kick in the head for struggling singer/songwriter.. I havent finished paying for it.... six months, and already it has to go in the crapper cause only 90 day warranty. I would reccomend not wasting your money on this piece of crap!! just read the review by the guy who says he's on his third one.

I would definitely look for something similar... It beats having to program a drum machine, but I would not buy unless it has an extended warranty of some sort.when I purchased it, unfortunately warranty was the last thing on my mind, and the salesperson did not mention it. I am extremely dissapointed.

easy to understand and you'll get used to the weird arrangement...

pretty well covered already but for about $200, i'm amazed at the features....

Here's what made me write this- if you're like me, you want to be able to record drum beats to play along with but you don't have deaf neighbors- you also don't have a million dollars to properly mike a good sounding drum set- this thing solves it all. Sure, it's not exactly like the real thing but it's the best thing out there if you're on a budget and prefer playing music instead of scrolling through menus and pushing little buttons. It is amazingly responsive (the foot pedals are just cheap plastic but they work like a dream) and the sounds are decent- (a lot thicker that my crappy microphones on my crappy "real" drum set)- plus, you can run it through a distortion box to get more oomph. Trust me, i just went through the horrible process of buying little machines to be my drummer- this is the best and MOST FUN of any of them even at twice the price.

Seems crappy but 90 day warranty parts and labor makes me feel better...

none yet

There's a new "better" version DD55 due out in June and I plan to upgrade....

This is my THIRD DD-50 in about 7 years. It being my third, you'd think I'd get a bit frustrated that after about 450 hours of play the units DIE. Nah - for a mere $199 I'll keep rebuying the unit. Simply put, I can gig with this kit (set-up in less than 3 minutes) anywhere. I've made my own y-adapter and have an additional kick pedal so I have double-bass capability without losing the highhat.

This has been covered rather well above.

The sound is incredible when you compare it to the proce paid - period.

Ahh--- this is where I have issues with this unit. Once again - this is my THIRD one I've purchased in 7 years. After about 450 hours of play, the unit simply dies - it all starts with the power reseting intermittently - then blank - no power-up. I'm used to it now and just go out and buy a new one - since I'm in love with this unit for it's portability.

I wish it had more sturdy 'guts' so it would last beyond 450 playing hours - but I love it regardless.

Assigning patches to the different pads is a cinch, and the settings are persistent. Unfortunately, there is only one persistent "user kit" that you can assign these patches to. And if you want to do anything tricky, like assigning pads to different MIDI channels, you have to do it over every time you turn on the machine.

I only use this as a MIDI controller, so I could really care less what else it can do. But as a MIDI controller, it does everything that I want it to.

Seems pretty sturdy. I haven't beat the hell out of it yet, though, so time will tell.

The manual that came with the unit was a photocopy of what looked to be a real manual. However, I can't find the manual on their web site. We'll see.

I feel like I definitely got my money's worth, but if I had to do it over again, I would upgrade. But hey, I'd do that with any piece of equipment that I broke or lost.

As a guitarist first and foremost, with no drum OR drum machine experience at all, I was concerned about ease of use.
Because I plan to really "play" this rather than program it or use the MIDI features, my score here (and below) is to
the playability.

I give the DD50 a score of 8 for ease of use. It's really idiot-proof if you have any understanding of how to play drums.
I found the angle annoying and had to buy a stand, which improved it greatly. The layout seems a little troublesome to me,
having a small pad in the middle (where I would put the snare in a real kit), but I suppose that makes it suitable for right-
or left-handed players.

Keeping in mind the $250 price tag, the features are quite good. There are 4 large pads and 3 small, plus two pedals. 28 drum kits, with
75 available sounds. There is one user-defined kit. Three levels of reverb, two speakers, MIDI in/out and a 600-note sequencer. Mine came
with the "Yamaha Survival Kit" which included some cheap headphones and an AC "wall wart".

Because I probably will not use the MIDI functions, this is just a basic electronic drum kit to me. No features are lacking in this regard,
although having to buy a stand (I used a guitar amp stand) was required since there is no way to adjust the machine's height or angle. I play
fairly technical metal with a good bit of double kick and tom rolls, so the sequencer's 600-note capacity would probably fall short. However,
I realistically am only using this for demo purposes, and wanted something small and cheap rather than an actual kit. Besides, it has volume control!

I have had no problems with pad sensitivity at all after a month of use. I immediately set it up for double kick use, which
means no hi-hat pedal control. I may try using a Y-cable to let me share one input between two pedals (kick) and freeing up the
other input for hi-hat. The sounds are quite good, especially for a rock/metal player. I found the selection of toms to be very
good, contrary to other reviews, and adjusting the reverb accordingly makes a world of difference. The cymbal selection is a bit
lacking, but sufficient. Several years ago I owned the 4-pad Yamaha drum machine, and even it had very good sound, which the DD50
expands upon. The pedals are very sensitive, but this is a good thing if you play death metal and need those kick bursts!

A diehard drummer might find some of the sounds unconvincing, but I impressed so far. I guess the proof will be how my drum tracks
sound on tape under the guitars and bass. For my purposes, I rate the sound and expressiveness a 9, because an entry-level machine
cannot sound as good as the real thing.

My old Yamaha "toy" drum machine held up for a long time, until someone decided to see how hard they could hit it and
popped off a pad...and broke the thing trying to put it back in. Used as intended, I don't see any glaring flaws. I've
only had it a month though, so no comment.

I have briefly tried a few other drum machines, but all required programming. I want to be able to play drums enough to get by in a pinch, writing my own material.
I already play guitar and bass, so why stop now? I love the DD50, because it lets me play in the comfort of my own home, in a portable and affordable package. Learning
to play has been easy so far, and I'm doing much better than my poor attempts on friends' full kits in the past. If you are trying to find fault in the DD50, you certainly
can, but for me it is a very useful tool. I strongly recommend it, and would certainly get another if something happened to this one.

It's plug and play as far as getting started. Some of the advanced features have cryptic button combinations to get to, but they're spelled out in the manual.

As a drum controller it is quite adequate, I haven't had any crossfiring of the pads. The on-board sequencer keeps up very well and the lessons are nice for drummers-in-training.

Only the pads are velosity sensative. the pedals are not :(. The built in synth does decent drum sounds though.

I would gig with it, as opposed to lugging a full set of drums.

When I first got it, it was awkward. But after building a solid desktop stand for the unit out of 2x4s and screw in rubber stoppers (raised about 5" with about 30 degrees forward tilt), and screwed the pedals to some plywood (up a 1/2" with about a 45 degree tilt), it is quite playable. It has a high cheese factor (the sticks weren't even the same diameter), but I enjoy playing it very much.

The Yahama DD-50 is a digital drum machine with 19 preset drum kits
and one user definable kit - all these using preset sounds in the
machine. The unit has inbuilt speakers, volume capability is adequate
to go with acoustic guitar / vocals.
It may also be used as a MIDI controller, I haven't done this, and I
haven't used the inbuilt drum lessons or the inbuilt sequencer.
The manual seems to cover all the bases and features.
The sounds are more than passable, but there is not a great deal of
variation between them, decent headphones help compared to the tinny
inbuilt speakers.

I didn't have any false triggering problems, but the pads, especially
the smaller ones require accurate sticking and a fair wack to trigger.
The inbuilt reverb helps with the cymbal sounds, but I found the
medium and high reverb settings over the top.
It may also be used as a MIDI controller, I haven't done this, and I
haven't used the inbuilt drum lessons or the inbuilt sequencer.

This is where I have problems with the DD-50. Its just not very
playable. Its very difficult to relax into what your doing without
not hitting the pads in the right place and/or hard enough.
Once you've hitten it hard enough there is a range of velocity
sensitivity, but its almost impossible to play soft accents.
(Perhaps this is the price you pay for no false triggering problems?)
I can't comment on the way the pads behave via MIDI.

This is hard to say as it depends what you intend to use as. I don't
think I have the experience to comment here.

A value rating is very difficult as basically there is nothing else
like the DD-50 available.
As a bass player I bought the DD-50 to mess around playing drum
patterns, and you certainly can helped by the hihat and bass drum
foot-switches, but ultimately its frustrating.
If you want to play drums don't buy this. If you want a midi drum
controller you could consider it but then most of its features are
redundant.
I understand this product sells very well to schools, and probably
this is the target market.
Possibly whatever more serious role is envisaged it is likely to
disappoint.

This is just an update to my last post. After much moaning Yamaha replaced my problematic machine; The new one does not have crosstalk problems but the response is still not great. I tried using the sequencer but it does not hold enough to use effectively. When played from a sequencer all the Midi channels are played with a Elec Piano sound execpt the drum channel.
I am happy with it now it more accurately reproduces my playing, but it still is more a fun thing than a tool.

Easy to use, but when in util mode you get no sound.

28 note poly. 4 Setting reverb. Midi IN/OUT (no through, cheap skates). In built sequencer - Never use it, I go straight to my Midi sequencer.

The sounds vary - many sound identical. The 3 sets of toms differ only slightly. The two tamborines not at all. Some sounds are truncated and only sound resonible with some of the built in reverb.
The response is a bit suspect - A gentle tap gets nothing, a good belt gets cross talk to another pad, no matter what sensitivity setting I used! Also striking two pads at one time does not always trigger both. I sent it to my local Yamaha workshop after complaining and they said that that is just the way it is.

See comments on pad response above.

I own a Kawai K4, Yamaha TQ5 and Aleisis HR16b.
With "backing tracks" etc. it has aspects of an expensive toy. But that did not worry me - all I wanted to do was program my drum machine, even the dubious sound quality did not worry me. But with trigger problems I could not rely on it to faithfully reproduce what I played.
If stolen I would not replace it unless I picked one up cheap 2nd hand.
A fun toy, but expensive just for that.

Yamaha has finally gotten their drums right with this one - the drum sounds on this are PHAT and very useable. Two drum sticks, 7 pads, 2 pedals and you are ready to laydown the best sounding drum track that you have ever put together via MIDI.
The preset sounds are good, although there are some that I think are missing, particularly in the percussive realm. This, however can be remedied - I overca, this problem by mapping one of the pads the the appropriate patch on my keyboard. This was incredibly simple to do, so I am still very happy.
The manual is very simple to understand and is not very long. I primarily used it to find some of the counter-intuitive things, like turning local mode on/off or changing the sync from internal to external.

This machine has 28 note maximum polyphony - which is more than enough for creating drum tracks. This machine offers MIDI in/out so that accompaniment can be played from an external MIDI device, or any one of 100 songs can be played of various styles from internal memory. The design is to teach the fundamentals of creating solid drums. The action/responsiveness is nice. Ot inderstands light touches to heavy touches and responds fairly well. The only built in effect is reverb which comes in 3 different modes. No expansion capabilities past the 75 drum sounds that are loaded in. Touch sensitivity is the only MIDI effect. The on-board sequencer is limited to 600 notes - which when drumming can be fairly short - depending on how complex your pattern in.

The drums are very rich - nothing really sounds bad. With the touch sensitivity everything sounds really good. It works well for all types of music, after all, what drums don't? Velocity if good, and it's reaction to what is being played is also decent. It's not V-drums, but it cost a whole lot less!

I have whaled on them, dropped them and they seam pretty sturdy. I did replace the pedals that came from the factory with a set that is a little more heavy duty. (At $12 for each pedal, I couldn't really complain) But I would gig with it without a backup.

If they were stolen, I would buy it again. At this price, who wouldn't? I have been playing for about 2 years. I own a Yamaha QS300 workstation, Roland PMA-5, Yamaha RX-Series Bass, Yamaha SU-10 Sampler - Ensoniq Mirage, Roland XP-10... possibly more! Nothing really compares with it - not at this price at least... I think it could have a few more pads than the 7 with 2 foot pedals that it already has, but then it would be much larger than it is...
Drum Pads - 7 of them (125mm x 4, 88mm x 3) Thocu sensitive Maximum Polyphony - 28 Drum kits - 20 preset + 1 custom Songs 100 Tracks 4 (Drum 1/Drum 2/Bass/Backing) Custom song - 1 song (approx 600 notes) Drum voices - 75 Aux functions - Track on/off, TAP start, Break, A-B repeat, Demo