Yamaha DD55 Pro

I agree with most of the comments of the other reviewers.

The only downside to this instrument is that the pedals are hard to keep in place. However, I did find a solution by
buying a rubber anti-slide mesh mat at my local hardware store (you know, the one you use in kitchen sinks or cabinets).

Then, I cut out the size of the pedal's bottom and attached it with a strong glue -- epoxy or some modern day strong glue. Problem solved. Pedals work perfectly!

Hope this tip helps out others.

I just wished there was a way to save your custom presets when you turn the power off.

I just wished there was a way to save your custom presets when you turn the power off.

Very easy to use and good manual. Has lots of features accessible only via MIDI sysex commands that I have not experimented with.

Has seven velocity sensitive digital drum pads and two footswitches. I think it's 32 note poly. Any of the 200+ drum and percussion samples can be assigned to any of the pads\controllers. Has 45 preset kits and one user definable kit.
Has built in reverb. 100 built in songs for accompaniment, the recorded drum parts can be muted. Can record your performance.
General MIDI compatible for connecting to sequencers or sound modules.
Has a "hand persussion" mode that's very cool.

Most of the drum sounds are surprisingly good. Pads respond quite well to velocity. The internal tone generator for song playback is nothing to write home about, but what do you expect for this price range? The built in songs range from good to super cheesy.

I bought this thing to use as an input device for my computer. I could no longer stand tapping out drum parts into Sonar using a keyboard! The DD55 really works well for this. General MIDI implementation worked pretty well right out of the box, I can use it to trigger my other sound modules and record MIDI just fine. I have to agree with a previous reviewer, the MIDI note mappings on the custom kit seem to have a mind of their own sometimes. Once you have it set though, it works fine most of the time. The built in speakers don't sound too great, but plug this baby into a keyboard amp,sound system\PA or headphones and it sounds HUGE. You could just use the built in drum sounds, but I prefer to be able to have a wider range of drum tones, so I use my external sound modules or DXi synths\samplers on my recordings.

I don't know about reliability judging from reviews of the earlier version of this product. I bought mine from zZounds with the two year extended warranty so if it dies I'll get it fixed. I would definitely recommend getting the extended warranty. I'm not gigging this thing, just using it in the studio occasionally. (Though I often find myself just sitting down to jam on it with the preset tunes! )It's really a blast.

Dont know.

The DD55 looks like a toy, but it really can be a great learning tool as well as a good MIDI controller. I bought it strictly for an inexpensive MIDI input device, but it's actually a lot of fun to play!I'm mainly a guitarist, but I have a Pearl drum kit in my studio and can pound out a decent beat. Miking up and recording drums is a royal pain. With this thing I can play beats\fills into the sequencer, then freely assign sounds to any one of many sound modules, so much easier.

The DD55 sounds great just by itself though. Even if you just want to plug in headphones and play around on it, the DD55 is a good deal for the price. Has a few quirks in the programming dept, but nothing I can't deal with. My main gripe would be the lack of more than one user definable preset.

everything about this unit is fine except for the hi hat pedal. the false triggering from hi hat pedal will lead to alot of frustration. its far too sensitive to be used reliably. about one thousandth of an inch determines wheather or not the high hat sound is triggered. that means even the slightest un intentional bounce from your foot, shoe, or the pedal itself will cause the hi hat to sound when you dont want it to. this is especially frustrating when i try to play patterns on the hi hat pedal

If you can plug in a lamp, you're in. You just plug it in (or insert batteries) and start playing.

The manual is easy to read, even for those who have never used a MIDI instrument before.

Pretty good overall. The only effect available without using software is reverb, and it's all or nothing. You cannot assign reverb values to each pad. You can, however adjust the individual volume of each pad. This is useful for attaining a mix of sounds to suit your taste.

The snare/tom settings are great. So are the latin percussion sounds. The "hand percussion" setting is a lot of fun.

The bass drum and hi-hat sounds are a bit lacking. The bass sounds lack that "oopmh" and the hi-hat "open" sounds are just ok... dont expect to do any "quick" hi-hat work without a sequencer. (16ths ect). 16th's will work fine closed, but open the sound tends to "clip". I substituted the little foot pedal that came with the unit for a spring loaded sustain pedal. Works fine for the hi-hat and felt better to my taste. This pedal did not work for the bass however.

The onboard speakers dont sound great. I hooked the DD55 up to a wireless headphone set and was amazed at how great these things really do sound. I imagine through a PA, they would sound awesome.

Stepping on the hi-hat pedal without striking a pad will produce the hi-hat "snap". A great feature.

All pads are assignable. For you metal drummers, you can assign a bass drum to 2 pedals and double bass all day.

Plenty of good cymbal sounds incl. splash and china.

No problems yet. I did break the "mini" sticks pretty quickly that come with the unit, but being a fusion drummer, I tend to break sticks a good bit anyway.

Havent needed them.

Yeah, I'd buy it again. Its a high end toy, but use it where you might use a drum machine and dont expect it to perform as well as a Roland V, and your fine. Its well worth the money...

Just too much fun - right out of the box ! Bought the DD-55 after checking out the more expensive Roland designs. While not a drummer, (purchased to add 'live' percussion to MIDI), the elevated pads seem more effective than the Roland 'coffee tables'. The 3 digit LED display serves for all functions - although large and bright, it can sometimes be confusing as to which function the readout applies to, e.g. song #,kit etc. - might have been nice to include a separate LED for each function, like the one dedicated to 'Hand Percussion'. Pretty straightforward cockpit all the same. The manual is complete and well written.

192 drum voices grouped into 45 kits. A single user-defineable kit allows you to progaram ANY voice to ANY of the 7 pads and two foot switches.

Includes a full 128 voice GM set,(XG-NOT) - used effectively with the built-in demo songs & patterns. 32 voice polyphony. Reverb can be switched on/off from the front panel.

MIDI implementation is very well done. Any pad/switch can be programmed to transmit any note on any channel. Everything defaults to channel 10. Additional Reverb/Chorus/Effects are accessible via MIDI only - not front panel.

Comes WITHOUT a power adapter - a bonus or a fault depending on whether you do fleamarkets regularly - where a 12VDC/1A unit can probably be found for a fraction of the price of the Yamaha wall-wart.

All pads and ONE footswitch are velocity sensitive. I'm sure a real drummer will feel uncomfortable with the footswitches at first, but they get the job done.

Beefs? None, except the complete ommission of any brush voices or kits. For a 'Pro' percussion box ? Go figure.

Voices are great for pop/rock/jazz. Not much for symphony types - not even tympani voices. (It would be way cool to 'pedal a kettle' with the dinky little footswitch !) Rim shots are better than most regular samples I've heard. Lack of brush kit(s) will limit ballad boys and jazz junkies.

Has fallen off my desk once and survived. Reliability of the pads after continued serious thumping remains to be seen. The detent on the selector wheel is a little too loose for my personal taste - I could imagine brushing it with an elbow on a live gig and having to somehow recover on-the-fly. Maybe a 'panel lock' button, as found on other gear, would make things more secure.

Too new to tell, but Yamaha's network of dealers and services has been excellent with other gear I've purchased.

Have had bags of fun with it right from the start...it definitely has 'toy' value, but is a very effective addition to my keyboard-centric MIDI setup. I don't know what qualifies as a 'Pro' desktop drum set, but this unit is exactly what I was looking for as an antidote to drum loops>loops>loops>loops...

This little unit is very easy to use, once you have looked through the manual. You can't edit the patches, not from the front panel anyway, although given the quality, I'm not sure I'd ever need to. The preset grooves are cheesy, but hey, what do you expect ? It's quite fun to play along with them, with the drum backing turned off. This is quite a useful way to get used to the dynamics of the pads.

One of the great things about this unit is the fact that you can play it in a very similar way to a conventional drum kit. 2 arms, 2 legs, how much polyphony does that take ?

The unit is defaulted to run with the internal reverb on. This sounds good with some of the kits, and not so good with others. With the reverb on, the bass drum is still dry, which is a nice touch and will help to avoid a mix being swamped with low-end reverb. One niggle is that there are plenty of other effects available, but these can only be accessed via sys-ex messages from a sequencer, and not fro the front panel. This is a shame, since it opens up all sorts of creative possibilies, but not for those without a sequencer. It would also be nice if effects could be assigned to individual pads (delay on a snare pad for example, but not on the toms) Clearly the bass drum pad can be excluded from FX, so why not other pads too ?

I found it easy to record in real-time onto a sequencer, and then play back threough the DD55. Kit changes are recorded too, which is handy.


Forget about the on-board sequencer for serious use.

I'd forget about the on-board

These sounds are great. There's a wide variety, and the kits are well thought out. I've tried using them for a variety of styles, and they all sound good.

As a drummer I found it surprisingly close to the real thing, once you get used to the proximity of the pads. Probably the least expressive element is the hi-hat, and the other cymbals which, given the level of expressiveness which comes with the real thing, is not surprising. I have started to use the unit in conjunctio with a real hi-hat and ride cymbal, recorded in audio next to the midi channel for the DD55. It sounds great, much easier to play, especially for 16ths.

The velocity sensitivity is pretty good. I wouldn't want to try too many press-rolls, but all in all it's fine, especially for the price.

I've tried using the DD55 to play soundfonts, so far with limited success, but this might be due to my poor soundfont construction rather than any shortcomings of the DD55. However I have noticed a real tendency for the midi channels and notes assigned to the individual pads to wander in quite an alarming way, I'm not sure why. In theory, soundfonts open up all sorts of fun and games with this unit. The can be set up so that the timbre, as well as the volume of a drum sample changes depending on the velocity. This could make the DD55 an even more poweful tool. Anyone else tried this yet ?

Early days yet, but it seems fine so far.

Never needed it.

I love this little unit, and I'd thoroughly reccommend it to those who need to play drums either for recording, jamming about, or perhaps even live. Allright, it's not a real kit, but it also does things a real kit can't do, and it's very cheap. Use it for what it is

When I went to a 'real' music shops in Denmark St in London, one snotty young guy in the shop said they didn't sell it because it was 'a toy'. He suggested I try a toy shop as they only sold 'real' equipment for pro's.

Fine by me mate. I now have a 'toy' which has enabled me to play drums more of less the way I used to, any time of the day or night, with great sounds, straight to midi, all for less than two hundred pounds.

I found it really hard to find this unit in any music shop in London, Could it be that store owners don't want to sell it because it might make people realise that they don't need to spend thousands of pounds on 'pro' gear to get the sounds and playability they need ?

Plug it in and bang on it. Headphones sound great. Take 10 minutes and read the manual to figure out the menu interface.

7 drum pads, 3 position pad sensitivity, each pad can be adjusted individually for volume, on-off reverb, midi, headphones/line out, 2 foot pedals, about 100 preset kits, 100 songs to jam along with.

Sounds much better than I expected, considering it looks kinda like a toy. Sensitivity is good, good dynamics, very good sounding kits, thru headphones or a PA - dynamite.

So far so good. less than a week old, but the pads seems pretty sturdy and made for hitting. I've smacked it pretty hard and it hasn't crapped out yet.

Yamaha is good stuff

I wanted something to record with, but I don't want a big kit or a drum machine. This drum thing fits my needs perfectly. I'm impressed with the sound. For the price - great. Her's a little MP3 of some of the kits, I'm not playing, just banging, but you can hear how it sounds recorded.
www.nowhereradio.com/keeney

Super easy, turn it on and start playing. Presets are very good and there are a lot of them. You've got to have the manual in order to figure out how to get to the different settings i.e sensitivity, pad assignment, etc. The manual is very good. It details the drum kits and assignments and how to get it hooked up to your computer or other MIDI devices.

You can strike multiple pads and it sounds great. I especially like the striking two toms at once. Has some real punch. Haven't hooked it up to my PC yet so I do not know how many of the other parameters you can change. Has a built in reverb. It is GM MIDI compatable, or at least that is what the manual says. It will only store one song so don't even think of using that for any live performance or recording.

So many kits, so little time! All the kits sound great! I run it through my mixer and it sounds awesome. It'll work with any type of music I intend to play. The built-in reverb is ok but you can not change how much of it you get. Seems very responsive to different velocities of strike on the pads.

I got it for Christmas so I really do not know. I will be using it for home recording.

Haven't had to deal with them.

If it were lost or stolen I would get another or better unit. It's worth every penny. I'm a guitar player and have never played drums until I got this unit. For what I'm able to pound out right now, it does a great job. The floor pedals really need some work though. I'm thinking of moding the bass kick with a real kick pedal. It just moves around to much for me and is really hard to get a consistant beat. This is the only downfall I can find with the unit. Also the footpads are not swappable with each other. Since I write a lot of my own music I needed the drum parts. I had a Roland TR-505 and it was impossible to tap out any beats with it though the sounds were great. I wish I kept it now and I would have run MIDI to it and used the DD55 Pro as a trigger so I could layer the sounds more. Overall I'm very pleased with it though, and hope to start adding the drum parts to my music soon(that is as soon as I can get fairly consistant with what I'm doing on the drums). It's a real fun unit.

Fairly easy out of the box use, but I recommend reading the manual first and then go on with assigning the pads etc.

MIDI interfacing is great but my favorite feature is the hand percussion setting which is great for putting a warm latin touch to your music

The touch sensitive pads are almost like playing acoustic drum...the harder you strike them the louder they are.

I have only had the DD-55 a couple of days and so to comment on reliability would be premature.

I haven't dealt with Yamaha directly for anything yet....hope my luck will out!!

Having been acoustic drummer for over 20 years this was a real change. I do not play professionally anymore, I got out of it and sold all my equipment four years ago. Now I have 'jones' to just fool with drums at home which is an apartment so acoustic drums are out of the question...so I got these and I am playing again and my neighbors don't even know thanks to the headphone jack!!

If you want to here somthing that will blow your mind plug your DD55into akeyboard amp a roland KC500 or either a peavey kba 300 if you think this machine sounds good now you will not believe the differece although you must be careful with the volume you may burst the windows out. no kidding with one of these amps your DD55 will sound like or real close to a $5000.00 set of rolands