Alesis Drum Set, Chrome Rack, Large Pads (DM10X Kit)

UPDATE: 7/31/2017 - moved from 3 to 4 stars.After getting the replacement power supply a little over a week later which I am grateful for, I have been spending a lot of time tweaking this kit, mostly adjusting the triggers due to crosstalk issues (where one trigger sets off another electronically). The crosstalk issues are annoying and it took a while to get rid of random crash or tom hits but I've gotten rid of most of it. There's still the occasional one or two.PRO's - You have 100 custom kit options and a vast array of "voices" to program with from an orchestral triangle to guitar sounds and even digitized voices. - There are some realistic kit sounds from authentic instruments like Gretsch, Ludwig, more. - Realistic feel and tactile response, particularly if you tighten the heads just a bit. - Excellent audio control: For example, my "MAIN OUT" has an audio control knob that allows me to adjust the output volume all at once or I can adjust each trigger individually. I can also adjust the audio to the headphones for when I'm in practice mode. These only change the volume of the drums/triggers not the external source volume (if taking feed from a monitor input for example). I do like all of this for my purposes but I'm having to get an add-on volume control to allow me to manually adjust the volume of an external source so I'm not at the mercy of the sound-board guy. - The hardware is very solid. I'm real happy with that. People have complained about no bass pedal but honestly, I prefer to pick out my own bass pedal that is responsive to my style. I personally bought the DW3000 dual setup - works fantastic. You also need to buy a drum throne you're comfortable with, most kits don't come with one but again, I want one that I like not something someone guesses is a one-size-fits-all sort of thing. The rubber rim strips do need to be installed during assembly but you can't tell that from the pictures and its not really a big deal. - Get a quality Drum Monitor for those times you want to audibly hear yourself. I mostly use headphones when practicing but my wife likes to hear me play, especially when I've got a series of songs I'm working on so I'll fire up the Drum Amp. I went with the Simmons DA50 which is perfect for my needs. I tried a couple other brands, one blew within the first 2 hours of using it.CON's: - If you're playing a complex set with rapid fills and crashes, I frequently get misses where I hit a crash or a tom trigger and it doesn't respond. - The hi-hat doesn't trigger as expected. What I often get is an open cymbal slap rather than a closed slap when the foot is all the way down. I haven't figured this one out yet but have recalibrated the hi-hat several times and changed the voice a few times and still have the issue. - The right hand crash position is awkward so I may end up moving it to a standard cymbal stand so I can move it around. - There is no uploading of your own drum voices into the DM10 X module however, you can create up to 100 of your own kits in the software within the module only. It would be nice to have the ability to make the changes on the computer then upload them to the module. - It would be nice if upon power-up, the module retained the last kit used rather than starting over from "000" default, forcing you to scroll to the kit you want to use. - I would really like to see more proactive software updates, the latest ones out there are 3+ years old.Other Observations:Customer Service: Outstanding! They're very responsive.Snare stand: I would have liked the snare stand to be a bit taller but its very sturdy and stable despite being a bit short. If using a standard snare thats maybe 3-4" thicker, it would be fine. I ended up buying a nice snare stand from Pearl that did the trick.Cables: I'm really anal when it comes to wiring, it was my profession for many years so I'm really picky about how things should be cabled. I ended up carefully removing the 10" of heat shrink and wrapped the entire kit with Wire Loom to clean it up. Turned out pretty nice.My end-goal is to use this for regular weekly gigs and practice so it will be important for me to have the ability to quickly set up and break down without compromising cables and hardware. Now that the cables are wrapped and tied properly, I'll be able to pivot the two side bars somewhat onto each other for easy portability.Summary:Would prefer better software maintenance but its overall a solid well made kit.

I spent a good deal of time researching electronic kits and ended up looking at both the Roland V-Drum series and the Alesis DM series. Not having a few thousand dollars to spend on a kit I had to go with the best value for the money I did have. The DM-10 X ended up being the one to get. For me I wanted good feeling drums to trigger outside kits as well as good quality sounds internally. I use the Roland V-Drums as the bases for comparison as they are pretty much the Cadillac of electronic drums, and they come in various flavors to suit different budgets. The closest V-Drum that compares in price is the TK-9 series. So how does it measure up?Drum Feel: V-Drums - There is no getting around it. The Roland V-Drum series is the best feeling electronic drums you can find today. They are also one of the most expensive. The mesh heads can't be beat, that's for sure. Now Alesis' RealHead pads have gotten a pretty tough time trying to compete what with the original ones feeling better than a rubber pad, but were more rigid than a natural drum. The DM-10 X... improves on this.Still not close to V-Drum quality and still can get a bit stiff feeling in certain situations, however I compared these pads to the DM-10 Pro kit and I do feel an improvement. These new pads are also thinner than previous drums. If you modify the RealHead drums with a mesh head conversion (DMDrummer has instructions) you get a LOT closer to the right feel, but the V-Drum still inches out ahead. [NOTE: If any of you are planning on getting this kit with the mesh upgrade in mind please note that due to the drum pads different design you will have to use a mod specific to the DM-10 X. I will update when I do the upgrade myself.]All the issues you maybe have heard about the DM-10 having horrible crosstalk between triggers is a thing of the past. No crosstalk between pads. There is even zero crosstalk between the heads and rim triggers. Right out of the box you will be playing the kit with very little hiccups. Okay all of your acoustic live drummers our there listen, because I want you to set your expectations accordingly: NO ELECTRONIC KIT WILL MATCH THE FEEL OF REAL DRUMS. Electronic kits can only do the best they can to get close as they can. Not even the most expensive $5K+ V-Drums will completely feel like the real thing.Cymbal Feel: Tie (sorta) - Roland's VH-11 HiHat feels more genuine, but Alesis' DMPad 12" HiHat is no slouch. If you like getting a HiHat bell sound then the Roland pushes ahead as the VH-11 is a dual zone trigger with the DMPad 12" being single zone. The crash cymbals on the other are pretty much on par with each other with the Alesis getting points for offering larger cymbals, which really does help with the feel of them.I originally wanted to go with the DM-10 Pro kit with the Surge cymbals to get the most realistic feel, however every Pro kit I tried the cymbals had triggering issues (they seemed to like a small sweet spot and not trigger anywhere else on the cymbals). These cymbal pads do have a nice feel to them for being rubber triggers. I have had a little issue with the choke on the crashes having a narrow sweet spot, but this could come from me not doing any fine tuning (will update when I get off my butt and actually tweak my kit).Kit Layout: DM-10 X - No comparison. When it comes to drum size and amount the best TK-9 kit will always come up short to the DM-10 X. The TK-9 sports a single 10" snare and three 8" toms while the DM-10 X has two 10" toms and three 12" (one snare and two toms) drum pads. The DM-10 X offers larger cymbals at two 14" crashes and a 16" ride as opposed to the TK-9's 13" ride and single 12" crash (both Alesis and Roland offer three zone rides).I have been trying out various electronic kits in the 8" and 10" sizes thinking that I would be okay with that, but when this baby came to the house and I started playing on the 10" and 12" heads I was glad I went for this kit. While the larger pads make it trickier to adjust your set the way you like it (due to the pads taking up more space) it's a small price to pay.Hardware: Tie - Both have rugged metal bars with fast locking fasteners. It's pretty easy to make adjustments with wingscrews for no-tool adjustments. Both also have the same limitations like the cymbal stands not being adjustable in regards to their location on the rack. BTW his isn't as big a deal as it sounds. If you get creative with the boom adjustments you can cover a lot of variations in cymbal placement.Sounds: DM-10 X - If sounds are your focus the Alesis DM-10 knocks the ball out of the park. I have played through both the Roland TD-9 drum module and the Alesis DM-10 and I notice a definite difference in the sound quality of the instruments played. The DM-10 sports over 1000 16-bit uncompressed instrument samples as opposed to the TD-9's paltry 552 instrument samples (in compressed mp3 and WAV format at that). The instruments on the DM-10 also sport Dynamic Articulation, which means they have been multi-sampled for variances in timbre based on how hard you hit the instrument.The editing parameters on both sound modules are roughly on par with the TD-9 focusing on drum pitch, muffling and cymbal size and the DM-10 focusing on pitch, decay levels, coarse/fine tuning and pitch based on velocity. The DM-10 gets a sizeable edge in the effects department. The TD-9 mostly focuses on ambient parameters for room size and mic placement along with a 2 band equalizer. The DM-10 does the same for room size and equalization, but also adds compression along with it. On top of that you also have additional effects you can add like chorus, flanger, various delays and more.I still haven't played with all the options on this thing like creating drum kits (I'm looking forward to trying the layered drum options) or editing sounds. Heck I haven't even calibrated the drums yet. I will update as I get more into the DM-10 X. If you want a really good feeling electronic drum kit with some great features at a decent price this is the kit to get.

Pros:Big kit for the priceGood quality drums and cymbalsExcellent metal standBrain has lots of kits and optionsGood response and sensitivityCons:Brain sometimes can't keep up with advanced drummers/complicated beatsWires all over the place are messyDrum heads are loud (I switched to mesh heads which solved the problem)

Turned up really quickly and setup really easy and plays really good , one thing i would recommend is upgrading the skins to mesh for that more real feel i went with 628drums white mesh kit and now its perfect and a lot quiter when hitting , also make sure you update the software on the module for better responce apart from all that 10/10

Its the reason I chose this kit. You got tones of used parts all over ebay to add on. I added used Alesis cymbals from older dm10 kits. I even got the hihat upgrade . I bought an extra tom. Its already compatible with the hihat xpro. Its the old ones that need the upgrade. I managed to get one hell of a kick ass sound out of it. You have to learn how to play in the settings to get it to sound right.

La batería es excelente estoy muy contento con ella!!!. Lo único que me ha causado problemas es el hi-hat, cuando lo abres y cierras hace un sonido raro pero puede ser problema de configuración. En general ¡gran producto!

After fewer than 15 sessions, my drum module won't turn on. After repeated attempts to contact Alesis support via their website I have still not received a response to my emails.