I Love my DM10 X Mesh kit!!!

Edit Subject

Last weekend was my first gig with this kit where we were asked to play really quiet.

Although my previous bass player never liked "Quiet gigs", I've always enjoyed the challenge. My acoustic kit has long power shells, and it is LOUD! Plying quiet is fun and challenging.

My new DM10 x Mesh kit allows me to rock out just like I was playing a loud gig! It's all up to the sound guy to set my volume!

No more tripping sticks on microphones, no more laborious setups... this kit is a breeze to work with, from setup to take-down!

I've switched the ride cymbal and the crash 2 positions, and also switched the right rear rack leg for the left, and now have my singing mic stand as part of my rack!

Love it!

I did buy this kit to become my main gigging kit.

I'm really glad that it is working out so incredibly well for that. Especially with almost no 'learn' time involved yet. Yes, I did tweak on it quite a bit over the twenty or so gigs I've played with it so far, but all of that was really easy to do without much study time.

Keep in mind, however, that I am a "Manual Reader", so as soon as I ordered the kit, I downloaded and read the manual. I like to know what's going on, even though the first read through doesn't get everything to stick completely.

Another reason I wanted this kit is for an entirely different purpose. I'm working on making a movie, all on my own, and this includes the score.

So I also bought this to be my main midi controller, since I feel much more comfortable playing drums than keys.

I've played bass guitar and some lead guitar using electric drums before via midi. So I'm excited to get the chance to do this sort of stuff with a full array of orchestral instrument VSTs at my command!

That's also where I feel that the addition of the SamplePad Pro will be a wonderful benefit ;)

Thanks for your feedback, Daniel! Glad you're loving the kit :)

I can hardly believe the quality of some of the sounds in this DM10 module - well... except that I've always known Alesis to have great sounds.

But when I happened upon some of these guitar samples... Wow!!! There are a LOT of awesome sounds in this module, and I've barely begun to scratch the surface!

It's still gig season for me. Three shows this weekend and this kit makes it much easier for me to get from one to the next quickly, and in a more relaxed manner.

I am looking forward to finding a bit of a slow-down time where I can set this up in my drum room and just play around with all that the module has to offer - and then hook it up to my workstation for some VST goodness as well!

My Singer has a studio with ProTools. I only have MusicMaker Premium - so I'm eager to see how that DAW works with this as a controller. I can kinda tell already that it'll be fun!

Excellent! Have fun playing your kit, and don't hesitate to post if you're having issues :)

Your experience is much like mine, I really am enjoying it as well. After playing acoustic for more than 40 years, I was in a position to move to electronic and chose the Alesis mostly for the price but the reviews were really good too. I also noticed right away that the support is phenomenal - hands down the best support I've seen in this industry.

I am noticing after playing for a little over 4 months every weekend that I lose audio for the kicks or cymbals when playing a crash swell or quick double bass/tom combo. The audio basically just cuts out. I don't know if I'm over-driving the audio out from the DM10X module or if the module is starting to fail but I was curious if you've noticed this as well but also wondered if so, what are you doing about it??

Wow. Yeah... it's not a common thing, but yes... once in a while. And it seemed to me like it was only from the outputs, not through the headphone jack - but I'd have to confirm that, which might be tough. I don't use the HP jack while playing through the PA. If I use buds, I do so with in-ear monitors - not the DM10.

But this didn't happen to me after 4 months, it did that right from the start - but very, very seldom. It somehow felt like an impedance issue?

Hey Jinaeve, I've found some answers that make all the difference - so far, at least.

In the main forum there are topics concerning Xtalk (cross-talk correction).

Those Ext Trig settings are the whole key to all of this. It's a balancing act between many various settings: Sensitivity, Threshold, Xtalk, Retrigger, etc.,

Messing with these settings are the things that could easily give me splitting headaches. It seemed that as much as it made sense to me, I still felt fairly lost when I started messing around.

Over at the Alesis Drummer Community forum, Hellfire has a nice thread on the subject: Setting Xtalk on the DM10
http://www.alesisdrummer.com/index.ph...

After reading some of it, I used a bit of limited memory to mess around with my settings from my more problematic areas with only a half an hour to work before tonight's rehearsal, and it made a HUGE difference in the right direction, so I'm going to bring my laptop at a time when we're not practicing so I can spend all day if I need it.

When I'm done I'm also going to make another kit preset or two.

So far I'm still just using the onboard sounds from the latest firmware update of the DM10 module, a Yamaha kit with pinstripe heads and a Gretsch maple kit, both using the same blend of samples for the thundering bass and the same snare and cymbals. I've been using that Yamaha kit for all of my gigs so far and I love it. Everyone else seems to as well. But now I want to spend some "Me" time and just dig around at the other sounds in this awesome module.

Cheers, and I hope you've already got it sorted. if not, I hope the link above helps you get it all working.

Some additional notes, he says in there to reset to factory and do the firmware update. I didn't want to lose my custom presets so I didn't do that. I already performed the update when the kit was new.

I did as he said to start with Threshold, which really helps. I did find, however, that just because he says to get this number as high as we ca live with, that's not incredibly high on some of my triggers - but it is still higher than it was.

Last rehearsal, I stumbled around with these settings without knowing much more than I did after reading the manual. I was a little worried when I turned on my kit tonight and my Perc 2 Cymbal trigger was sounding off - then it was constantly doing a somewhat soft roll.

Being a problem to start with, I did as Hellfire's initial article suggests - turn Xtalk down to 0 and started turning up Threshold and it stopped firing on its own right away. Further tweaking made it work better than I've ever had it - and I know I can get this stuff better as I delve deeper.

I hope this helps, my friend!

Wow. When I first got my DM10X Mesh kit, I didn't yet have an alternative to my felt beaters on my double kick pedal. I couldn't just not play my new kit right?

Wrong! I thought I could get through a few gigs with my felt beaters - and I did, but it melted my bass head petty badly.

My plastic beaters finally came in and the melting of the head halted - bu the damage was already done.

I have to say: These heads are freaking tough! But felt CAN and WILL wreck them in a hurry!!!

That said, Bill R., from this forum, told me:

If you need to get replacement parts for your kit, please contact our parts team by calling 401-658-3131 Ext. 1403, or you may also email them at parts@inmusicbrands.com.

After checking out other mesh head options, I decided that I would rather stick with what came on my kit than anything else I could find, so I followed Bill R's advice.

I kinda knew, just from his manners on this forum, that he wouldn't/couldn't steer me wrong!

Friendly and fast... parts in stock... simple phone call... Bam!!! I Love this!!!

Just got my brand new head in the mail, packed to survive the mail truck going through several nasty accidents along the way, which is nice!

Alesis did really good by these heads, by the way. Things are really tough, super quiet, and highly playable. I was surprised nearly a year ago when I got this kit, and am still surprised and impressed today.

Funny, by ignoring that simple rule about the felt beaters for a few gigs (but my gigs are 4 hours each) I managed to destroy a beautiful little mesh pad.

The rest of the pads still look like that day I pulled them from the box! I've been using wood-tip sticks too. No dents, no marks... they still look unplayed - and I've actually pounded on them really hard on several occasions - it kinda happens during those long gigs and adrenaline rises! LOL

I try to keep my cymbals in good shape. So far I've found that this works great:

I grabbed a packet of Armor-All Cleaner Wipes - Matte

I keep that little packet in my stick bag pocket and pull one of them out on occasion, not that often, and just mildly wipe down the finger-grab and stick marks.

When I'm done with the cymbals I use the same wipe on the rim bumpers and then the rack, etc.,

Works great!

The big thing here, for me, is the cymbals. I'm not a stickler about blemishes, heavens no. I do like how they look nice and new, though! But more importantly, I want those rubber sections to remain in good order. Armor-All is supposed to be good for that, so that's where I went first. Any other ideas?

So far It's been working like a dream!

I bundled my 1/4 cables into a nylon mesh cable sleeve and ty-wrapped it to the stand making it easy to quickly connect everything. I also kept the two side arms a little loose so I can pivot them for quick take-downs.

I also found that the Husky rolling tool box is perfectly sized to keep all my triggers, throne, snare hardware, double bass pedals and high-hat pedal along with a Power/Surge UPS box and all my ancillary cables and just enough 1" padding to protect everything. I roll this in with my semi-collapsed stand and can set up in a flash. My gigs aren't as long, only about 2-3 hours but this really helps speed things up.

I also recently upgraded my Simmons DA50 amp to a Simmons DA200S - unbelievable difference it makes! I'm also able to connect the DA200S to our snake directly for added volume into the mains - works like a charm!!

Sweet!

Yeah, I fold the left side of my rack forward across the front, and the right side backward and across the back, then strap the thing like that. All cables already strapped to the rack where they need to be.

I Love how durable this thing has been so far! Just shy of a year now!

Cool news about the DA200S! Congrats on the upgrade!

One of my guitarists is amazing at manufacturing custom... anything, and is quite worldly at finding things.

When I first bought my DM10X Mesh kit, he asked me to try out a pair of cases that he had laying around for years. He and his company only used them for hauling folding chairs to and from product shows and such.

They're perfect!

I didn't have any foam to work with, but corrugated cardboard is used a lot in keeping things g-force safe, so I used that (doubled in thickness) to make the dividers, and glued black fabric over them. The Bass drum tower and Hi Hat pedal each have their own black pillow case.





I made partitions with some foam in place to both hold down the pads under them, and to hold the bells of the cymbals on top.





The DM10 module box has a hole cut in the bottom to accept the rack mount, then two pieces of foam hold the box high enough in the case to accommodate the mount peg that pokes out the bottom.



The cases are awesome! They each have two casters and molded in handles on the opposite end, so they can be pulled along like a dolly. But one thing I noticed when going through tight spots, while the case is upright, it easily travels perfectly sideways! If I can fit through, the case will follow, no problem, no hassle!



I still plan to revisit the cases a little. That same guitarist has found a whole bunch of flight-case foam, so I may make them more like guitar cases for my drums. These cases also allow for adaptable depth, so when I add another kit, I'll be able to add another partition to each case to hold the added pads and cymbals.

My rack folds up nicely with the cable snake nicely strapped in place. When I get a second kit for expansion, I'll beef up this rack with the rack that comes with the new kit.



A King Size Flat sheet covers my precious drums in the studio when not in use ;)

I keep hearing Roland users claim that Alesis cymbals and pads don't hold up and are lower quality or some such.

I have been playing this kit hard, on the road live at gigs and I just can't imagine anyone making such reports unless they just don't know!

Perhaps they test them with hammers on concrete?

I've never been good at "taking care of my things", at least until I got this kit. But I'm certainly not babying this thing.

I used non-gloss Armor All wipes to erase the stick/finger blemishes from the rubber portions of the cymbals and give anything else that needs it a little cleaning. Those wipes work great.

The cymbals are awesome, I think. I don't smack 'down' onto them though, I hit them more of an edge-on style into that supple rubber, which plays really nicely.

I used to work in a plastics factory and can tell that the hard vinyl used to make these cymbals is the expensive stuff. They did a really nice job constructing these things.

I've finally pulled one of my drums (pad) apart to change the head. My bass drum.

Silly me used felt bass beaters until a got my plastic ones. "Oh a little bit of playing (more like several four hour gigs) won't hurt the mesh, I'm sure", yeah... no! Just don't do it!

Wood, stone, plastic... anything but felt!!! Okay maybe avoid stone too!!! LOL

Anyway, Bill R. recommended contacting Alesis Support when I couldn't seem to find an 8" mesh head in stock anywhere. InMusic (Alesis Support) was fast, friendly, and worked with me over the phone! Remember those days?

Yeah... I got my new drum head fast and well packed.

Disassembling the bass pad was awesome! I carefully peeled the foam pillar from the head to reveal a really well-built little drum! Had the new head back on in no time and started trying different tensions from really lose to a bit tighter.

My snare and tom pads still show no signs of wear. With the use (as mentioned in above post) of Armor All wipes, my cymbals still look unused as well.

Now I don't hit super hard, but I'm not soft either, and I've been doing four hour gigs for almost a whole year with this kit.

Something to consider. I've been playing hard rock all my life on acoustic drums. I love playing acoustic drums and nothing will ever change that. I'll also never sell my acoustic kit.

When I ordered my DM10X Mesh kit, I intended to use it to replace my acoustic kit from gig playing. Easier volume control, easier transport, and the thought of eventually venturing into using more and more percussive and even non-percussive sounds via midi or eve just triggers... it's an exciting thing to think about.

Once I set it up and started dialing in the sounds, I was firstly just utterly amazed at how quiet the thing is when just striking the pads and cymbals. I was astounded by the 'feel' of playing them and was happily impressed with the sounds available.

Being an acoustic drummer most of my life, I knew I wasn't going to play this kit like my acoustics. I knew it was going to be a new instrument to get used to. I was shocked at how easy the transition was, but yeah... there is a transition and to think otherwise would be fooling ourselves.

After rocking hard on this kit for nearly a year and have it do it's part so well makes me shudder when I read silly reports of negativity coming from impatience, lack of reading the manual, and/or lack of understanding of what these things really are.

I also understand 'real' complaints too. I mean, no matter what is manufactured, there's bound to be problems here and there with specific cases, so I'm not trying to say that every gripe or complain is unfounded. heavens no. But I've also seen people discredit these amazing products without really knowing - and that, in my opinion, is a real shame to the consumer looking for honest advice.

I just saw someone say on YouTube to not take the Command kit on the road because the rack uses plastic parts. How many people watch that and actually believe that crap?

If you haven't seen the quality of an Alesis kit yet, don't pay too much heed into stuff like that. Plastics can be used to make engines! The plastic components on the DM10X Mesh kit, although I know it's no longer available, is actually a boon as opposed to a hinderance! It's top-notch plastic made by folks who know how to engineer the stuff!

Okay... end rant for now! LOL

I've played many gigs and have had many rehearsals since I've started this praise and I feel even stronger admiration for my DM10X Mesh kit now than I did then!