Hands-on Review: Alesis DM8 USB Kit

E-kits lovers are sure to find Alesis a home. While boasting a wide variety of models, Alesis is easily considered one of the most recognizable brands on electronic drum kit market. Focusing the delivery of a quality product for those on a tighter budget, Alesis’ e-kits have become the ideal entry-level choice for many players out there.

The company has also been continuously improving their line, constantly releasing new models as well as upgrading the ones already available on the market. For this summer, Alesis unveiled two new kits that, in my opinion, are the link between their more professional (DM10) and their more accessible models (DM6). The newly released DM8 is available in two different options; the DM8 Pro Kit (only differing from the USB kit by offering RealHead drum pads and the StageRack) and the DM8 USB Kit, which I will be focusing on in this article.

First impression and assembling – Coming in a well-packed and well-protected box, the DM8 has proven to be one of the easiest Alesis’ kits I’ve ever assembled. A new addition to Alesis’ e-kits line, the DMRack is a four-legged heavy-duty rack that comes pre-assembled inside the box. All you have to do is to set a desirable height for your rack toms and quickly add the two extra legs and voila’! The rack is ready for drum and cymbal pads. To some, this might not seem like a big issue, but I remember spending at least a couple hours putting together one of the earlier Alesis e-kit racks, and if you plan to take the DM8 on the road, the DMRack is truly a time saver. Although the clamps that hold pads and the rack itself together are made of plastic, they seem sturdy and strong enough to resist intense pounding sessions. One of the best features of the DM8, from an assembly perspective, is that it won’t require the use of a drum kit, aside from the kick drum pad that is attached to its rack with six bolts. Assembly is also made more efficient by the clever combination of all the cables to a DB-25 connector that goes directly in the drum module. Patching is also easy and simple with the labeled cables, and the module can even accommodate two extra add-ons.

Quick Tip: Read the manual (I bet a lot of you won’t) and especially, learn to calibrate the kit. Once you have everything assembled you will be able to turn it on and start playing, which is great, but, if you spend the time to calibrate and learn the kit’s capabilities, you will certainly be able to enjoy and play the DM8 much more.

Pros – To my eyes (and ears) the very best thing about the DM8 is the high-end sonic quality of the module’s kits. You get 100 different preset kits that can cover an array of styles, from rock to jazz to electronic to Latin; plus, it allows you to manipulate and save its samples to your own customized kits. Once you better familiarize yourself with the drum module capabilities, you will start to see all the goodies it has to offer. Effects, such as compression and reverb, that can be applied directly to one sample, or on the overall sound of a kit; the ability to optimize the kit to your playing style through tweaking velocity, curve velocity and cross talking, and much more. Another great feature of the drum module, like the DM10’s, is that it comes with 75 accompaniment tracks that you can use for practicing as well as to test the kit’s capabilities. It will also let you record and (even quantize) your performance. The module also comes with USB connectivity so you can use samples from your favorite drum software and also record MIDI performances directly on your DAW. Just remember to lower the buffer size to bring latency to a minimum.

Cons – One of the greatest challenges throughout the history for e-kits manufacturers has been the issue of how to emulate the feel and articulation of a pad to a point that it feels and sound like a real drumhead. In the case of the DM8 USB Kit, I should warn you not to expect anything close to that. Although the pads are certainly better than many drum pads out there (they are softer, hence giving the sticks more bounce), they are still pretty much practice pads. If you are not comfortable with playing on practice pads, chances are you will detest this kit, or, at least, it will take some time for you to get use to it and learn to tolerate it. In the end, it will actually become more a matter of technique than quality. To maximize the articulation of the kit, I strongly suggest optimizing its retriggering settings, especially for those that play fast, so that you won’t be missing any notes during your performance. The good side of this type of drum pads is that, with the help of the quality-built DM Rack, they eliminate cross talking fairly well (a serious issue that I’ve consistently found in the DM10).

Unfortunately, I encountered two very bad problems with the DM8 USB Kit that has more to do with wearing than design. First, the rubber that should help to hold my kick pedal attached to the kick drum pad just came off during playing. I guess Alesis needs stronger glue for this essential, but overlooked piece of the kit. I tried to attach my pedal without it, but still it’s not 100% great. Once in a while I have to adjust the pedal position, which is quite annoying, especially if you are in the middle of a performance. The second big issue that I encountered was with the Ride Cymbal Pad. After a couple of hours of playing, it seems that the rubber pad came slightly off and the bell’s triggering became defective.



What the author wants to see – I believe this kit is almost there. Reasonably priced considering its great module and rack, and somewhat decent pads. Some further testing for wear and tear may need to be conducted by the manufacturer. Who wants to buy a product that will start falling apart only after a couple hours of playing? I also would love to see capabilities for importing samples on the drum modules. Built-in libraries are great, but the musician of the digital age is now looking for originality more than ever. No one wants to sound like someone else. And no one wants to bring a computer everywhere just so your own samples can be played.

Who will like the DM8 – In my opinion the DM8 makes a really great practicing kit. It can also be very useful for smaller gigs where the loudness of a real drum kit can be an issue (churches for instance). It is great for project studios where you might need to quickly record a beat into your DAW and it’s good for small sampling applications during a gig. The DM8 also makes a really great kit for kids that want to graduate from Rock Band.

Who won’t – Professional drummers that look for a reliable, consistent and durable kit for recordings and performances. Drummers who are not used to playing on practice pads, or that love the sonic complexity of an acoustic drum kit and especially, heavy hitters – they will just tear the DM8 apart. 

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Specifications

Built-in sounds: Over 750

Kits: 100 preset, 100 user

Accompaniment patterns: 75 preset, 75 user

8” Dual-zone snare with rimshot

Three 8" single-zone toms

Large kick pad for single and double pedals

14” Dual-zone ride with bell and bow

12” Crash with choke

8’ Hi-Hat with continuous-control pedal

DMRack with four-post design, wingbolt-adjustable clamps, and mini-boom cymbal arms

Mix input for practicing with external music players

USB-enabled for tracking and programming with music software

Price = $699

How pro is the Alesis USB Pro Drum Kit?

One of Alesis’ goals in the music industry is to win the electronic drum kit market by offering affordable products to the masses; no doubt about it. Every now and then, Alesis keeps releasing new models and configurations to their ever-growing inventory of electronic kit paraphernalia so it can cover the needs of all e-drummers out there. And what struck me the most when I came across the Alesis USB Pro Drum Kit, you ask? The price tag, but of course! While looking for an e-kit that could trigger sounds from my computer, this USB Pro Drum Kit was the one that seemed to give the most bang for my buck.

One reason I was looking for e-kits (other then the masculine need to constantly have more toys) was so that I could hybridize my acoustic drum set with all the new electronic sounds we have been incorporating in my band’s music. I found that there is no better solution than having a complete and racked MIDI controller kit rather than single pads here and there. For a module, rack, 3 cymbal pads, and 5 drum pads, the Alesis USB Pro Drum kit has an unbeatable price; $700. Here’s my evaluation after playing with it for a solid week.
THE RACK – The plastic rack that comes with the Alesis USB Pro Drum Kit can be solid foundation for the kit, once you’ve spent a decent amount of time putting it together. And by decent amount, I mean a couple hours. With a lot of bolts and parts, I would recommend you first familiarize with the structure before diving into setting up. If you just put things together and then try to move things around a bit here and there, you will end up wasting a lot of time trying to have everything set up as you want it. The problem with this time consuming task, is that makes the rack not easily portable. If you need this rack ready to go everyday on the road, you might as well travel with it semi-set-up, which, can become a pain in the butt if you don’t have tons of space on your trunk. Its plastic made structure also, unfortunately, plays a huge part when you try to optimize the kit, since it conducts the vibrations from on pad to the other, making cross talking inevitable.
THE PADS – The Mylar pads you will find with the USB Pro Drum Kit are definitely better than the regular rubber pads you can find on other Alesis e-kits, but not comparable to Mesh pads, that’s for sure. The beauty here is that you can tune their tension to your drum playing style and also replace them with any other drumheads available in the market to play with your favorite skins. I think they mimic a real drumhead pretty decently. The thing that bothered me the most about the pads is its so-called “dual zone” capabilities. It’s great that Alesis is trying to make the rim of the pads as a second trigger, but it’s almost impossible to separate it from triggering the pad sound when you hit it. Unless the intention for the rims was to just trigger a similar sound of the pads, which can, sometimes mask this flaw. The cymbal pads have a nice look, resembling a real brass cymbal. They are very sensitive, but lack the bounciness you get from real ones, obviously. I guess that would be too much to ask anyway. They have a great choke feature, if you can optimize it to work great, which proved to be a little tricky.
THE MODULE – The Alesis USB Pro Dum Kit comes with the Trigger I/O as the link for communication between the kit and your computer. Cables and inputs are well labeled making it pretty easy to install every pad with the right cable and in the right place. The problem with this piece lies on its annoying way of saving your settings and especially on its, in my opinion, non-methodical manual. Let’s put this way: Once installed, the module’s default presets shouldn’t be called presets. Cross talking happens pretty much everywhere, even by simply hitting the rack you can trigger a sound. Going through its manual, which unfortunately only explained the parameters you can control, but no method of how to use them in a cohesive way, gave me a really bad first impression of the kit. Tell me if I’m wrong, but don’t you want to be able to just sit down and play once you spend a decent amount of money on a new piece of equipment? You’ve already spent two hours putting things together and now you will need another two to make the kit sound, well, like a kit! A little frustrating, I must say. I ended up finding an online manual of how optimize the kit, sitting in the Alesis site, which made me question why this valuable piece of information wasn’t part of the physical manual provided. After a few hours of tweaking and a software upgrade (which mostly helps if you are using the BFD drum sample program included with the kit, which in my case I wasn’t planning to) I was able to finally lay down some beats and have much better experience with the Alesis USB Pro Drum Kit.

Wanting to find affordability and high-end quality in any product is something no one will deny. But the reality is that they rarely (if ever) walk hand and hand. Professional quality means big bucks and the Alesis USB Pro Drum Kit further proof of that. For its price, this e-kit is a damn good kit, as long as its flaws won’t get on your nerves. How pro is the Alesis USB Pro drum kit? I guess that’s dependant upon on what professionalism is for each musician. If you need an e-kit for practice, small gigs or for simple triggering, than this kit can do a pro job, other than that I wouldn’t count on it. No offense Alesis. Criticism is a powerful tool for constructive development.