Archive Old post. Originally published 4 April 2012 on the WordPress version of this site. Preserved here for the search engines and the curious. Old me had opinions.
Geek — — 6 min read

Alesis DM10 X Kit Review

When I got my DM6 I really did love it, as I posted on here. I was so excited when Alesis agreed to send me a DM10x Kit to review and was looking forward to a bigger, better, more expensive kit. I really wanted to fall in love with it. I didn’t. That being said enjoy my review, just because I didn’t love it I do know lots of people who do!

I’ve covered the Alesis range before so I won’t go into that again. The DM10x Kit is the new flagship product in Alesis’s electronic drum range and comes in at £899RRP.

What you get

As with the DM6 the DM10 comes in a massive box and weighs close to 40Kg. It was a similar cardboard box tetris but was all well packed and the individual boxes are labelled clearly as to the contents. Inside the box:

  • DM10 drum module
  • (3) RealHead 12” drum pads
  • (2) RealHead 10” drum pads
  • RealHead Kick pad*
  • DMPad 12” Hi-Hat
  • (2) DMPad 14” Crash
  • DMPad 16” Ride
  • RealHat pedal
  • XRack, complete with all clamps and arms
  • Snare stand
  • Module mount
  • Cable snake
  • Cable wrap strips
  • Drum key
  • Allen wrench
  • Power supply
  • Quick start guide
  • User manual

The Setup

The super basic Ikea style setup instructions are even more frustrating than the DM6, there are 4 poles that are almost identical except in length and it took putting it together once the wrong way before realising which tubes the instructions were talking about. The frame is really nice though, super heavy weight chrome 1 1/2” tubing as per most hardware frames. It really did feel very solid with it’s 4 post design. You get a lot of space for the 4 large toms and cymbal arms. It looks super impressive, much more so than the DM6. The quick release clamps are a welcome addition and having a separate, dedicated snare stand is a great touch, although the quality of the snare stand was slightly at odds with the rest of the kit to be honest.

Each of the pads and cymbals go back to separate 1/4” TRS jack inputs on the DM10 module and are all nicely labelled. The varying lengths and cable sheath near the module end keep them all nicely together, you also get a bag full of velcro strips for securing and tidying up the cables. I even managed to get a couple of my DM6 DMPad Cymbals added whilst I was setting up.

The Module

This is completely different and looks the business. You have a mixer and large LCD along with a load of great transport and option buttons. It really is nicely laid out and simply to use. You really do get a whole wealth of outputs and inputs on this module. It features 12 trigger inputs (10 of which are used out of the box), MIDI in and out, a USB out (which sends the MIDI to your host over USB which is great), Phono input for hooking up an iPod or similar, you also have 2 stereo outputs, both are 1/4” TRS jacks. Also on the front you have a headphone out.

The sounds are much better than the DM6 and it is clear that Alesis have spent some time and money on making sure they actually sound like a drum kit, with nearly 100 presets covering Rock, Jazz, Electronic, Ambient and World you would be hard pushed to find something you didn’t like. There are some great sounds in there, there are also some terrible ones, but you can fully customise anything you like in the presets or start from scratch. You can modify the shell type, drum or cymbal size, reverb, literally anything. It really does mean you can get the perfect sound. The built in songs and sequencers are good for practising and can also all be modified and customised.  I had quite easily added my additional cymbals to the setup using the nice big LCD and jog wheel.

One of the big differences with the DM10 is the amount of MIDI and trigger options you get, you can alter MIDI notes and the MIDI channel you also can alter a lot of the trigger options including xtalk and sensitivity. Believe me you will need to! The major problem I had with the DM10 was xtalk, both between different pads but also between adjacent zones. All the toms are dual zone meaning you can trigger both the head and the rim. It took me about 3 days and countless hours digging through forums to find out how to sort these problems. www.dmdrummer.com is a great resource for Alesis drummers and really helped it getting the module usable. I ended up practically turning off the rim triggers on the toms which was a shame. I am sure had I more time I could have got it working nicely but I really wasn’t expecting to have so much trouble setting the whole thing up. Whilst I had a lot of problems there are lots of happy DM10 drummers out there and with a bit of time and patience I am sure you can get the settings to the sweet spot, I just felt that I shouldn’t have to really do that much work!

The Pads

The DM10 features the Alesis Real Head technology these are supposed to be more like real drum skins on a conventional Acoustic Kit. They also provide you with some massive drums. The Snare and floor toms are 12” pads the 2 rack toms are 10”. Much bigger than anyone is offering. Like wise with the cymbals you get a 12” hi-hat and a massive 16” triple zone ride along with 2 14” crash cymbals, only one of which has choke capabilities. These are big, hard and very loud! That was another big problem with me the pads are sooooo loud, whilst you can tighten them and alter them with drum keys I just didn’t feel them. I loved the size and they look great but I personally couldn’t get used to playing on them, the kick pad was so loud and hard I actually took it off and used the rubber kick pad from my DM6! As mentioned previously the xtalk between the pads was horrible I don’t know if it was the pads or the module that was at fault but the kit was put together almost exactly the same as it is in the Alesis promo video.

Conclusion

I really wanted to fall in love with this kit, it looks great, feels super sturdy and has expansion options by adding more cymbals to the 2 spare ports or splitting some of the existing stereo inputs, you can of course also hook up an additional Alesis Trigger IO if you want to go really crazy. For my personal situation being in a flat the pads were just too loud, if you are practicing in a garage or are able to make a bit more noise you will be fine. Whilst I am sure that you can with online help and patience get the settings sweet for the xtalk issues it really should be something ready to play out of the box. I appreciate that there will always be some tweaking needed, spending 3 days on it was a little much. You can’t argue with the price, you are certainly getting a lot more for your money than you would if you spent the same money with Roland or Yamaha. My best advice would be to try it before you buy it. Go to your local store and play on one, you will either love or hate the Real Heads, fortunately you can get a Mesh Head conversion if you need to!

Pros

  • Well Priced, much more bang for your buck than others
  • Very nice build quality>
  • Super customisable module
  • Nice big drum pads, 12” and 10” are insane!
  • USB port that is missing from similar manufacturers is here and great for hooking up to your PC/Mac

Cons

  • Stupid instructions!
  • Pads are much louder than the Alesis DMPads, not a problem if you have a good space, in a flat was a no no for me
  • XTalk really did require way too much tweaking to get sorted.

Filed under Geek. No comments, on purpose.

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