Strength In Sonics- Drum Machine Review

The Pacific Digital’s DrumXtreme DX-MIDI-PRO digital drum kit is the ultimate kit for space-or noise-constrained musicians and would-be musicians. It looks and feels more like a traditional drum set due to its natural and convenient rack set-up. It comes complete with six separate 7.5-inch drum pads, 2 foot pedals, a rack/stand, drumsticks, MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) and USB cables, and separate MIDI and USB consoles: MIDI for use with other MIDI-capable devices, and USB for integration with a PC or Mac.

The Pacific Digital kit features adjustable percussion sensitivity. No matter what velocity the player performs at, the drum machine produces professional-quality sound that can be played full-blast or muted, to spare the ears of family and neighbors. A headphone jack is also included on the module. When you drink one too many beers and want to jam all night while your wife and newborn sleeps, this feature is huge!

DrumXtreme is easy to assemble and takes little time to set up and fold down. Standing, it’s 36-inches high, 36-inches deep and 18-inches wide. The kit supports up to 7 drum pads (hi-hat, snare, tom1, tom2, tom3, ride, crash) and 2 pedals (bass drum and hi-hat control). Add and edit your own samples to assign to these digital pads. Even sounds of your girlfriend yelling at you about playing the drums – you can trigger those too! Imagine her frustration when you trigger a pad and she hears herself complaining about…herself! Wow! That will be bedlam, so be careful trying that one.

Audio inputs and outputs feed external sources into your playing, and let you amplify or record your playing. The recording feature lets you record your drum sound to the real-time sequence (one track at a time). MIDI channels are recorded simultaneously. All of these features are very handy when it comes to really composing the proper groove for your piece.

The drum kit package also includes a very handy Pacific Digital CD software tutorial which features training videos, play-along 4-level drum game, exercises, interface to select from 20 different drum sound banks, with over 380 usable voices, and a tone effect feature that helps beginner develop snare, tom, hi-hat, crash, and ride skills. It also includes a CD with pre-recorded play-a-long scores, which gives you a virtual band to perform with (50 preset songs, 4 user songs, plus 1 demo song). All in all, I really couldn’t be happier with this device, especially considering its really not very expensive at all.

Your drums sound better with ginger sugarsnaps in the mix!