Yamaha DD55 Digital Drum System

The new Yamaha DD55 marks a transition to a more professional and versatile digital-drumming instrument. New stereo-sampled voices, a bass boost system and digital stereo processing give the Yamaha DD55 an irresistible, thundering beat. And with the addition of adjustable pad sensitivity, you can pound out a spicy Latin rhythm with your hands. With its powerful features, this is no mere toy, although anyone can enjoy it.

Yamaha DD55 Product Features:

• 7 Touch-Sensitive Drum Pads Allow Expressive Playing
• Tempo Control Using Tap Start
• Hand percussion with New Latin Drums Allows Playing with Hands
• 174 Percussion Voices Assignable to Any Pad
• Two Assignable Foot Pedals Included, for Kick, Hi-Hat or Any Other Voice
• 100 Built-in Rhythm Styles to Accompany Your Playing
• 50 Programmed Drum Kits
• One User Programmable Drum Kit to Store a Favorite Setup
• Reverb and Chorus Effects Built Into Voices
• Large 3-Digit LED Shows Selection
• General MIDI
• MIDI In/Out for Computer Connectivity
• Headphone Jack
• Stereo Speakers with Bass Port Provide Great Sound Quality

  Yamaha DD55 Product Reviews:

  It’s been a while since I’ve written a review, and the DD55 is one such surprising product worthy of a praising one as it’s one that I would like to discuss with many people, without boring the uninterested. Thus I’m sparked to write.

  Digital percussion (or electronic drum kits, to be less snobby) has existed in many forms in the last few decades, most notably in late disco and early eighties pop which didn’t do much for the longevity of it. The sounds were often rather laughably camp and unresponsive compared to their age-old acoustic counterparts. They were fancy executive toys (which many still are) relegated to attics.

  Nothing has changed much but electronic percussion has become much more fashionable in the last 5 years than it ever has - mostly due to the fact of successes like Roland’s VDrums range (though expensive) - and electronic aided compositions (whether the end sound is more organic or not) are no longer a scarcity due to the slow progressive assimilation by dance music via crossovers and other sub-levels.

  I own an acoustic kit, and before I bought one I graduated to it via seeing if I would stick with this drum lark by investing in one of Yamaha’s early DD machines, the DD9 (which after a decade since I bought it is still available as an as-far-as-I-can-see cosmestically modified DD20) back in the early 90’s. It was by all means a borderline toy; fun for the kids but with considerable use for those who wanted simple practice percussion.

  Fast forward through the years and you’ll see amongst other things that the DD55 already existed somewhere in between as a slightly less featured DD50 (now obsolete) that competed with the likes of Roland (not that there are many serious/semi-serious portable percussion pad manufacturers), and even usurped their similarly (but slightly higher) priced product line in terms of response and features; the ‘going’ thing for Roland was that thei r machines looked more serious and the brand name was slightly detracted from the idea of supplying instruments to families. And oh yes, they eventually made VDrums.

  The DD range didn’t retire though, it had it’s niche and a loyal base due to good pricing and apt features, plus the majority of digital percussionists would prefer a smaller kit than a large one. Think why programmable drum machines are such a success - no need to lug big cowskin topped cylinders around. Thus the DD50 was recently reborn in a remodelled shell with some enhancements as the DD55, and available in your local Argos alongside the similarly designed DD35 which is pretty much a learners version of the DD9/20.

  The Yamaha DD55 is fairly weighty and bulky for a little machine, but with it’s variety of features you shouldn’t be surprised. Marketed as ‘for the serious drummer’ it appeals as it features the holy grail of electronic connectivity: General MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface - which has been going since the early 80’s) - thus naturally played rhythm tracks can be played into your favourite sequencer app. It’s much more intuitive than clicking in hits by a mouse or tapping them in by keyboard keys which can be time consuming and can produce a mechanicalness which may not always be desirable.
  The MIDI implementation via In/Out sockets is perfect (considering Roland’s SPD’s only do Outs), topped off with a little MIDI menu for more sequencer/hardware specific functions, plus you can record 1 20,000 (don’t ask me how long that is, but it’s plenty) note custom song which you can upload to your computer via special free software that you can download - perfect for capturing performances when you don’t have anything to dump to handy; just make sure that the adaptor or batteries, even when off, are there to preserve the data - an irritating thing.

  The plastic body is silver at the top and black beneath, with 7 black pads (4 5″ and 3 small), rubber buttons, mesh plastic covering the bass port enhanced stereo speakers (you nary need an amp when playing in the confines of a bedroom etc.) and a 3 digit red LCD display.
  The pads are touch sensitive (and there’s even a very response-y hand percussion mode with realistic hand percussion kits) and the samples are all in clear stereo. You may be forgiven for thinking that the acoustic drum kits respond almost like a real kit and are nearly as fun. The gripe jaws in with the fact that you can still hear the sound of rubber when you strike the pads with the sticks (supplied - an adaptor is the only thing that’s not) and due to the pads being small you may miss, and if you don’t you may sometimes not ignite the sound (though sensitivity can be adjusted to a degree) or get the strikes to ‘flow’ as you want them to. This can be demonstrated in the fact even if a maestro drummer recorded to the in-built sequencer, they may sound clumsy some of the time due to the restrictions. Having said that, I’ve read that the response beats Rolands, and some of the sounds match VDrums.

  There are 45 programmed kits (and space for one custom) and just under 200 sounds which can be assigned to any of the pads (or the two pedals for hi-hat and kick). The hi-hat pedal can also, smartly, be assigned to perform choke hi-hat action for the left-most selectively defined hi-hat pad. Nice one; don’t bother with double kicking metal heads.
  The sounds range from percussion instruments around the world, coupled with some interesting sound effects and fills - thus you can trigger predefined programmed rolls with a single strike.

  To cater for those who are new to the percussion world there is tuition via 100 built-in rhythm styles to play along to, plus a few other features like the aforementioned triggering of in-built fills and the ability to listen to specific segments (the A-B marker function) to learn from. It mighn’t match the visualness in tuition like the DD35’s lighted drum rings but it is enough for someone with natural rhythm.

  In-built Reverb effect can also be applied, while DSP can be controlled via a connected sequencer. A headphone jack completes the kit as does great documentation with appendix tables for reference.

  The Yamaha DD55 is by no means a replacement for an acoustic kit (and neither are VDrums) but for the price and features, the Yamaha DD55 is possibly the best portable solution for digital percussion for both the pro and the above-amateur. It’s portability and brilliant sampled sounds, plus full-featured MIDI make it a brilliant electronic and almost acoustic kit for recording (it’s way cheaper than a mixer and a barrage of mics for an acoustic kit), and a pretty good first drum kit for anyone.
  The DD55 might be considered by the smug as an impressive toy, but so was the Roland TB-303 bass machine which ended up becoming a standard instrument in dance music. That’s not saying the DD55 will end up with historical significance (though it might, who knows?) but what’s for sure is that won’t be trappled on by it’s competition, and is well worth a look by someone who wants portable, powerful and versatile digital percussion. I give it almost full thumbs up.

  Yamaha DD55 Advantages

  Cheap, feature-packed, responsive and great sounding; perfect for many standard professional needs and beginners who want to splash out. DD’s have been manufactured for atleast a decade or so

  Yamaha DD55 DisAdvantages

  Disadvantages

  Cheap, feature-packed, responsive and great sounding; perfect for many standard professional needs and beginners who want to splash out. DD’s have been manufactured for atleast a decade or so No match for an acoustic kit or VDrums, toyish looking, some minor irregularities in pad response and limitations to the in-built recording feature

  Ease of Use: 10
  I’ve been using this unit for about a year now and
  have held off from giving it a review until I had
  used it thoroughly. I feel it was created for a
  wide demographic, so ease of use would have naturally
  been high on Yamaha’s list of features. The manual
  is clear and to the point. Editing sounds/midi implementation
  is straightforward and most sounds are excellent.
  As a musician of over 30 years, I don’t think I have ever seen a
  piece of gear that could be characterized as a ‘toy’
  and ‘pro gear’ simultaneously…that is until now.

  Features: 8
  The features have been covered here extensively.
  I feel it is a true ‘bang for the buck’ value.

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 10
  Okay, this catagory tells the tale. My primary instruments are
  guitar and bass, but I have been a gigging drummer on occasion.
  I wanted a way to get drum sounds recorded with my little project
  studio without the expense and size of ‘real’ drum kits.
  I also wanted to play the drum parts myself, as I don’t feel
  right using sequences or loops in my original compositions.
  This unit has a wide range of extraordinary sounds, many that
  sound like expensive electronic kits and more that sound like
  highly tweaked and balanced acoustic drum sets. Of course, there
  are cheesy presets, but fewer than most VERY expensive synths I have
  owned. As indicated by other reviewers, the footpedals are junk
  unless you’re a kid just stomping on them. I fixed this problem with
  a trigger mounted to a DW5000 twin kick pedal for bass and an
  Ensoniq sustain pedal for the high hat. With that problem addressed,
  The DD-55 needs to be LEARNED as a unique percussion device. Most
  drummers I’ve known would hate it because it does not respond well
  to standard cro-magnon clubbing and attack. The pads do not need
  to be pounded and they are closer and smaller than acoustic drums.
  Played thoughtfully and with taste, it delivers every time.

  Reliability: 10
  After more than a year of heavy use, this unit has performed
  flawlessly. I would definitely use it without a backup, but I
  have never gigged with backups of my gear, so the point is moot.
  I will say that a drummer friend of mine jammed on it for four
  hours with standard pounding, missing pads and smacking the housing
  pretty hard. I am sure he could have destroyed it within weeks.

  Customer Support: N/A
  N/A

  Overall Rating: 10
  If lost, I would replace it as it has become an integral
  part of my studio setup. It is great for what I bought it
  for and for the price, I don’t know what features could have
  been added. It looks like a toy, but it performs like a pro
  and would suggest that others needing a percussion device like
  this get over preconceptions and snap one up. BTW, although
  I have not owned any, looking back across the years
  I would have to say that the best sounding acoustic guitars and
  pianos ‘I’ ever heard were Yamaha’s. I guess I trust the company.

  Submitted by Anonymous at 02/10/2005 09:33

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: US $219
  Ease of Use: 5
  Well.. yes, you can plug it in and play. Main gripe here is that the hi-hat can’t be double-sticked if you intend to use the snare Ok, it’s reassignable.. sort of. Here’s the thing - while you CAN plug it in and play, and can “briefly” reassign pads, you can’t - I repeat - CAN’T reassign the MIDI send number, meaning, if you want the pad that’s the snare (Pad #1) to send MIDI voice 104 - hi-hat - you can’t do it. It says in the manual you CAN reassign it - but I got off the phone with Yamaha about an hour ago, and they confirmed it doesn’t work, and said Japan simply sent a memo saying the instruction manual is wrong. Easy fix, huh?

  You CAN, however, change the pad’s individual sounds on the unit, but apparently not the MIDI send number. I still don’t know all the implications here.

  What I’m hoping is to find a midi rerouting program to take care of this issue for me. It’s basically the only reason I downgraded this rating to a 5.

  The manual is OK, but wrong (misleading - I bought largely based on this “feature”).

  Features: 7
  The pads themselves are really nice. I assume they are tough enough to handle amateur playing, meaning amateurs really whack away with no sense of dynamics. (Ok, most amateurs.)

  Build-in sounds are really nice for the most part, but largely can’t match the huge number of free synthesized and sampled kit and pad sounds. The sounds that are in the unit are pretty darn good, though…

  And it has two pedals, hi-hat and bass drum, the latter of which is velocity-sensitive.

  Regarding MIDI - well, read “ease of use” and you’ll get an idea.

  One MAJOR detriment - only one custom kit. I mean, come on. And it doesn’t seem to hold it in its memory reliably. SUCKS.

  It does have decent pad sensitivity - more on this below.

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 9
  The sounds, again, are pretty good. What type of music does it work for? That’s a silly thing to ask. (The review guidelines suggest that as a question to answer!)

  Uh.. hmm… let me think.. I dunno, what kind of pictures can you draw with a pencil?

  Ok, seriously, though, the sounds are good and the reverb is good. The pad sensitivity is better than expected! I can actually hear ghost notes that sound realistic. Very surprising. However, the “snare” pad - pad #1 - is less sensitive, for some reason - and when I asked Yamaha about it, they seemed to suggest it was made less sensitive ’cause newbies will invariable whack the hell out of it. I ain’t buying it; I think the tech guy pulled that one out of his butt. Nonetheless, the pads are why I bought this thing,

  I do wish the hi-hat pedal had some trick up its sleeve to make it feel real; quite frankly, that’s the only major disappointment I have, since the other things can be remedied. On/off and “pedal” (being the sound it makes when you snap the pedal down) don’t quite cut it, but I guess can be made to work if you work around the limitations.

  One thing I want to do is to assign a slightly more “open” sounding closed hat to another pad to sort of increase its dynamic range.

  Reliability: 8
  Just bought it… don’t know. I don’t know if I’d use it on a gig, but not because I don’t think it would be reliable - it would, I’m sure.

  More because you’d look family-size dorky unless you swung (in the groove sense) so much that the audience forgot you do, actually, look really dorky playing this dainty little silver thing.

  Also, this not really being a reliability issue, the hi-hat is pretty limiting if have a dynamic hi-hat style.

  Customer Support: N/A
  Well… customer support was good in the sense they simply admitted the MIDI assign function doesn’t work. They got back to me in about a day.

  Overall Rating: 7
  If it was lost or stolen, I’d buy it again since I got it just for recording into my computer, and at this price it’s about the only game in town.

  I’ve been playing drums for about.. no.. it can’t be… 20 years. But you can’t tell from my playing, trust me. I own a 6-piece 1969/74 Ludwig blue sparkle set but can’t get a good wood block sound out of it

  What I love about it - I can get MIDI drum tracks into my computer, presto. Sensitivity is really good. Great I think.

  What I hate about it - MIDI assign is bogus; hi-hat pedal, while OK, leans toward the hate side since it’s so limited. One custom kit which doesn’t stick in memory like it should.

  I couldn’t find anything comparable to this unit, so that’s why I chose this one.

  As I mentioned, I wish it had WORKING MIDI ASSIGN and about a 20-kit memory. Really, it’s not that hard. Also I wish there was some better way of doing a MIDI hi-hat pedal.

  Does it help me make music, or does it get in the way? Silly question. Next.

  Submitted by Anonymous at 01/07/2005 18:19

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: US $210.00
  Ease of Use: 9
  I didn’t check if anyone else made a drummer joke here, but I guess I’ll back off! Pretty easy to use, with good presets and a great manual. Most electronic gadgets take a little while to learn all the ins and outs of, but you can get started on this right away, and master the other stuff later.

  Features: 9
  Great samples of all sorts of percussion sounds, traditional and otherwise. Seven touch sensitive pads, a bass drum pedal and a hi-hat pedal. All pads can have other sounds assigned to them. General MIDI capability, nice reverbs, many, many “demo/practice” songs. Quite a package for the price!

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 9
  Man, these sounds are really REAL! For what you’re paying, this is a huge value. The pads have a nice level of touch sensitivity to them, so your playing sounds pretty authentic. The hi-hats are just a little funny if you try to do anything too fancy, but everything else is right on. The cymbals are much better than I expected. I play line-in to my soundcard,I don’t use the MIDI. I wanted something that sounded more human than the programmed drums I was previously playing with. This is great for that! You’ve got tons of well-miked and mixed and panned kits, which makes things SO easy. The default reverb sounds are nice, and I’m actually leaving my drum tracks on my songs without any effects for the first time. If you playback the track solo, there may be moments where you’ll say, “hey, that sounds a little fake.” But that’s rare, and in the mix, I am so surprised and happy about how real it sounds.

  Reliability: 8
  I have a refurbished unit, and I can tell that the more frequently played pads are just a little less responsive. This took a while to get used to and kind of made me hate the thing for a couple of days. But it seems very sturdy and well-made.

  Customer Support: N/A

  Overall Rating: 9
  This is the best place for the cons, I guess. This will feel and play funny for you, even if you’ve played a real kit only a couple of times. Your landlord will still hear wooden sticks smacking on plastic and rubber and will call you to let you know. You’ll curse at the pedals for a couple of days, ’cause they just don’t feel right. You’ll get a little grumpy at how all of the preset kits have just one drum that you’d like to change (luckily, you can customize any kit), and you won’t like that you can’t save your customized kits. I was actually angry and disappointed (the “refurbished” thing didn’t help), until I had some free time to replace some old programmed drum tracks with DD55 tracks in some old songs I had. I put a little effort into it and got used to playing on them. I got realistic, human-sounding drum tracks that finally made my home recordings sound like real songs. Now I love it, and I’m really glad I didn’t sell it impulsively. It’s really cool to have such a versatile drum kit in such a convenient package. An amazing value. It may take awhile to get used to, but you will probably be immediately impressed by the sound quality.

  Submitted by Mark at 05/04/2004 12:18

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: N/A
  Ease of Use: 9
  I wrote a review almost 2 years ago and my DD 55 is still going strong. The bass pedal trigger started acting up, like some others here have mentioned. I had to really stomp hard to get it to sound, and it made playing smooth impossible. But I opened up the pedal and put a couple of layers of duct tape between the contacts. It has been working great every since this ‘repair’ over 8 months ago. The bass pedal is smoother and quicker this way.

  Features: 9

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 9

  Reliability: 9

  Customer Support: N/A

  Overall Rating: 8

  Submitted by Steve Keeney at 03/03/2004 07:38

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: 245 (Euro)
  Ease of Use: 9
  Erg makkelijk apparaat intuitief.
  Manual is duidelijk. Te downloaden bij Yamaha.
  Plezierig om drums op te spelen zonder last te krijgen met je buren.

  Features: 9
  Gevoeligheid pads in te stellen.
  Effecten zijn uit te zetten. Ik gebruik ze niet maar zijn opzich ok.
  Ook local off mogelijkheid als je andere modules wilt triggeren.
  XG synthesizer on board. Gebuik ik weinig. Ben niet zo kappot van XG synthesizers.
  De vormgeving doet meer denken aan een stuk speelgoed maar schijn bedriegt hier duidelijk.
  Ik heb het ding staan op een snarestand dat werkt goed.

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 9
  Drums klinken goed tot zeer goed en realistisch
  Dance rock etc kits aanwezig.
  Vergeleken met de Roland SPD serie is dit een stuk goedkoper en heeft ook meer pads.

  Reliability: 7
  Nog nooit problemen mee gehad.
  Al een paar keer laten vallen doet het nog steeds prima.
  Er is 1 groot nadeel om dit ding live te gebruiken en dat is dat de draaiknop/toggle waarmee je de kits selecteert erg gevoelig is.
  Als je op hand perscussie overschakelt dan raak je snel deze knop aan en voor je het weet klinken er ander drum klanken dan de bedoeling is.
  Voor een livegig is het daardoor te onbetrouwbaar.
  Daardoor geef ik het hier een lager cijfer 7.

  Customer Support: N/A
  Geen beroep op gedaan nog.

  Overall Rating: 9
  Als het gestolen was zou ik waarschijnljk een nieuwe kopen.
  Ook te overwegen voor ongeveer dezelde prijs kan je een Akai MPD16 met meer pads kopen. Echter deze heeft heen klanken. Als je het alleen voor triggering gebruikt kan je misschien beter voor de Akai gaan.
  Daarentegen moet worden gezegd dat de ligging van de Pads op de Yamaha als een drumstel is wat erg lekker speelt.
  (Behalve zoals eerder ergens opgemerkt de hihat)

  Submitted by D.J. Jansen at 12/17/2003 05:20

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: US $235
  Ease of Use: 10
  You can get the manual online at Yamaha.com. You can plug it in and play. Everything is easy to use, changing through the 34 kits is quick, so is listening and changing songs. MIDI control can get a little complicated, but once you set it, it’s done!…even if you unplug it.

  Features: 10
  GigaSampler won’t understand the MIDI output from this thing(I get MIDI information being sent, but it’s not triggering sounds off my sampler, email me if you know what to do) You can change the MIDI channel and what notes each pad represents. I got this to work with a program called Rramm Drrumm. Try it out, you might like it, but the DD-55 works better and is more fun used by itself.
  The DD-55 is incredibly fun! The polyphony is plenty enough. DD-55 has a built in reverb that is good I say, but you can turn it off if you need dry sounds. There are many songs you could learn from, they contain parts that you can turn off and on so a kid could learn from this, you have the backing instremental part, hats/cymbals, bass, and snare drum, all can be flipped on and off at the press of a button. It has a metronome click and you can also change the tempo of songs, tap-in or manually. The volume is quickly adjusted and the pads can be set to their own volume levels. And you can change the sensitivity of the pads with 3 different levels.

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 9
  You get 20 great bass drum sounds. 40 snare drum sounds rim hits included, every color snare you’ve ever heard. There are plenty of tom-tom sets, but many of them sound electronic, they sound good at the hit but the tails of them sound electronic(there are 2-4 sets of toms that don’t have that, I’m happy with it). It’s characteristic though, and you don’t hear it if your playing through, or in a mix, or with Yamaha’s reverb turned on. You have a giantic reverb hall that you can turn on and off, it’s a extreme reverb that sounds amazing if your playing thru the onboard speakers, it sounds BIG!
  All the hits are in stereo, so you can just turn it on and have the drum set wrap around you, it’s really good.
  The pads are really amazing and respond in such a realistic way you can trick your mind into thinking you have real drums under your sticks. And the velocity sensitivity behaves in a fun and realistic manner, and it’s very quick also, something that you miss if you use the DD-55 as a MIDI trigger. I used this rare freeware program called Rramm Drrumm that worked with the MIDI out, I could not get GigaSampler to work with the DD-55. MIDI out was disapointing, the sensitivity and velocity was not as good as using the DD-55 sounds. I give it a nine only because the tom-toms are lacking and you get minimal high-hat and cymbal rides/crashes.

  Reliability: 10
  This is a good piece of hardware. The 7 pads are sturdy and ment to take a beating. The foot pads look small and cheap, but when I got them and looked and felt them up close they where solid, and of good beating quality, just like the 7 drumming pads.

  Customer Support: 10
  You can get the .PDF manual at the Yamaha Website if you buy it used. (buy it used!…I see Ebay has these for $125!!!) Yamaha makes AMAZING! quality products, they are the most respectable and trust worthy company in my opinion. And their manuals are very good.

  Overall Rating: 9
  I wish this thing had more and better tom-toms and cymbals, it could use them, I feel it’s a little stripped down without them. Every thing is in stereo, so it’s great to listen to. All the sounds are expressive and loud. If plug in headphones or into a mixer you will find there is some hiss, but a light pass with a de-hisser will get rid of it, it’s not that bad. I don’t know how to play drums, but it seems like a real drum kit with the included foot petals. I think it is overpriced at the retail $239, so get it on Ebay. I needed more sounds than the DD-35, and I got them! I see the DD-35 is a toy compared to the DD-55. I bought this because I wanted to use real sticks to play drums, not tap out something with my index fingers. And do yourself(or your child) a favor and buy real drum sticks to play it, I own a real snare and had some real sicks before I bought the DD-55. I played with the extra light weight sticks included, and tossed them aside as soon as they hit the pads. The included sticks mark up the pads too.

  Submitted by John Lea at 09/26/2003 21:53

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: 76000 (HUF (hungarian forint))
  Ease of Use: 10
  As said earlier, quite easy.

  Features: 9
  It let’s me play the drums without being sued by the neighbours.
  Maybe the pads were not designed for rolls, but I can’t execute
  a roll anyway. I find it very good for learning drumming + I will
  likely use the dd55 on gig too as this is my only drum kit.
  MIDI works nice for me also, I use the dd55 to play my midi files
  on the computer.

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 10
  The drum sounds sound really good to me.

  Reliability: N/A
  I have been hitting it for about a year, and so far it worked well.

  Customer Support: N/A

  Overall Rating: 9
  This instrument enabled me to play drums quietly at home
  without spending all my parents money - for which I am grateful !

  Submitted by Denes Balatoni at 08/09/2003 15:17

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: US $299.99
  Ease of Use: 10
  Well this is pretty easy to play especially if u already know how to play…i wouldn’t suggest this product to some one just tryin out or just learnin how to play

  Features: 9
  It has great features eva thing is there that i would ask 4 on a real set…

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 7
  Well now this i had a lil bit of a problem w/ eva time that i tried to play the bass drum i would get a beat on the down stroke and the up stroke…..if ya’ll out there have n e sugestions on where to find a great electric bass pedal let me know i need one….

  Reliability: 8
  I would say that this is pretty reliable except not knowin when ur gonna get an extra beat in there or what not….

  Customer Support: 9
  ya it great…

  Overall Rating: 10
  I would say if ur thinkin about buyin one of these suckers…go 4 it…there ur best bet to a real drum set w/o breakin the bank…

  Submitted by Ashley at 07/07/2003 12:59

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: US $250
  Ease of Use: 8
  This unit is certainly easy to use. The MIDI implementation is pretty straightforward if you have experience with MIDI sequencing and you use the appendix in the back of the manual. Just remember, channel 10 is your best friend on this thing.

  Features: 6
  First of all: this thing can’t do fast rolls. Don’t expect to get anything out of this thing faster than a medium speed double-stroke roll.

  The polyphony didn’t seem to give me any problems until I tried doing rolls on the open hi-hat. The only built in effect it has is reverb, which is decent. The foot triggers will be downright painful for any real drummer, but a novice won’t notice the difference. I had some problems with the bass drum trigger “mis-triggering” (i.e. producing extra kicks that I wasn’t planning on being there), but I mostly solve that problem by putting my heel on the rubber trigger pad and then tapping the rest of my foot, not unlike a real kicking motion.

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 8
  The sounds seem realistic enough, and will do the job for a demo. The hi-hat is really problematic, since there are only two positions: open and completely closed, and thus there is no subtlety in this regard.

  Reliability: 5
  I don’t know how reliable this thing could be, but compared to the Roland SPD trigger pads, I would think that this one would bite the dust relatively fast. It is pretty easy to smack the plastic case areas between the pads, and plastic can only take so much compared to rubber.

  And I would never use this thing for a gig. It would only be good for sequencing demos.

  Customer Support: N/A
  I know nothing about Yamaha customer support. I bought this through Sweetwater, and I must say that they are an awesome company when it comes to customer satisfaction.

  Overall Rating: 5
  This in not a live performance tool at all, nor is it appropriate for professional use. It is a kid’s toy, from what I can tell. (i.e. the demo video on Yamaha’s web site features a little girl banging on the pads in an incoherent manner.) I sent it back, because I really didn’t think it was worth the money, and I am going to spring for the new Roland SPD-S when I can afford it.

  Submitted by Nathanael Davenport at 06/23/2003 13:30

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: 245 (EUR)
  Ease of Use: 9
  Supereasy te gebruiken !!
  Presets klinken allemaal goed, van alles wat.
  Handboek makkelijk te lezen.
  Aansluiten en drummen maar !

  Features: N/A

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 8
  Geluiden klinken realistisch. Hardstike goed. Enig minpuntje :
  Plaats van hihat-pad is merkwaardig gekozen, midden op.
  Zou aan de linkerkant moeten zitten !!
  Footpedals mogen wel wat zwaarder uitgevoerd worden, het spul schuift alle kanten op.En je zou meer customkits moeten kunnen saven, in plaats van maar 1 en die ben je nog kwijt ook als je de power uitswitcht.

  Reliability: 8
  Beslist betrouwbaar. Doet het altijd.

  Customer Support: N/A
  Gelukkig nog geen gebruik van hoeven te maken

  Overall Rating: 9
  Prima instrument. Ik zou hem zo weer kopen.
  Alleen een beetje sneu dat Yamaha niet standaard de stroomadapter bijlevert, kost naar verhouding dan wel erg veel.
  De bijgeleverde sticks mogen ook wel wat robuuster uitgevoerd worden, want ik ben al een een nieuwe set toe.

  Submitted by Hans uit Kampen (NLD) at 05/19/2003 06:31

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: US $239
  Ease of Use: 10
  First off, I’m not a drummer. Just a guitar player who wanted to spice up some original demos with some percussion. This thing is the answer for anyone who hates programming a drum machine. Also anyone who has limited space. I got this for Christmas, and I was banging out drum patterns on it that very night. And it’s got a handy headphone jack for latenight recording sessions. I don’t wake my wife and kids up. The manual is very easy to follow. I haven’t gotten into any of the midi applications yet, but I hear it’s fairly simple. I bet a real drummer could use just this unit to gig with. The pedals have a tendency to wander sometimes, but like an earlier reviewer suggested, I’ll just put some rubber backing on the bottoms and they’ll work fine.

  Features: 10
  Seven rubber pads that are raised up off of the unit. One bass pedal and one hi-hat pedal. It even comes with a pair of sticks. Two speakers that are in stereo. Built in reverbs that actually sound decent. Lots of different drums sounds and sets. The pads are touch sensitive Even a hand-drum set with bongos and congas etc. Like I said… I haven’t hook this up to a computer yet, but I’m anxious to experiment with all the midi capabilities. I bought the optional stand for it too. I wish it had dedicated L-R outputs other than the headphone jack. But for this price…oh well

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 10
  I was completely surprised by the sounds this thing puts out. The speakers aren’t great by any means, but their all right. I use the headphone jack to output the sound to my multitrack. The drummer in our band has a set of Roland V-Drums that sound fantastic, but the sounds of this thing aren’t too far off.

  Reliability: 10
  I’ve owned Yamaha equipment before and never had a problem.

  Customer Support: N/A

  Overall Rating: 10
  I have alot of fun with this thing. For the price it’s an excellent bargain. It works perfect for what I expect of it. Yamaha has a hit here.

  Submitted by dave at 03/12/2003 20:59

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: N/A
  Ease of Use: 10
  Mate was it easy to use took some time to get the midi to go but hell is it good to use

  Features: 10
  mate good features fx pads peddels the works grate voice (zap woodblock scrach pad)styles Very Cool and songs are good for lerning wih (you can take the drums out of the songs and play along)

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 10
  Very realistic sounds best ive herd come out of a small unit like this

  Reliability: 9
  dependible drum sticks are no use though brock within the first 5 mins

  Customer Support: N/A
  na

  Overall Rating: 10
  DA BOMB

  Submitted by jason at 03/03/2003 20:37

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: US $200
  Ease of Use: 9
  For the price this thing is very easy to use & the sounds are great. I didn’t need the manual. I’ve seen this unot for $160 at Sam’s club with the AC adaptor.

  Features: 7
  The polyphony sold me on this over the Roland 6 pad set up. It does a good job of simulating a drum kit. It has on board reverb but I use external delay effects for fun. I claims that is has 7 pads but the bass drum pedal is actually an 8th trigger pad. The other pedal is an expression pedal for the high-hat. The pedals that come with this unit SUCK THE BIG ONE! I returned my first unit because the bass drum pedal went bad after a few weeks. My replacement went bad after a few weeks also. It trigered the bass drum on both the down & up strokes. This was really annoying! I replaced the bass drum pedal with the Pintech Ergokik Kick trigger. It was $35 & I use a cheap Ludwig bass drum pedal with it. Man what a difference! I replaced the high hat pedal with a Yamaha FC5 Sustain Pedal for $13. This works really well once you get used to it. I only wish I could edit & store some custom kits. You can only edit one kit & you can’t save it.

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 8
  The drums are great for the sub $200 price tag. I use it for quiet recording & jamming. I don’t think actual drummers will like it but people who like to drum when they put down their main instruments will like it a lot. The built in speakers also BITE THE BIG ONE! Plug this think into a nice keyboard amp, PA, or some monitors & it wails.

  Reliability: 7
  It seems sturdy beyond the pedals. I’d only gig with it at low key situations. It would be fine.

  Customer Support: N/A

  Overall Rating: 10
  For the money (Including the $50 for new triggers & pedals) it is a heck of a deal. If I could only store 10 or more kits it would be great.

  Submitted by Anonymous at 02/08/2003 20:22

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: US $229
  Ease of Use: 10
  ive had it for about an hour now and i know how to do almost everythig on it. Its so easy.

  Features: 9
  Same as the others. Only one user mode to create a custom set and cant be saved.

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 9
  Sounds really good. I personally like number 4 for a normal set. Its kick ass. And there are so many sounds. The pads are ok with response…you cant really do fast rolls on it that well.

  Reliability: N/A
  only had it for about an hour but seems good.

  Customer Support: N/A
  nope…only had it for an hour…

  Overall Rating: 10
  good machine. I bought it for my little home studio thing and to make song songs with out buying a real set. This is the closest thing to an acustic set(without actually buying an acustic) and it wont kill your wallet. Its not too expensive, its not crappy sound, it has 7 pads, (unlike some others with 4) and its FUN FUN FUN!!!

  Submitted by alex landry at 11/11/2002 13:21

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: US $215
  Ease of Use: 7

  Features: 5
  Pads response is good. Sounds are good. Theonly reason I returned the DD55 was its MIDI implementation. I got it for use in a small studio setup for percussion triggering, record onto sequencers, and playback drum sounds. The problem is that the DD55 receives an plays on all 16 MIDI channels. Even if you assign voices to other modules on the rig, the DD55 still plays its GM module voices. Tha is bad. There should be a way to turnoff MIDI channels.

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 8

  Reliability: N/A

  Customer Support: N/A

  Overall Rating: 5
  Not good for studio work where there are several MIDI modules on a rig.

  Submitted by ArtBeat at 11/11/2002 06:59

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: US $300
  Ease of Use: 9
  I agree with most of the comments of the other reviewers.

  The only downside to this instrument is that the pedals are hard to keep in place. However, I did find a solution by
  buying a rubber anti-slide mesh mat at my local hardware store (you know, the one you use in kitchen sinks or cabinets).

  Then, I cut out the size of the pedal’s bottom and attached it with a strong glue — epoxy or some modern day strong glue. Problem solved. Pedals work perfectly!

  Hope this tip helps out others.

  Features: 9
  I just wished there was a way to save your custom presets when you turn the power off.

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 9

  Reliability: 9

  Customer Support: N/A

  Overall Rating: 9
  I just wished there was a way to save your custom presets when you turn the power off.

  Submitted by anthony at 08/23/2002 05:48

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: US $239
  Ease of Use: 8
  Very easy to use and good manual. Has lots of features accessible only via MIDI sysex commands that I have not experimented with.

  Features: 8
  Has seven velocity sensitive digital drum pads and two footswitches. I think it’s 32 note poly. Any of the 200+ drum and percussion samples can be assigned to any of the padscontrollers. Has 45 preset kits and one user definable kit.
  Has built in reverb. 100 built in songs for accompaniment, the recorded drum parts can be muted. Can record your performance.
  General MIDI compatible for connecting to sequencers or sound modules.
  Has a “hand persussion” mode that’s very cool.

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 8
  Most of the drum sounds are surprisingly good. Pads respond quite well to velocity. The internal tone generator for song playback is nothing to write home about, but what do you expect for this price range? The built in songs range from good to super cheesy.

  I bought this thing to use as an input device for my computer. I could no longer stand tapping out drum parts into Sonar using a keyboard! The DD55 really works well for this. General MIDI implementation worked pretty well right out of the box, I can use it to trigger my other sound modules and record MIDI just fine. I have to agree with a previous reviewer, the MIDI note mappings on the custom kit seem to have a mind of their own sometimes. Once you have it set though, it works fine most of the time. The built in speakers don’t sound too great, but plug this baby into a keyboard amp,sound systemPA or headphones and it sounds HUGE. You could just use the built in drum sounds, but I prefer to be able to have a wider range of drum tones, so I use my external sound modules or DXi synthssamplers on my recordings.

  Reliability: 5
  I don’t know about reliability judging from reviews of the earlier version of this product. I bought mine from zZounds with the two year extended warranty so if it dies I’ll get it fixed. I would definitely recommend getting the extended warranty. I’m not gigging this thing, just using it in the studio occasionally. (Though I often find myself just sitting down to jam on it with the preset tunes! )It’s really a blast.

  Customer Support: N/A
  Dont know.

  Overall Rating: 8
  The DD55 looks like a toy, but it really can be a great learning tool as well as a good MIDI controller. I bought it strictly for an inexpensive MIDI input device, but it’s actually a lot of fun to play!I’m mainly a guitarist, but I have a Pearl drum kit in my studio and can pound out a decent beat. Miking up and recording drums is a royal pain. With this thing I can play beatsfills into the sequencer, then freely assign sounds to any one of many sound modules, so much easier.

  The DD55 sounds great just by itself though. Even if you just want to plug in headphones and play around on it, the DD55 is a good deal for the price. Has a few quirks in the programming dept, but nothing I can’t deal with. My main gripe would be the lack of more than one user definable preset.

  Submitted by Anonymous at 08/20/2002 15:46

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: N/A
  Ease of Use: 2
  everything about this unit is fine except for the hi hat pedal. the false triggering from hi hat pedal will lead to alot of frustration. its far too sensitive to be used reliably. about one thousandth of an inch determines wheather or not the high hat sound is triggered. that means even the slightest un intentional bounce from your foot, shoe, or the pedal itself will cause the hi hat to sound when you dont want it to. this is especially frustrating when i try to play patterns on the hi hat pedal

  Features: N/A

  Expressiveness/Sounds: N/A

  Reliability: N/A

  Customer Support: N/A

  Overall Rating: N/A

  Submitted by Anonymous at 08/08/2002 16:13

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: US $179.00
  Ease of Use: 9
  If you can plug in a lamp, you’re in. You just plug it in (or insert batteries) and start playing.

  The manual is easy to read, even for those who have never used a MIDI instrument before.

  Features: 8
  Pretty good overall. The only effect available without using software is reverb, and it’s all or nothing. You cannot assign reverb values to each pad. You can, however adjust the individual volume of each pad. This is useful for attaining a mix of sounds to suit your taste.

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 7
  The snare/tom settings are great. So are the latin percussion sounds. The “hand percussion” setting is a lot of fun.

  The bass drum and hi-hat sounds are a bit lacking. The bass sounds lack that “oopmh” and the hi-hat “open” sounds are just ok… dont expect to do any “quick” hi-hat work without a sequencer. (16ths ect). 16th’s will work fine closed, but open the sound tends to “clip”. I substituted the little foot pedal that came with the unit for a spring loaded sustain pedal. Works fine for the hi-hat and felt better to my taste. This pedal did not work for the bass however.

  The onboard speakers dont sound great. I hooked the DD55 up to a wireless headphone set and was amazed at how great these things really do sound. I imagine through a PA, they would sound awesome.

  Stepping on the hi-hat pedal without striking a pad will produce the hi-hat “snap”. A great feature.

  All pads are assignable. For you metal drummers, you can assign a bass drum to 2 pedals and double bass all day.

  Plenty of good cymbal sounds incl. splash and china.

  Reliability: 9
  No problems yet. I did break the “mini” sticks pretty quickly that come with the unit, but being a fusion drummer, I tend to break sticks a good bit anyway.

  Customer Support: N/A
  Havent needed them.

  Overall Rating: 8
  Yeah, I’d buy it again. Its a high end toy, but use it where you might use a drum machine and dont expect it to perform as well as a Roland V, and your fine. Its well worth the money…

  Submitted by Brian at 07/29/2002 12:16

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: 379 (CAD)
  Ease of Use: 10
  Just too much fun - right out of the box ! Bought the DD-55 after checking out the more expensive Roland designs. While not a drummer, (purchased to add ‘live’ percussion to MIDI), the elevated pads seem more effective than the Roland ‘coffee tables’. The 3 digit LED display serves for all functions - although large and bright, it can sometimes be confusing as to which function the readout applies to, e.g. song #,kit etc. - might have been nice to include a separate LED for each function, like the one dedicated to ‘Hand Percussion’. Pretty straightforward cockpit all the same. The manual is complete and well written.

  Features: 7
  192 drum voices grouped into 45 kits. A single user-defineable kit allows you to progaram ANY voice to ANY of the 7 pads and two foot switches.

  Includes a full 128 voice GM set,(XG-NOT) - used effectively with the built-in demo songs & patterns. 32 voice polyphony. Reverb can be switched on/off from the front panel.

  MIDI implementation is very well done. Any pad/switch can be programmed to transmit any note on any channel. Everything defaults to channel 10. Additional Reverb/Chorus/Effects are accessible via MIDI only - not front panel.

  Comes WITHOUT a power adapter - a bonus or a fault depending on whether you do fleamarkets regularly - where a 12VDC/1A unit can probably be found for a fraction of the price of the Yamaha wall-wart.

  All pads and ONE footswitch are velocity sensitive. I’m sure a real drummer will feel uncomfortable with the footswitches at first, but they get the job done.

  Beefs? None, except the complete ommission of any brush voices or kits. For a ‘Pro’ percussion box ? Go figure.

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 8
  Voices are great for pop/rock/jazz. Not much for symphony types - not even tympani voices. (It would be way cool to ‘pedal a kettle’ with the dinky little footswitch !) Rim shots are better than most regular samples I’ve heard. Lack of brush kit(s) will limit ballad boys and jazz junkies.

  Reliability: 8
  Has fallen off my desk once and survived. Reliability of the pads after continued serious thumping remains to be seen. The detent on the selector wheel is a little too loose for my personal taste - I could imagine brushing it with an elbow on a live gig and having to somehow recover on-the-fly. Maybe a ‘panel lock’ button, as found on other gear, would make things more secure.

  Customer Support: N/A
  Too new to tell, but Yamaha’s network of dealers and services has been excellent with other gear I’ve purchased.

  Overall Rating: 8
  Have had bags of fun with it right from the start…it definitely has ‘toy’ value, but is a very effective addition to my keyboard-centric MIDI setup. I don’t know what qualifies as a ‘Pro’ desktop drum set, but this unit is exactly what I was looking for as an antidote to drum loops>loops>loops>loops…

  Submitted by Anonymous at 04/17/2002 20:42

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: £159 (sterling)
  Ease of Use: 8
  This little unit is very easy to use, once you have looked through the manual. You can’t edit the patches, not from the front panel anyway, although given the quality, I’m not sure I’d ever need to. The preset grooves are cheesy, but hey, what do you expect ? It’s quite fun to play along with them, with the drum backing turned off. This is quite a useful way to get used to the dynamics of the pads.

  Features: 7
  One of the great things about this unit is the fact that you can play it in a very similar way to a conventional drum kit. 2 arms, 2 legs, how much polyphony does that take ?

  The unit is defaulted to run with the internal reverb on. This sounds good with some of the kits, and not so good with others. With the reverb on, the bass drum is still dry, which is a nice touch and will help to avoid a mix being swamped with low-end reverb. One niggle is that there are plenty of other effects available, but these can only be accessed via sys-ex messages from a sequencer, and not fro the front panel. This is a shame, since it opens up all sorts of creative possibilies, but not for those without a sequencer. It would also be nice if effects could be assigned to individual pads (delay on a snare pad for example, but not on the toms) Clearly the bass drum pad can be excluded from FX, so why not other pads too ?

  I found it easy to record in real-time onto a sequencer, and then play back threough the DD55. Kit changes are recorded too, which is handy.

  Forget about the on-board sequencer for serious use.

  I’d forget about the on-board

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 8
  These sounds are great. There’s a wide variety, and the kits are well thought out. I’ve tried using them for a variety of styles, and they all sound good.

  As a drummer I found it surprisingly close to the real thing, once you get used to the proximity of the pads. Probably the least expressive element is the hi-hat, and the other cymbals which, given the level of expressiveness which comes with the real thing, is not surprising. I have started to use the unit in conjunctio with a real hi-hat and ride cymbal, recorded in audio next to the midi channel for the DD55. It sounds great, much easier to play, especially for 16ths.

  The velocity sensitivity is pretty good. I wouldn’t want to try too many press-rolls, but all in all it’s fine, especially for the price.

  I’ve tried using the DD55 to play soundfonts, so far with limited success, but this might be due to my poor soundfont construction rather than any shortcomings of the DD55. However I have noticed a real tendency for the midi channels and notes assigned to the individual pads to wander in quite an alarming way, I’m not sure why. In theory, soundfonts open up all sorts of fun and games with this unit. The can be set up so that the timbre, as well as the volume of a drum sample changes depending on the velocity. This could make the DD55 an even more poweful tool. Anyone else tried this yet ?

  Reliability: N/A
  Early days yet, but it seems fine so far.

  Customer Support: N/A
  Never needed it.

  Overall Rating: 10
  I love this little unit, and I’d thoroughly reccommend it to those who need to play drums either for recording, jamming about, or perhaps even live. Allright, it’s not a real kit, but it also does things a real kit can’t do, and it’s very cheap. Use it for what it is

  When I went to a ‘real’ music shops in Denmark St in London, one snotty young guy in the shop said they didn’t sell it because it was ‘a toy’. He suggested I try a toy shop as they only sold ‘real’ equipment for pro’s.

  Fine by me mate. I now have a ‘toy’ which has enabled me to play drums more of less the way I used to, any time of the day or night, with great sounds, straight to midi, all for less than two hundred pounds.

  I found it really hard to find this unit in any music shop in London, Could it be that store owners don’t want to sell it because it might make people realise that they don’t need to spend thousands of pounds on ‘pro’ gear to get the sounds and playability they need ?

  Submitted by Steve Milton at 03/14/2002 04:18

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: US $240.00
  Ease of Use: 10
  Plug it in and bang on it. Headphones sound great. Take 10 minutes and read the manual to figure out the menu interface.

  Features: 8
  7 drum pads, 3 position pad sensitivity, each pad can be adjusted individually for volume, on-off reverb, midi, headphones/line out, 2 foot pedals, about 100 preset kits, 100 songs to jam along with.

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 8
  Sounds much better than I expected, considering it looks kinda like a toy. Sensitivity is good, good dynamics, very good sounding kits, thru headphones or a PA - dynamite.

  Reliability: N/A
  So far so good. less than a week old, but the pads seems pretty sturdy and made for hitting. I’ve smacked it pretty hard and it hasn’t crapped out yet.

  Customer Support: N/A
  Yamaha is good stuff

  Overall Rating: 10
  I wanted something to record with, but I don’t want a big kit or a drum machine. This drum thing fits my needs perfectly. I’m impressed with the sound. For the price - great. Her’s a little MP3 of some of the kits, I’m not playing, just banging, but you can hear how it sounds recorded.
  www.nowhereradio.com/keeney

  Submitted by Steve Keeney at 03/06/2002 18:35

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: US $300
  Ease of Use: 8
  Super easy, turn it on and start playing. Presets are very good and there are a lot of them. You’ve got to have the manual in order to figure out how to get to the different settings i.e sensitivity, pad assignment, etc. The manual is very good. It details the drum kits and assignments and how to get it hooked up to your computer or other MIDI devices.

  Features: 8
  You can strike multiple pads and it sounds great. I especially like the striking two toms at once. Has some real punch. Haven’t hooked it up to my PC yet so I do not know how many of the other parameters you can change. Has a built in reverb. It is GM MIDI compatable, or at least that is what the manual says. It will only store one song so don’t even think of using that for any live performance or recording.

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 10
  So many kits, so little time! All the kits sound great! I run it through my mixer and it sounds awesome. It’ll work with any type of music I intend to play. The built-in reverb is ok but you can not change how much of it you get. Seems very responsive to different velocities of strike on the pads.

  Reliability: N/A
  I got it for Christmas so I really do not know. I will be using it for home recording.

  Customer Support: N/A
  Haven’t had to deal with them.

  Overall Rating: 9
  If it were lost or stolen I would get another or better unit. It’s worth every penny. I’m a guitar player and have never played drums until I got this unit. For what I’m able to pound out right now, it does a great job. The floor pedals really need some work though. I’m thinking of moding the bass kick with a real kick pedal. It just moves around to much for me and is really hard to get a consistant beat. This is the only downfall I can find with the unit. Also the footpads are not swappable with each other. Since I write a lot of my own music I needed the drum parts. I had a Roland TR-505 and it was impossible to tap out any beats with it though the sounds were great. I wish I kept it now and I would have run MIDI to it and used the DD55 Pro as a trigger so I could layer the sounds more. Overall I’m very pleased with it though, and hope to start adding the drum parts to my music soon(that is as soon as I can get fairly consistant with what I’m doing on the drums). It’s a real fun unit.

  Submitted by Jim Whitehead at 01/10/2002 04:29

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: US $225.00
  Ease of Use: 9
  Fairly easy out of the box use, but I recommend reading the manual first and then go on with assigning the pads etc.

  Features: 10
  MIDI interfacing is great but my favorite feature is the hand percussion setting which is great for putting a warm latin touch to your music

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 10
  The touch sensitive pads are almost like playing acoustic drum…the harder you strike them the louder they are.

  Reliability: N/A
  I have only had the DD-55 a couple of days and so to comment on reliability would be premature.

  Customer Support: N/A
  I haven’t dealt with Yamaha directly for anything yet….hope my luck will out!!

  Overall Rating: 10
  Having been acoustic drummer for over 20 years this was a real change. I do not play professionally anymore, I got out of it and sold all my equipment four years ago. Now I have ‘jones’ to just fool with drums at home which is an apartment so acoustic drums are out of the question…so I got these and I am playing again and my neighbors don’t even know thanks to the headphone jack!!

  Submitted by Anonymous at 01/09/2002 21:56

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: N/A
  Ease of Use: 10

  Features: N/A

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 10
  If you want to here somthing that will blow your mind plug your DD55into akeyboard amp a roland KC500 or either a peavey kba 300 if you think this machine sounds good now you will not believe the differece although you must be careful with the volume you may burst the windows out. no kidding with one of these amps your DD55 will sound like or real close to a $5000.00 set of rolands

  Reliability: N/A

  Customer Support: N/A

  Overall Rating: N/A

  Submitted by jeff at 12/22/2001 18:35

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: 400 (US$)
  Ease of Use: 7
  Pretty straightforward. There are some panel buttons which are easily navigable if you’re already used other yamaha musical products. Though there are some important functions accessible via key combinations which are not immediately obvious so you really need to read the manual and remember the key-combis. But then, if you’re not interested in tweaking the instrument, it’s immediately playable right out of the box.

  Features: 8
  32 polyphony is I guess more than enough for playing the most complicated rythms. I’ll give a million dollars to the first drummer who can run out of polyphony playing this with just plain drums (without any other backing instruments).

  Drum pads are pressure sensitive. Bass pedal is pressure sensitive too, but not the hihat. Sensitivity is adjustable from 0 - 2. Pad sounds are reassignable so you can setup your own custom layout. However, you can only save one custom kit into memory and this is lost once you disconnect unit from power source.

  Pads are made of rubber so sticks bounce enough on them for you to do rolls without much difficulty.

  What I don’t like with the pads is the way Yamaha layed them out particularly the hi-hat which is on the right of the snare pad. This makes it difficult or almost impossible to do 16-beat rhythms on this machine. Yes, you can re-layout the sounds, but as I have mentioned, you can only save into one custom kit and is lost once power is disconnected.

  The built-in backing accompaniment is really great for quick practice. You can choose almost any musical styles for you to play on–from fusion to samba to heavy metal. Then there are also lots of looping patterns you can practice and improvise on for hours on end.

  MIDI is pretty standard. GM compatible. MIDI IN and OUT, but no THRU. You can use the DD55 to trigger your sound modules.

  Expressiveness/Sounds: 9
  Very expressive. Expressive as any of the higher-end and higher-priced Pro digital kits in the market today. Samples are very good and there are hundred of them for you to choose from. There’s also built-in DSP. The non-percussion GM samples are quite impressive for this kind of product and is GM compaatible, so I guess you can also use the DD55 as a tone module if you wanted to.

  Reliability: 7
  Have been using for less than a month so I really can’t tell how reliable the DD55 is. The pads look sturdy enough though, but I wouldn’t hit it very hard often. The bass pedal seems to be the achelis heel of this instrument so i wouldn’t pound my foot too hard on it much.

  Customer Support: N/A
  Not applicable yet.

  Overall Rating: 10
  I love this instrument a lot. I actually fell in love with the DD55 the moment I saw it. For someone like me who is not really a hardcore drummer but a Keyboard player who can play the drums casually, the DD55 is a godsend. The instrument sets up in less than a minute, fits anywhere, easy to take anywhere, and gives you roughly 80% of what other pro digital drum kits can offer. And it’s very affordable. Kudos to the engineers at Yamaha for this one.

  Submitted by dexter at 11/29/2001 01:22

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: US $249.
  Ease of Use: 8
  the presets sound decent to me, even though it’s my 1st drum machine. Editing wasn’t too difficult for me to learn. The manual is a breeze!

  Features: 6
  One thing about it is that I’m unable to record a LIVE in REAL TIME when i go to RECORD. When I hit “playback”, it plays one of several hundred SONGS. That’s where I just plug it directly into a 4 track cassette and play like a real drum set. I’m in the process of buying a synthworkstation like the PSR 740 and wonder if it’s easy to map the MIDI sounds(?)

  Expressiveness/Sounds: N/A
  some of the sounds are ok. I need it mainly for MIDI into a synthworkstation. Never tryed it yet.

  Reliability: N/A
  I can depend on it on my trusty ole Tascam 4track cassette. I wouldn’t use it in a gig without a backup cause there’s no way I know how to change the pattern/beat/tempo on the machine. I would definitely need a REAL drummer.

  Customer Support: N/A
  Never dealt with them yet, if their ez to get ahold of, I dunno. I read others reviews what their opinion was..

  Overall Rating: 3
  on page 42 where it says NOTE on top, number 3 down it says about MIDI, “This daia is transmitted only when it is contained in the song data”. I wonder if I can play in REAL TIME at all without using the SONGS data?? In another words, MIDI from dd55 directly into Yamaha Synth PSR 740 and record in REAL time drums ( don’t forget to map the drum pads first!) and record onto synths sequencer. I wonder about that. If any body knows more about this than I do, please let me know. The music store here is the only one around ..

  I hate using the RECORD feature, cause i found out I can’t record what “I” want to play in REAL TIME into the dd55’s record feature. It plays back certain drum sounds and one can’t ALTER them into a particular beat with all the nuances like a real drummer

  Submitted by Robert at 10/26/2001 03:21

  ——————————————————————————–
  Price Paid: US $166
  Ease of Use: 10
  It came today. Great manual. I’ve never played drums before and this beasty has taught me a couple of rhythms already. Not interfaced with the PC yet but looks pretty straight forward as all my other gear, I just could not stop playing it. Real sticks, foot controllers (need to find a way of keeping them still, I might mount them on a boa