Customer Reviews

Yamaha DTXplorer 5-piece Electronic Drum Kit

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I visited Guitar Centre to check some digital drums to add to my home studio. Luckily I met an experienced drummer (also a customer) in the shop who told me these were the best and also at a great price. I bought them on Amazon to save some money. I've now had them 3 weeks. No problems. Easy to set-up. Feels like I'm playing a real kit with the advantage that I can turn down the volume and not annoy the wife! I have not recorded them onto my studio tracks yet but so far they are great!!

Living in an apartment in the city, I used to have a regular acoustic drum kit, but wasn't a fan of the neighbors, who called the cops on me more than once. I sold the kit and used the money to buy this electronic kit on the recommendation of a friend. I'm so glad I did! This is a great value for the money, and is perfect for apartment living. It's compact (taking up MUCH less space than the old acoustic kit), and even folds up if you need to stick it in a closet. It's got 32-preset kits, over 200 unique drum sounds, a metronome, pre-loaded songs (which you can remove the drum track or isolate the bass to play along with), and several unique features to help you improve your playing. The pads have a nice feel, with solid rebound, very similar to an acoustic kit. It even comes with a bass pedal -- a $70 value.

You'll need an external amp to generate sound, but it also has a headphone jack if you want to jam into the night and not get a visit from the police. It has an aux input for a cd or mp3 player, so you can play along with your favorite songs as well.

If you're a serious drummer, you're gonna want an acoustic kit. But this is a great practice kit, or a great kit for people who live in a city apartment (like me). I can't say enough about this kit. Great value, a great product.

So i just bought a dtexplorer and so far its been great. I have heard good things about them and needed an electric set to practice with to not disturb my room mates. The set feels great and sounds great. It has 32 pre set drum settings but i have only found that maybe 5 or 6 of them are actually useful, some of them are just weird but fun to play around with. If you need an electric set to practice i would highly suggest this set, because it sounds great and the price is right. Although if you are a professional and need one to record, or are in need of a really technical set this isnt for you. there are a few problems i have found so far. the first is that the hi hat peddle isnt very responsive but not too bad. another is that the lug nuts come loose now and again. other than that though the set is great.

After awhile researching the various options, I'm pleased with my purchase of the Yamaha DTXplorer. I was tempted by the Roland TD-4K, which is more expensive. But while we were at the drum store trying out the various models, my kids gravitated more towards the Yamaha. As a drummer in my college years, I wanted something for myself, but also a kit to inspire my children to play. The Yamaha had some fun sounds that, at least in the store, I couldn't get out of the Roland. I really do enjoy the feel of playing this kit. As mentioned by another reviewer, the hi-hat is not always as sensitive as it could be (but it may just require more adjustment). With this set you cannot choke the cymbals and do other things like on the Roland, but I do enjoy jammin' to classic rock tunes on my iPod. And, the kids are playing it as well. In general, I wish they would add a feature whereby you can download additional drum sounds - or even kits from specific drummers. The Charlie Watts/Keith Moon/Neil Peart collection....Imagine the possibilities.

I'd recommend this kit to any drummer who lives in an apartment building or has roommates. Not exactly a high end electronic kit, the DTXplorer nevertheless does its job: it allows you to play and practice in relative silence. The kit is very simple and small, which is great because it takes up very little space and is very portable. For the price, it makes an excellent practice kit. You can run the kit through an amp to create sound, or you simply plug in your headphones and reduce the volume even more. An AUX jack allows you to plug in an mp3 player so you can rock out to your favorite songs. There are about 30 or so drum sounds to select from, but more than half are fairly useless and/or too bizarre to be helpful.

Despite the usefulness of this kit, it does have a few problems you'd expect for the price. The bass drum has a weird "lip" that prevents you from using your own pedals (at least, none of MY other pedals would work). You have to use the pedal supplied, which is fairly low quality. The hi hat pedal is probably the worst part of the kit. It's response is awful, so making hi hat "chirp" sounds is harder than it should be. Complicated open/shut hi hat patterns will sound pretty bad. Also, the kit is not expandable with the current brain. There are only enough inputs for the drums provided, so what you get is what you will have forever.

All in all, I'd say get this if you want a cheap but serviceable practice set. I think it's been well worth the money I spent. I can practice much more than I used to, and it still works great even after a year of heavy use. I think it's a great buy if you don't expect miracles.

My main complaint is the hi-hat sensitivity sucks. You really have to put pressure on the hi-hat pedal to keep it muted, which is kind of hard to do when you're doing complicated kick drum parts or get busy on the toms. The crash cymbal is a little limited too. But hey, I only paid $550 for this thing and it's great for the most part. To get a perfect electronic drum set I'd have to spend a few thousand probably.

I would highly recommend buying the Simmons SD7PK over this one, for multiple reasons. After reading all of the great reviews I bought the DTXplorer online. Got it in, set up was a breeze, and it sounds okay... what I would expect from an electronic drum set. HOWEVER, the high hat pedal sucks. Very strange range of control on it, and it just doesn't work well. Now I am not a drummer, I'm a piano/guitar player, so I thought maybe it was my playing. It wasn't, as I found out later. There is no dual zone snare pad for this kit, so you can't do rim shots. Also, I bought this set for home recording, and hoping to use it as a MIDI controller. Turns out when you plug it in as a MIDI controller, it uses some crazy non-standard notes so basically if you plug it into garage band or logic the kick drum and snare don't make any sounds without having to download some form of software to remap the MIDI coming out of the DTX. I knew there were some kits out there with USB outs, so I decided to return it. The guitar center rep suggested the Simmons SD7PK, which was a great trade. First of all, it's less expensive. Second, the high hat pedal works MUCH better. Third, the snare is dual zone, allowing you to do rim shots. And third, both the USB out and the MIDI out map to the correct standard notes so it's plug and play with drum software instruments. It is also much sturdier and all around feels much more like a real drum kit. GO WITH THE SIMMONS SD7PK.

I've had the Yamaha DTXplorer electronic drum kit for about five years now. I come from a background where I've used a lot of non-electronic percussion equipment, including multiple non-electronic drum sets. Does this replace a non-electronic kit? Well...it depends what you're using it for. If you're looking to record or do a live show with these, you're probably going to be disappointed. They definitely don't feel like a traditional kit, you just don't get the resistance or general feel you would, which you do start to get closer to with the higher-level Roland electronic kits. But for practice, or recording demos? Definitely, this kit is an option. Also, if your living situation doesn't accommodate a real drum set (apartment, etc.) then obviously you need an electronic kit, and this one does well without breaking the bank. Maybe if you had a kid that was just starting out on the drums as well, this would be a good option because you get pretty much everything you need without breaking the bank (I've never been a fan of the cheap non-electronic drum sets, they're mostly garbage).

Four out of five on this one, dings for not the best feel and only decent sound quality.

I'd like to first off say for people complaining about the sensitivity of the pads, their's an easy fix for this. Hold down both the shift button and the drumkit/trigger button. Press the arrows until you see "Gain" listed as an option. Hit the pad you feel is too sensitive, then lower the gain on it, and save the settings. Pretty simple fix, you can find it in the manual. Their's plenty of settings to change on this kit if you can find them.

The drum kits themselves... Well, their's about 4-5 kits that are worth using, the rest don't sound like complete sets. They have 1 or 2 settings that just don't fit with the rest mostly. You can create your own kit with all the sounds available on it and save it though, which is nice. I'm just learning the drums, so this is a pretty great set for me to learn how to keep some beats on. I'd definitely recommend this if you're just wanting to play and have some fun. If you plan on recording with this, I think you best hook it up to a laptop and have a different drum program running through it. Pretty simple to set it all up. I think the other reviews covered pretty much everything else so I'll stop here. :)

I am very happy with this product. It takes up little space, it's sturdy, and very functional. If you are looking for a nice affordable electric drum kit you should be happy with DTX 500. More serious drummers may prefer the feel of more expensive sets' heads and cymbals but I got used to the feel of this set in just a few hours.

These would have warranted a 5 star rating if the set allowed for additional triggers (drums). You can't really expand this set because all of the jack ports on the control unit are taken up by the 5 drums, the high-hat, and the 2 cymbals. I was kind of hoping to add another tom but for the comparatively low price I can live with the 5 piece set.