Yamaha DTX950K

Yamaha DTX950K Electronic Kit

The DTX950K is the new flagship model in Yamaha electronic drum arsenal. It was launched at NAMM 2010 and proceeded to win the ‘Best in Show’ prize. Why was this? Was it the stunning new sounds? Err… no. The new mounting system? Err… no not that either. No, I think it’s fairly safe to say that what most people were looking at, and going up and poking were the new pads.

Yes, here we are with a new slant on the whole electronic pad surface. It’s safe to say that the mesh head has been quite a dominant force in the last (quite a few) years, but they do seem to have become a bit of a Marmite product (a love it/hate it product for those international readers who have been unlucky enough to have missed out on a UK delicasy). Pad surfaces seem to have split into three distinct area – mesh (which can feel over bouncy), padded real Mylar drum heads (which can feel rather dead) and rubber (which can feel too bouncy or too dead depending on whom you listen to). There have been ventures into other directions but these have tended to be by small companies who don’t stick around, so this is something quite different from one of the ‘big boys’.

But before we look at the pads, let’s look at the rest of the kit. Now conveniently, this is very similar to the DTXtreme 3 which was the last top-of-the-range kit from Yamaha. To get the DNA of this new kit, I urge you to read the review of the last kit and I can easily point you in the direction of the review right here

So, we are looking at the same (rather tasty) HexRack, the same three zone cymbal pads and two zone hi hats (which, re-reading the review, were my favourite parts of the kit) and the same Yamaha mounting hardware. The DTX900 module is incredibly similar to the DTXtreme 3 module but there are a couple of software changes (more of this later) and a new, black paint job, which does look better than the last one. The module is rather bulky but it does contain rather a lot of stuff (both physically, electronically and programmability wise).

As before there are two versions of the kit – the 900 which is a five piece kit with three cymbals on a standard tubular rack, and the 950K which has four toms, three cymbals and the HexRack. For review I had the 950K which I have got to say looks much more ‘serious’ than previous kits from Yamaha.

So what have they done? Well, the pads are totally new, come in new sizes (for Yamaha) and have a few tricks up their sleeves. The pad material is made from ‘textured cellular silicone’ which is a silicone gel type material with thousands (if not millions I guess) of tiny bubbles in it (if you bite into a Whispa bar you’ll see something similar in the chocolate). Now, because the silicone is not solid, changing the amount and size of the bubbles in the silicone adjusts the rebound or feel of the pad. Taking advantage of this, the pads have a different feel depending on their use or size. For instance, the 12” snare pad is the ‘tightest’ feeling and is bouncier than the two 10” toms which are looser feeling like rack toms are. These in turn are ‘tighter’ than the two 12” tom pads which feel more like 14” or 16” floor toms. You can actually hear the pitch of the pads going down as you play the snare pad, then the 10” toms then the 12” tom. But you had better be listening rather carefully as these pads are quiet. And I mean quiet - there’s no ‘tick’ tick’-ing here. The pads have quite a low acoustic pitch to them and on an A/B test with a mesh pad are much less audible. I’m not sure how much quieter they actually are, but the mesh head sounded rather clattery in comparison.

The actual playing surface is a very tough, rough material and most importantly, it’s white. This immediately makes the pads look clean and much more ‘drummy’ than previous Yamaha pads, and I’m sure it’s psychological but they just made everything look great.

The rims of the pads are rubber over a metal frame. There are two rim zones so rim shots or cross sticks are easy to achieve regardless of whether you are left- or right- handed and being pressure triggers, you won’t get any cross triggering from rim to head or vice versa. There are also controller knobs on the snare and tom pads which can be assigned to snare release, tuning, click tempo, filtering, sound selection etc as before.

The snare and tom pads also have something I haven’t seen before in the way they are constructed. Each pad’s surface floats on the pad’s body on six sprung loaded shock absorbers. These shock absorbers act in two different ways – firstly they provide the head surface with the ability to move up and down, absorbing the shock of the impact of the stick and secondly, they help the pads reject vibration coming up through the mounting hardware. The snare pad has longer shock absorbers so the whole pad is much deeper than the tom pads. This is so it can be mounted on a standard snare basket and the floating surface can be held clear of touching the basket arms. The pads all feel rather substantial and nicely solid and the tom pads mount onto a standard Yamaha hex tom arm.

The bass drum pad is very similar to the previous model (my second favourite part of the last kit) except that it has a white surface too. This pad has a rubber surface under the fabric, but I have no problem with that as it feels very nicely solid and responsive.

The rest of the pads (ie the cymbals) are great – three zone and they come in 13” or 15” sizes. Please read the DTXtreme 3 review for more details.

Module wise, as I said earlier, things are very similar. To sum up briefly, the module allows you to play the 1100-odd internal samples in many different ways. As well as the internal samples (which cover most of Yamahas ranges from Birch Custom to Hip Gigs and everything in between), you can also use the internal Motif tone generator for non drum sounds. As you would expect, there are effect processors, sequencers and internal practice songs as well as powerful sound editing, sample editing and trigger editing facilities. You can stack sounds together or alternate up to 100 sounds per surface (300 per pad at any one time) so the pad will play a different sound every time you hit it (perfect for one handed loops and melodies if that is your thing).

This is still the only sampling drum module on the market. There are others that can load samples but the DTX900 can record audio through its audio inputs as well. You can have up to 512 meg (1 hour 42 minutes) of your own samples using optional sample memory which is perfect for loops, backing tracks and sounds. If you are a DTX900 user, you can go to the Yamaha DTX website and download some specially created sampled drum kits, complete with cymbal sets and load them into the module. At the moment there are rock, jazz, and electronic kits with oak and vintage kits to come. Oh, and they’re free and they sound rather good.

The new additions to the module come in the form of a DVD ROM which is provided with the kit. This contains a copy of Cubase AI5 and it allows you to turn your computer into a recording workstation. By downloading two little programs onto your computer you then have the ability to a) use the USB socket to send all your MIDI data to and from the computer and b) control the working of Cubase directly from the front of the DTX900 module.

In Cubase Remote mode, all the buttons on the front of the module become linked to functions in Cubase. These can be things like the cursor buttons will move the cursor around the screen and the click button will start and stop the click in Cubase, but they can also be user assigned. The ten function buttons can be assigned to pretty much anything you want. They all come assigned as standard but if you want to assign button F1 to quantise all your playing to a preset tightness, then you can. It’s a seamless system and hopefully it should encourage drummers to get into the whole recording experience.

These features also make the DTX900 perfect for triggering drum VSTi’s like Superior Drummer, Addictive Drums and BFD. In fact, as you can set the pads to give you alternating MIDI notes every time you hit them, you can take advantage of the left and right hand samples in Superior Drummer and EZ drummer.

Ok, so I’ve talked loads about the kit but I haven’t talked about how the pads feel. Well, I’ve lived with them for a while now and I have got to say that they feel superb. My initial reaction was one of surprise as they didn’t feel how I expected them to feel, but after a few minutes I wasn’t even thinking about them. To my hands they feel half way between a mesh pad and a real drumhead but without the overly bouncy surface. They are exceptionally comfortable to play and I now realise how wearing rubber pads can be when played hard – these feel almost ‘light’ to play, its weird but you might know what I mean when you try them. The tracking was fantastic; I could play a very quiet buzz roll and hear everything. The dynamic range is good and they are exceptionally quiet when played on the head (the rim shots are noisier as you would expect).

Ok, so Yamaha needed to look at their pads on the DTXtreme 3 and I think they have done something really special here with the new pads. They do add to the price and the DTX950K is a sizeable outlay, but you get what you pay for. The great feeling new pads together with the modules facilities (many of which are unique) and the inclusion of some excellent software do make this a very powerful package. Try one.

John Williams
June 2010