Alesis DM5 and DM5 Pro - A Pair of Solid Drum Modules
Apr 03 '02
The Bottom Line DM5 and DM5 Pro are a pair of high quality drum sound modules. Which is right for you?
Alesis has been producing drum sequencer machines and sound modules for many years. Perhaps the most used of all current drum modules is the Alesis DM5. Recently, Alesis gave the DM5 a big brother, the DM5 Pro. Both modules are easy to use and feature a wealth of very useful sounds.
DM5 -
The DM5 18bit sample rate drum module was released in 1995/96 and features 16 voice polyphony and over 500 onboard drum sounds. Drums may be tuned by both course and fine tuning adjustments. There is a preview button on the face which is handy from auditioning tones and changes. A Chase button enables note chasing, whereby a trigger of a MIDI note will display the note numbers voice information on the LCD display (this is nearly always set to on in my case!). 12 trigger inputs are available at the rear of the DM5 which allow for external triggering via drum pads. Triggering can be tailored by 5 trigger parameters.
The Dm5 case is a single rack space height unit and is quite well constructed. Controls have a nice solid feel and give a solid tactile feedback on use, particularly the data dial. The DM5 features 2 pairs of stereo outputs and drums can be panned to 7 different stereo positions. There are 21 user programmable drum kits available. There are MIDI in/out/thru and a face mounted headphone jack and volume control. A data dial, 10 lit buttons and a yellow/green LCD display allow for programming of the DM5.
The drum sounds from the DM5 are for the most part effects dry. Some of the patches were sampled with some processing, however most are dry. This is important to remember if you are using the DM5 in a live situation with no house effects processing. You will need an outboard effects processor in order to get a good sound from the unit. In the studio this is not a problem as will no doubt like to leave the unit dry to allow for studio processing of the output from the DM5.
The units winning sounds include its snares and toms. The kick drums are generally quite good. Cymbals are decent. Some ethnic drum sounds are usable. Drum sounds are quite subject to taste. You may have to try many sounds until you find the drums you prefer best. The sophisticated tuning is very important as some drum sounds may sound best when detuned or high tuned. Play with these tunings and you may find some "gems in the rough".
The DM5 is a workhorse type unit which allows easy and clean production of drum tracks or drum sounds. You may need to take some time to pan, tune and level the sounds within a drum kit. Once done however, the sounds are generally quite good. I personally have used the unit on several recordings with good results. On one occasion, I wish that I had more time to spend programming the unit as several drum levels were set too high. Having only stereo outputs made this a problem in mixing as there is of course no way to mix these sounds down in an analog mix. Using ProTools however, such leveling of overly hot sounds is simple.
DM5 Pro –
In1998 Alesis rolled out the DM5 Pro. One can only guess as to why the unit was not named the DM6, but I will conjecture that the name springs from the similar control and appearance of the unit. The DM5 Pro’s similarity to the DM5 however ends with appearance, as the DM5 Pro has substantial internal changes for the advanced musician/user. Basic enhancements include 1,664 different 20 bit sampled drum sounds and 64 voice polyphony.
Several critical enhancements were also added to the DM5 Pro, these enhancements have transformed the DM5 Pro into a truly powerful sound module. Important enhancements include:
1) Expansion of sounds via front mounted PCMCIA Type 2 card. This expansion slot enables the user o import sounds from a computer via MIDI. Sounds are then “burned” onto the PCMCIA card for use as internal sounds. Alesis included a copy of their “SoundBridge” software with the DM5 Pro which acts as a conduit for MIDI transfer to the DM5 Pro. Te unit does not come with any PCMCIA card, but it accepts Alesis Q Cards and apparently AMD Type 2 Flash RAM cards. I have had some difficulty locating a usable flash card, but I will be doing o, as sound expansion is a very useful tool for my use. It will be nice to sample sounds from the PC and transfer them for use on the DM5 Pro. Sadly, the manual has very poor coverage of the actual use of the expansion slot. Fortunately there is a Yahoo DM5 Pro user group which is looks promising. It would be nice to see Alesis beef up their website to include better coverage of the DM5 Pr’s expansion slot and its use.
2) 6 individual outputs, one pair of stereo outs and one pair of RCA stereo ins. The individual outputs are exactly what is needed in the recording studio environment, allowing far better control of the post performance mix. RCA inputs allow for mixing in of external sounds sources, perhaps for practice to a CD or tape source.
3) Onboard effects are included and are quite satisfactory for live use. As stated above, using the DM5 does generally require some addition of external processing. All that is needed for most sounds is a bit of reverb to thicken up the tone, lending a more realistic quality. I am quite amazed by the effects processing of the DM5 Pro, each drum can be effected in a different manner, receiving different effect blending and quantity.
4) Complete editing control of all sounds, allowing great or small changes to individual drum characteristics. Alesis includes a version of Emagic’s software based sound editor, “Soundiver for the DM5 Pro”. This program while quite complex can aid in the editing and creation of DM5 Pro drums and kits. I have however had little success as of yet in its use. As an old DM5 user, I am quite capable of using the front panel for the majority of my programming. I am sure I will son become more adept and the software interface however.
The DM5 Pro is more than worth a few extra hundred dollars for the serious user. It offers a great many enhancements and many more internal sounds As the DM5 requires external signal processing for most of its sounds in live use, the DM5 can help pay for itself with its addition of onboard effects. Multiple outputs make it a sure winner in the studio environment and its man internal sounds means that you will no find the perfect drum for most circumstances. If you can’t find the right drum, you can sample it and load it into the DM5 Pro. While the rather spotty documentation of the expansion capabilities of the DM5 Pro may slow your use of such capabilities, there appears to be enough users who have learned the many new uses of the DM5 Pro and will no doubt soon fill the documentation holes left by Alesis.
If you are on the fence deciding which unit to purchase, consider the following:
- In live performance the DM5 Pro may be your best bet if you do not already own any effects units.
- If you are a beginner you may do fine with the DM5, as you may not require top notch live performance fidelity.
- In the studio the DM5 Pros 6 independent outs allow for finer control of final mixing.
- If you plan to use external samples of sounds the DM5 Pro will apparently do the trick, once you find the right PCMCIA card and once you learn how to use it.
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