DWe, I think that I now realize why Roland REALLY wanted DW...

[Trilock_Gurtu]

"...and it turns out that that door was spruce."

 

[digovii]

had some friends at the demonstration. DW has been working on this for 4+ years and it’s truly a game changer. If you want more videos or pics check out the Chicago Drum Exchange Instagram. Posted some cool stories from the demo today.

 

[2J3L]

That is exactly my thought. Roland has been the dominant force in high end electronic drums, they needed this technology. Buying DW is an obvious way to remain a leader in electronic drums. This makes me feel better, as I've had concerns regarding Roland interfering with DW's acoustic drum products. To me it is obvious that this was the big prize. Everything else that DW does is gravy. Why would they want to mess with that success?

The other side of the coin is that Roland is better poised to produce this product, at least the electronic side of it.

I'll add something else. In 2010 my wife and I bought our house and remodeled it. In my music room I built shelves that hold roughly six thousand CDs. If my band wanted to listen to a song that we were working on, there was a good chance that I could pull it off of the wall and throw it in the CD changer. That CD collection is now a dust collector. If my current band wants to listen to a particular song, we pull it up on one of our phones.

I currently own forty-three snare drums. This technology coupled with DW sampling their drums will allow anyone with a DWe kit to have an Edge, Super Solid, Carbon Fiber, concrete snare, or anything else. Some day my snares will be as dusty as my CDs.

If you need to shake of that dust “collectors” (pun intended), let me know

 

[Trilock_Gurtu]

had some friends at the demonstration. DW has been working on this for 4+ years and it’s truly a game changer. If you want more videos or pics check out the Chicago Drum Exchange Instagram. Posted some cool stories from the demo today.

Thanks for the heads up. This pic is from their IG. I'm assuming its the trigger. Alright DFO detectives, go at it..

 

[bpaluzzi]

center trigger? bleh. no thanks. hopefully it's not that.

 

[EssKayKay]

I didn't catch how the internal triggers are powered. Do you have to take heads off to change batteries?

Good question. Also, why double A’s. Why not one lithium CR2032? They take up less space and last longer. I just bought 15 of them on eBay for under $4.00.

 

[dboomer]

Good question. Also, why double A’s. Why not one lithium CR2032? They take up less space and last longer. I just bought 15 of them on eBay for under $4.00.

Because a pair of AA batteries has 10x the current capacity.

All devices run on “power” not “voltage”. Power equals voltage x current, so a pair of AA has 10x the amount of “power”.

 

[JimmyM]

So why is everyone assuming that they don’t sound good based on that video? How can you tell anything by that?

 

[equipmentdork]

So why is everyone assuming that they don’t sound good based on that video? How can you tell anything by that?

I put on good headphones(ATH-M50xs), and the sound is largely what many demo videos offer--compressed and squeezed to death(much like modern music). I'm assuming that an image conscious company like DW wants us to hear it that way. But even more than that, what I heard didn't even seem like good triggered sounds. And really, I listen to all kinds of music with these phones. Maybe I should only listen to them with special DW headphones which were tossed in the Hudson for 1000 years.

It's certainly possible that the overall sound quality might be better live. But those particular sounds aren't good....to me. Your mileage may vary. Again, not writing them off so quickly--this is next level stuff and I'll bet it improves in leaps and bounds, and quickly.


Dan

 

[Whitten]

I thought the drums sounded good. I didn't really focus in on the cymbals. Cymbals are usually bleh.
It's just one presentation of a library they say they spent two months recording so far.
Wireless to me is a gimmick.
Yes, I presume it will be DW's library only and because of that - DW drums (sampled) only.

 

[Whitten]

Actually, there is a video with Thomas Lang playing the kit and the sounds are pretty bad. Heavily processed (too processed), the snare seems to machine gun on rolls.
I take back my above comment.

 

[BBeyer]

They have a switch tied in to tell the system if the throw off is engaged or not.. but they don’t have any snare wire adjustment system tied into the samples (that would be amazing/impossible)

Why don’t they pair up some internal mics with those trigger frames so that you can use the wireless system to transmit actual drum sounds when standard heads are installed ??

 

[flurbs]

3 pages in and no-one's yet posted that the wireless system here was originally available 6 years ago and called Versatrigger.

 

[Neilrush88]

3 pages in and no-one's yet posted that the wireless system here was originally available 6 years ago and called Versatrigger.

I watched the reaction of Justin (65 drums YT channel), he showed that and I didnt know it, I was wondering if Dw took the idea from them, borrowed or bought it, interesting situation because the tool is extremely similar. Also Versatrigger seems to be out of the business.

 

[flurbs]

I watched the reaction of Justin (65 drums YT channel), he showed that and I didnt know it, I was wondering if Dw took the idea from them, borrowed or bought it, interesting situation because the tool is extremely similar. Also Versatrigger seems to be out of the business.

Last I spoke to Paul (who designed Versatrigger), he was "talking to some people in California" and his name is listed on some recent DW IP applications. I know I'm putting 2 and 2 together, but "4" seems like the answer.

 

[gretschdrummer]

So why is everyone assuming that they don’t sound good based on that video? How can you tell anything by that?

Absolutely

 

[EssKayKay]

Because a pair of AA batteries has 10x the current capacity.

All devices run on “power” not “voltage”. Power equals voltage x current, so a pair of AA has 10x the amount of “power”.

Thanks - now I understand.

 

[jb78]

I’m having trouble understanding the enthusiasm over these. Is this the tech that new/unique? The sounds definitely aren’t.

 

[Redbeard77]

Last I spoke to Paul (who designed Versatrigger), he was "talking to some people in California" and his name is listed on some recent DW IP applications. I know I'm putting 2 and 2 together, but "4" seems like the answer.

This makes much more sense than DW designing the system themselves from scratch.

 

[Tornado]

I’m having trouble understanding the enthusiasm over these. Is this the tech that new/unique? The sounds definitely aren’t.

The sounds could be anything. I'm not concerned with that so much. What is innovative is the simplicity of the wireless system, and that latency has been virtually eliminated. Also, there seems to be some kind of pitch adjustment as demonstrated when the head was pushed down and played. I'd like to understand more about how that works. They didn’t really get into how the triggers themselves worked, but I'd think that this technology could potentially be integrated into other triggers (with a licensing fee to Roland, of course).

This could be the future of electronic drums, provided the wireless system is reliable. Given the tiny transmissions required, it could very well be. I know many musicians prefer a reliable hardware brain module to a laptop, but laptops are increasingly how things are done.