Hansolo
Senior Member
If you're considering a compact e-kit or want to expand your acoustic and electronic kits, you may be interested in some improvements I've made to the versatile DTX Multi-12 multipad. I was unimpressed with it initially but after reading the manual and making changes to the pad layouts, voices and trigger levels I was surprised by it's potential. I've been fine tuning mine for a while, to have more convenient selection of kits and make the 'standard' drum kits sound more playable using only the voices provided (no extra wave files). One of the most useful features is that each pad has 4 layers to allow mixing of samples with individual control of their tuning, volume and other parameters to create a better range of sounds - especially for the snares and cymbals. The kits are configured for the hihat pads to work with a HH65 or RHH135 controller and the kicks (or patterns) can be triggered from a foot pedal (eg Roland FD-8) or via pad input 14. I'm also using a Roland PDX-8 dual trigger pad for a snare drum.
Here are some of the mods I've done and suggestions for Yamaha to make the next version of the Multi-12 a more useful percussion unit:
Current improvements:
- Rearranged kit pads/voices for a more conventional drum kit layout to make them easier to play.
- More useful mixes of snare, tom, kick and cymbal sounds as some of the original standard drum kits sound 'unusual or unusable'.
- Regrouped User kits for more convenient switching combinations of acoustic and electronic sounding kits.
- Wider range of pad sensitivity for stick and hand playing with progressive input gain settings from 15 to 60. Default Startup Trg (U07) is set for good pad response with fairly mild stick playing (Input Gain=45).
- Added Yamaha optional kits (5 electronic and 4 acoustic) - their wave files are available from Dropbox.
- Extra internal GM/melodic kits plus midi control of external synthesizer sounds (work in progress).
Future improvements:
- Kit editor to simplify changing pad/voice settings with less menu navigation.
- Increase wave memory size from 64MB to at least 2GB (similar to Roland's SPD-SX)
- Front panel control of multi-effects (similar to Roland's SPD-SX)
- Add a kit chain function for easier kit order selection (similar to Roland's SPD-SX)
You can download my data and info files of the revised Multi-12 kits (as a freebie) from Dropbox with this link:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bx1wtmiud6ww96c/2uNYI2kb1d
Let us know of any other ideas to improve the Multi-12 and (if you have access to one) what you think of the revised kits - have fun with them.
Here are some of the mods I've done and suggestions for Yamaha to make the next version of the Multi-12 a more useful percussion unit:
Current improvements:
- Rearranged kit pads/voices for a more conventional drum kit layout to make them easier to play.
- More useful mixes of snare, tom, kick and cymbal sounds as some of the original standard drum kits sound 'unusual or unusable'.
- Regrouped User kits for more convenient switching combinations of acoustic and electronic sounding kits.
- Wider range of pad sensitivity for stick and hand playing with progressive input gain settings from 15 to 60. Default Startup Trg (U07) is set for good pad response with fairly mild stick playing (Input Gain=45).
- Added Yamaha optional kits (5 electronic and 4 acoustic) - their wave files are available from Dropbox.
- Extra internal GM/melodic kits plus midi control of external synthesizer sounds (work in progress).
Future improvements:
- Kit editor to simplify changing pad/voice settings with less menu navigation.
- Increase wave memory size from 64MB to at least 2GB (similar to Roland's SPD-SX)
- Front panel control of multi-effects (similar to Roland's SPD-SX)
- Add a kit chain function for easier kit order selection (similar to Roland's SPD-SX)
You can download my data and info files of the revised Multi-12 kits (as a freebie) from Dropbox with this link:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bx1wtmiud6ww96c/2uNYI2kb1d
Let us know of any other ideas to improve the Multi-12 and (if you have access to one) what you think of the revised kits - have fun with them.