Alesis DM10 X Mesh Kit Vs Roland TD11KV

ECDrums

Junior Member
Hi guys I'm new to the forum.

I've had a break from playing drums for a few years now and I'm looking to get back into it. I'm looking to purchase an electric kit for practice use in my flat and I would like Mesh heads for reduced noise, and a feel that is similar to the acoustic drums that I'm used to.

I have been offered an Alesis DM10 X Mesh kit at a very favorable rate and I was wondering how it stacks up against Rolands entry level Mesh kit for practice use.

Does anyone own/have any experience of these kits and could offer their thoughts?

Many Thanks!
 
With only a very limited try of this kit, I found it to be up there with models from others costing considerably more. There's bound to be some plus & minus points, but for it's intended purpose, it's great value for money. Hopefully, some of the ekit users here can chime in.
 
Hi

I actually owned an Alesis DM10 drum kit and sold it on ebay a couple months ago.

The first thing for me was that the heads were terrible, but I had their "real drum heads", not mesh heads so the mesh ones might be better for you. I had to replace these drum heads constantly since they would break so often; literally snapping in half. If youre going to buy this kit, avoid the real drum heads at all costs, they feel terrible and break easily.

The module is very confusing to navigate and much more complicated than it should be. It took me a very long time to understand how everything works. Alesis proudly promote how there are something like a thousand sounds on their drum module. Unfortunately I have to tell you that 99.5% of those are crap. You will definitely find enough sounds for a drum kit you design yourself made up of sounds you like, but do not expect to have multiple drum kits for different musical styles. Most snares sound dead, most cymbals sound like Zildjian ZBT's and only one series of toms sounds good.

Durability. After about 4 months of playing one of my crash cymbals became faulty and sometimes ever since then, when I would hit it, it would make the sound twice rather than once. After about 6 months or so my hi hat became faulty because when I would open it, it would make the correct sound, but after a bit of time riding on the open hi hat the sound would suddenly change and become lower-volume and higher-pitched.

I can't remember the snare rim shot ever working. This was very faulty for me and 90% of the time I hit the center of the snare the rim shot sound would play. So I had to assign the rim shot sound to a snare sound that would be made when hitting a snare in the center. The other 10% of the time when I could trigger the center of the snare drum, the sound would actually come out but obviously it would not be the same as the rim-shot I had assigned. All very confusing, basically.

There are positives. The module comes with a lot of decent backing tracks to play along too. The funk-rock ones are especially good in my opinion. There are a lot of recording options you can do. Playing a long to music with the ipod is made easy and there are multiple sound inputs. You can do a lot of things with the sounds that ARE good such as change reverb, pan, muffling, pitch, volume and some other stuff. If you manage to work your way around the confusing interface there is actually quite a lot of customization available . And finally the price. A drum kit that comes with 4 toms, a snare, a hi hat and 3 cymbals for £649 is a bargain price. At the end of the day you get what you pay for. For a 16 year old who wants to play drums in his bedroom it honestly served me very well despite the faults that it had. I had a lot of fun playing this drum kit and it was a good experience but I felt it was time to move back to an acoustic.

If you are looking for quiet play, those mesh heads will help a lot as oppose to my loud, rubbish real heads that I had. I will say that the cymbals were quite loud too, especially the ride, despite being made of rubber. Definitely quite easy to hear if you have a neighbor on the other side of a wall. The roland cymbals are not loud.

I understand you are in a flat so an acoustic kit isn't an option. Sorry if I came across harsh in my review of this kit, I am just being honest because I don't want you to buy if you end up dissapointed. I've been playing on a Roland electronic kit for the past 4 years at my church however and it is a TD-8, so the cheapest mesh head range available. I am quite a hard hitter (maybe this is why I had faults on my alesis but considering the time it took for these faults to come, I doubt so and blame the creation or manufacturing method) and the roland drum kit is still in very good condition. Those mesh heads on the roland are unbreakable. The sounds are far superior but less on roland kits. But there are many more good sounds on Roland than the 0.5% of Alesis sounds which are good. The drum set I use for my drum lessons at school is a roland td-11 too and the triple zone ride works well and the sounds are better than that of the TD-8. I have no complaints about it, it's a very good kit. Money is obviously a factor for anyone. If you can, I would probably recommend the Roland. I don't know the Roland TD11 price but I know it's higher than the Alesis one. I assume you have been playing drums longer than me too so you would want something more advanced-feeling.

Sorry about the wall of text just giving an honest review

Hope I could help

Gertz

EDIT: The drum set at my church is a TD-4 not a TD-8
 
I would honestly prefer Roland over alesis. I have had a lot of trouble with my alesis kit, and I know many people that have had a flawless Roland experience. On the other hand, I would rate Yamaha to have way more realistic kit sounds. It doesn't take a special ear to notice how much more realistic yamahas drums are. So I would go for Yamaha. If you want to know more, I posted a thread comparing sounds, cymbals, pads, and build of Yamaha and Roland.
 
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