Brain purchase: Roland TD10 or Alesis DM5?

[ryanbairdrums]

So I landed a new gig and I will be using an acoustic kit, triggering the kick and the toms and miking everything else. I have the triggers handled, I need to get the brain. The options are...
1. Used Roland TD10 brain + a roland kick pad(trigger that comes on electronic kits that I wont use live) $425
2. Used Alesis DM5 kit, includes the whole electronic kit with the DM5 brain. $200

I have tested the Alesis DM5 brains before and I think the sounds seem very cheap. All of the Roland kits I have used blow them away in my opinion as far as sounds go. However, I only used a TD10 (quite possibly could have been a TD20 because I remember the faders being different) one time for a church gig and didn't change any of the settings or anything and I'm not sure what it is capable of. I have used the Roland TD6 and TD9's before and I have to say that I was pretty pleased with the sounds as well as the other options they had such as tuning, dampening, different drum sounds, etc.

So, does anyone know what the TD10 is capable as far as altering the sounds? Also, are the sounds in the TD10's better or comparable to the TD9's and TD6's? It would be nice to have the full set of DM5's for future practice use, but ultimately for this gig I want sweet natural sounding tom and kick drum sounds. It seems the TD10's came out before the TD6's and TD9's and I'm not sure if the sounds were improved then or not. Also note, the TD10 I am looking at does not have the expansion card in it.

What to do?

[scorch whammin]

Personally, I wouldn't get either..they're both old technology…if the td-10 was the expanded version, I might consider it, but $425 for an unexpanded version seems a little high to me..and as far as your other questions go..you can alter the sounds on the td-10 (more than the td-9/-6)…and yes the td-6 & td-9 are newer, but the 10 with the exp card sounded a little better to me and it also has more editing capability…the main thing it doesn't have that the td-9 has is dual zone on the toms (rim & head)…just my 2 cents..

[thebarak]

Originally Posted by scorch whammin

Personally, I wouldn't get either..they're both old technology…if the td-10 was the expanded version, I might consider it, but $425 for an unexpanded version seems a little high to me..and as far as your other questions go..you can alter the sounds on the td-10 (more than the td-9/-6)…and yes the td-6 & td-9 are newer, but the 10 with the exp card sounded a little better to me and it also has more editing capability…the main thing it doesn't have that the td-9 has is dual zone on the toms (rim & head)…just my 2 cents..

I agree. A basic new module is going to sound better than even a high-end old module. That ancient DM5 does not even offer half-closed hi-hats. I recommend a brand new Yamaha DTX500 module because it has fantastic sounds and is extremely inexpensive.

[ryanbairdrums]

Thanks guys I appreciate the input. I didn't realize that the DTX500 module was so cheap. I'm going to look into that. I read somewhere on here in another thread that Yamaha uses actual samples recorded from their acoustic kits, anyone know if that is accurate?

[DrumEatDrum]

Originally Posted by ryanbairdrums

Thanks guys I appreciate the input. I didn't realize that the DTX500 module was so cheap. I'm going to look into that. I read somewhere on here in another thread that Yamaha uses actual samples recorded from their acoustic kits, anyone know if that is accurate?

On the more recent modules, yes.

I don't recall about the the older modules.

[scorch whammin]

Originally Posted by ryanbairdrums

I read somewhere on here in another thread that Yamaha uses actual samples recorded from their acoustic kits, anyone know if that is accurate?

Yes, that is accurate…as far as I know I believe they've been doing this since at least the DTXtreme (2001), possibly DTX2.0 (1997)...

[ryanbairdrums]

Thanks for the advice! I went to Guitar Center and checked the dtx500 out. Loved it, ordered one two days ago. Thanks again