Ron brought to my attention the v-expressions service some time ago, and I decided to take a chance on one of their products. This thread is really intended to answer Ron's questions about my experience, but hopefully it will help others as well.
v-expressions is an outfit that creates downloadable sets of drum kits for use in Roland e-drums. I have a Roland TD-15 module and opted for the "evolution" pack - basically 50 kits that are modeled after specific existing drum kits (e.g., 1983 Ludwig Vistalite). They also offer up "Masters" packs, which I believe are intended to emulate a particular famous drummer's sound.
The install was pretty straightforward and went off without a hitch. The install for my module uses a USB memory stick - download the .zip file to a computer, unzip it and transfer it to the USB, put it into the TD-15 and follow the instructions. It dumps the 50 kits into the Roland's 50 user memory spaces, so will overwrite anything you already have there. I had created 3-4 kits already, including my favorite "generic practice kit," so I saved those to the USB before I loaded the new ones just in case I wanted any of them back
The manual suggests you grab a notebook and write down all of your pad settings as this bulk import operation overwrites those with the v-expressions defaults as well. I did this just in case, and did go back in and put some of the settings back the way I had them (drum sensitivity curves, etc.). I did not go far enough in writing things down and it created a problem that took me quite some time to figure out. After the download, my hi-hat pedal (especially when doing "stepped" hi-hat stuff) was no longer very responsive to velocity - it seemed I either got a very soft or very loud stepped hi-hat sound when I pushed down on the pedal, with no correlation between velocity of the "step" and the resultant sound. I fiddled with the sensitivity settings and such until my face turned blue. I started thinking my hi-hat pedal was failing. I finally figured out that the v-expressions default for the hi-hat pad was actually the upgraded one, not the one that came stock with my set. My module was looking for a different hi-hat pad than the one I had, and the results weren't pretty. Once I reset to the proper pad type all was well. Glad I got that sorted, but it was probably a month of frustration I could have done without...
So, how do they sound? I wasn't impressed with them at first, but am warming to them. First, all of the kits come preset with varying degrees of reverb - all of it way over the top, in my opinion. Also, I found the same "relative volume" issues present in all of the kits (my playing style, perhaps?). The bass drum and ride cymbals (and sometimes crash cymbal) were all way to loud, and the hi-hats way too quiet. I went through all 50 kits, turned off the reverb, and reset the relative volumes of the pads (no small feat considering that each kit has different sounds that require a somewhat different mix).
Now that I've gone through that process I can say the best part is the variety of snare sounds, followed by the cymbal sounds. I've always seen the tom sounds as the weak part of the TD-15 palette, and think the same of the v-expressions kits (although they are decent). Unfortunately, I don't have a lifetime of experience playing a variety of real drum kits, so can't judge these based on that. It's certainly fun to randomly scroll through the presets and let the sounds dictate the direction of my playing for the moment. Also, the effort I put into editing and such has certainly made me more familiar with my TD-15. I had found little to like in the TD-15's factory presets by way of "regular old acoustic drum kits" and this module really helped out there.
I expect I will delete the 4-5 "electronic" kits (based on Simmons and old Roland 707/808/909 drum machines) and create a few of my own kits in those slots by picking and choosing elements from these new sets. I did reload my original "generic practice kit" into the lone remaining user slot while I was still getting my head around this stuff because it didn't seem very usable at first.
Having said all that, yes, I would spend the $40 to purchase this product again. It took a good bit of work to get to its potential (and each time I randomly pick a kit to play on, I'm still tweaking the relative volumes), but I think the number of "natural-sounding" drum kits I now have was worth it (the factory presets in the TD-15 are pretty over the top, as with presets for most any piece of musical equipment - intended to impress in the store).
v-expressions offers a $20 piece of software that allows you to easily save, load and move kits around on your system using your computer. I don't think I need it, but it would certainly be worth checking out if one were to purchase more than one v-expressions module and run out of memory slots. There's a free trial period on that.
Anyway, probably way too much info, but there you have it.
|