Tips for using Dauz Electronic drums with the Alesis D4.
By Terry Nigrelli
With a little patience and a little time spent tweaking the D4's external trigger settings you will achieve a great results using Dauz Electronic Drum Triggers.
General Guidlines
1. Make sure each Dauz pad is firmly secured to the rack or drum stand. Check to see that the pads do not come into contact with the rims of neighboring pads.
2. Make sure the rack sits squarely on the floor. There should be no play at the rack joints and no wobbling of the rack.
3. Use medium weight drum sticks. Heavy sticks can cause unwanted vibrations. Lighter sticks might not send sufficiant trigger signals.
4. If you are using an amplification system make sure you are not experiencing false triggering from the audio system. You may experience this if p.a. or monitor bins are located near your drum set.
The following are some of my sample settings. I find them suitable for a wide dynamic range and sensitive to subtle playing nuances. It is important to understand the interplay between the gain, velocity curve, Xtalk and mix volume parameters. I prefer setting the gain rather high with the xtalk parameter raised only when neccasary. Remember the xtalk on the pad which you don't wnat to trigger should be raised. Not the pad you want to trigger. I use velocity curve 3 or 4 for most of my triggers and adjust the mix volume to where it responds to a light touch but doesn't bury the rest of the sounds when it is struck hard.
10" Two Zone Snare -
Pad Surface
Gain - 79
Velocity Curve- 2,3 or 4
Xtalk - 15
Noise - 0
Decay - 0
Rim
Gain-84
Velocity Curve-2
Xtalk-21
Noise-64
Decay-0
8" Single Zone -
Gain-84
Velocity Curve-2
Xtalk-90
Noise-2
Decay-1