The DTXpress on-board sounds and factory kits are fine, if a little uninspiring. The real fun comes from playing with the preset sounds and creating bigger, better ones.
This page is devoted to exposing the dirty, little secrets of the DTXpress and to getting the most out of the equipment you've just spent the best part of a grand on.
At the moment these tips are in no particular order. If this list gets too large, then I guess I'll have to categorise them......
There are currently 21 tips
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Layer those voices | The first and most important tip. Don't waste your time with single-voice drum sounds. Layer each and every drum and cymbal to give a bigger, more involving sound. The possibilities are pretty much endless and you'll wonder how you managed without it. Don't be afraid to experiment - a standard snare on V1 can be transformed by layering it with a sound effect on V2. |
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How many snares? | Don't restrict yourself to the "standard" drummer's set-up. There's no reason why you can't set up a ride cymbal on one of the toms or a second (or third) snare. A lot of music nowadays uses different snare or kick sounds during the song. Try setting up a nice tight snare for the verse and a cracking big one for the chorus. |
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Thrash fans | The hi-hat pedal can easily be set up as a second kick drum (check out "VMA" in the downloads section). Now you can perform those double bass drum rolls and flams without the need to buy an extra kick drum and twin bass drum pedal. The easiest way is to program the kick pad with a sound you like and then copy that sound to the hi-hat input. Remember to change the MIDI note of one of the kicks - especially if you're recording to a MIDI sequencer. |
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Extra loud!! | If you're about to play live and you want that bit extra - change
the kit to Live mode using UT SYSTEM VolMode=Live. Then, using the Click Vol. and Accomp. Vol. knobs, you can boost your kick/snare volume. This will give everyone a nice surprise. If you forget which knob controls which pad - just think "Click=Kick". You can also adjust the volume of the other pads by using Shift together with these knobs, although you may need an extra pair of hands to do this. |
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Pad Songs | This is a great feature. You can record up to 2 tracks into a User Song bank and then play them back through a pad! Essentially, the DTXpress allows you to use a pad as a song controller. You can choose to play the whole sequence once, repeat it or play sequential notes every time you hit the pad. You can even start and stop the sequence by hitting the pad twice in succession. Use this feature to add depth and complexity to your playing, but remember to keep in time with yourself! |
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Bells and Whistles | Well, not quite whistles but certainly bells. The DTXpress ride cymbal has the unusual property (some would say shortcoming) of having a much louder trigger volume near the "bell". The centre of the ride is significantly quieter. This can be adjusted, of course, but why not use this feature to create a more realistic cymbal? I'm talking about cross-fading the cymbal sound on V1 with a bell sound on V2. The crossfade is velocity controlled, which means that the louder response towards the centre of the pad can be used as a trigger for V2. (thanx to Michael for this tip) |
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In a tunnel | The DTXpress has a reasonable set of built-in reverbs. You can adjust the send/return/master level for each kit. Try experimenting with the different settings to get that "big" sound. |
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Lower hi-hats | Generally, the weakest collection of sounds on the DTXpress are the hi-hat sounds. This is because they tend to initialise themselves at quite a high decay rate (typically +40) making them sound fast and tinny. Use the voice edit to adjust the decay rate down towards zero. You'll notice the hi-hats come to life as their overtones are released from this over-restrictive decay envelope. |
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Trigger happy | Playing around with trigger setups can get you into trouble. It's a shame the DTXpress can't store different trigger setups for each user kit. Whichever trigger setup you choose affects every kit. If you do get in a mess with a user-defined trigger setup, remember you can get back to normal by copying one of the preset trigger setups over yours. |
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Switching Sides | You can tell the DTXpress to switch the stereo "image" of your kit from your point of view to that of the audience. Your hi-hat will now appear to come from the right speaker as if you were hearing it from the audience's perspective. Go to UT MIDI SETUP and change the MIDI Mode setting from "native" to "GM". Not particularly useful, but fun all the same. |
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Changing your Kit | OK. You're in a progressive art rock band. You're playing a seventeen minute epic. You need to have a completely different sound mid-song. How do you do it? Easy. Reserve a pad as the kit switcher, then change the function of that pad to either inc drumkit or dec drumkit. You can then hit that pad and your entire setup will change to the next kit up or down. If you're really clever you can also switch to any kit, say from 80 to 66 by using a Program Change controller on Channel 10 followed by the number of the kit. You can find this on the UT MIDI PC TABLE screen (or section 2-4 in the Reference Manual) |
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Changing your Kit 2 | Even better - set a pad to inc drumkit in one kit and use the *same* pad as dec drumkit in the other kit. That way you can switch between kits and back again. (Thanks to Andy for this one.) |
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Colour Code | The DTXpress prides itself on being easy to transport. However, there may be times when you have to remove the brain from the rest of the kit (to fit it in the back of your car) - and that means disconnecting all the leads. If you're going to be regularly gigging - this can be a pain. So how about colour coding all the leads? I've fitted coloured pieces of tape around each lead - one at the pad end and one at the brain end. This way, I only have to disconnect one end and I know which lead goes into which hole. Having said that, I now just fold the kit up before transporting it, keeping all the leads connected - because I'm lazy... |
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Remix those cheesy Preset Songs | First set PC10=on and 10=on
in the UT MIDI RECEIVE menu. Now if you take a song, say song 15, and start playback, all you get is piano and drums. If you scroll through the voice menu ( the song menu is locked out ) you get to two of the "common" pages which let you change the MIDI channel information. On the first of these pages, turn on MIDI channels 7, 8, 9 and 10. Now if you go back to the first page, you can change the PC value (default is 1). As you change it, the voice being played back through that MIDI channel also changes! So instead of everything being piano "PC - 1" you can now set channels 7, 8 & 9 to be three different instruments. Makes the preset songs sound much better. (Thanks again to Andy.) |
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Slow scroll Fast scroll |
Ever thought that sitting holding the "+" button to
go from 1 to 127 takes a while? Well, if you press the "-" buttonwhilst holding the "+" button
you begin to move in increments of 10 rather than increments of 1. You have to let go of the "+" button
to stop, then press "+" again to start moving in increments of 1 again. This is a fast way to get back to the space at the start of the alphabet when naming kits and songs. (Another brilliant tip from Andy.) |
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Find those lost drums! | So you've recorded a song and assigned it to a pad, eh? Clever. You go to bed all warm and happy. The next day you turn on the DTXpress - WHAT?!?! Where are those drums you recorded on the pad-song. They're coming out as piano! No problem. Select your user song, go to Song Job Mode and select the "Program Change/Bank Select" menu (Ref manual - p24 - section 2). Select Ch 6 and turn it "On". Leave PCNo at "1" and finally change V=meldy to "V=drumV". The drums are back!! If you have two pad-songs, you'll find the second one on Ch 14. Oh, by the way - the next page down gives you a chance to change the overall Volume and Pan of the pad-song. (yep, it's another Andy special.) |
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Wanna be a guitarist? | If you want to play any of the preset GM MIDI sounds, you can. In the Voice menu, change the channel of any pad you want from Ch=10 to Ch=9 (or whatever). Now, when you play that pad you get a piano sound. You can change the pitch of the note by changing Note#= . Furthermore, if you turn on Channel 9 (KIT PC Ch 9=on), you can change the GM voice being played by changing the PC= parameter. Try PC=30 for distortion guitar! (Thanks again to Andy.) |
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Who needs Cubase? | Make sure all the pads are set to a MIDI channel other than 10 and then record your masterpiece on Track 1. Now turn on that channel in the Song menu AND Voice menu and set SONG Bank Select V=drumV . You can now change to another kit (one which uses midi channel 10) and record the second track using this different drum kit! You can even edit the existing kit (track 1) back to channel 10 and change all its voices, without affecting what you've already recorded!! By the way, check the UT MIDI PC TABLE setting. If your kit unexpectedly changes to kit 40 (GM std 1), change the Drum Kit Number value to "none" for Program Change number 1. (Thanks again to Andy.) |
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Walking Bass Line |
Tip from: "Bisqray" (bisqray@yahoo.com) I've been trying to figure this out for two years and I finally did !! Here's how: First of all you will need a midi keyboard to do this. Second I wrote these instructions for the original DTXpress but I assume you can do the same for DTX II. Finally this is a rather advanced procedure. I warned you :-)
Phase 1: You need to understand the concept of song pads in "chase" mode.
Phase 2 Creating your own song.
Phase 3(Almost there !!)
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How do you assign a kit to a song? (By Nick Carroll) |
Assign a kit to a song by doing the following:
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How do I submit a review? |
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