DTX6 Deep Dive, Part 5: A New Level of Playability
Expressiveness beyond traditional electronic drums.
Yamaha DTX6 Series electronic drum kits incorporate innovative features that take electronic drumming to new heights of expression. Regardless of your playing style, a DTX6 kit can capture all the energy and emotion you put into a performance, and will inspire you to keep on playing.
Use Your Heads
All DTX6 drum kits come equipped with an 8-inch Yamaha XP80 snare pad. The playing surface on this trigger pad is made from TCS (Textured Cellular Silicone), a foam material that emulates an acoustic drumhead. Air bubbles in the material act as a cushion for your drumsticks, providing excellent feel while ensuring reliable triggering, quiet performance and reduced fatigue. What’s more, TCS heads never loosen, so the feel remains consistent even when you hit the pads hard during a long performance or practice session.
To increase pad sensitivity and eliminate crosstalk to other pads through transmission of vibration, the XP80 has a floating structure that isolates the TCS head from the rest of the pad. Even when you’re slamming the snare pad, you won’t have to worry about other pads being accidentally triggered.
Zone In
The XP80 has three zones, allowing it to react like an acoustic drum. Striking the XP80 on the TCS surface produces a head sound; striking opposite sides of the rim produces different rim sounds.
Each XP80 zone can layer up to four voices, and each layer can be set for different levels of velocity sensitivity, so the pad can play different sounds depending on how hard you strike it. For more information on how to layer voices, see Part 4 of this series.
Three-zone construction is also employed in the Yamaha PCY135 13-inch ride cymbal pad included with all DTX6 Series kits. In addition, it offers positional sensing, which permits different sounds to be played from different areas of the pad such as bell, edge or bow — just like a real cymbal. As with the XP80, each zone of the PCY135 can layer up to four voices, with different velocity sensitivity for each layer.
All cymbal pads supplied with DTX6 kits feature “choke-ability,” whereby grabbing the edge of the pad chokes a crash cymbal or mutes the ride cymbal, creating authentic playing action. A stopper pin mounted to the cymbal holder prevents the cymbal pad from rotating, ensuring that the pad always faces in the correct direction. An output level control on the pad can be used to adjust the trigger signal to suit any style of playing.
Hats Off to You
DTX6K3-X and DTX6K2-X kits are outfitted with a Yamaha HS-650A hi-hat stand and RHH135 hi-hat controller, a 13-inch moving hi-hat pad that also employs positional sensing.
The RHH135 is capable of playing closed edge, open edge, closed bow, open bow, foot closed and foot splash sounds, and when used in combination with the HS-650A, it performs just like a real hi-hat — you can even adjust the tilt angle for the bottom cymbal! The HS-650A also has a sturdy tripod design to ensure stability, along with heavy-duty spurs that prevent hi-hat “creep.”
Create Your Own Custom Setup
Setup and positioning of DTX6 pads is made easy using the RS6 Electronic Drum Mounting Rack included with DTX6K2-X and DTX6K3-X kits. Designed especially for use with electronic drums, the RS6 is a compact rack system with L-shaped legs that stand up to the heaviest playing, while allowing flexible placement of the pads, foot pedals and supplied DTX-PRO module.
The RS6 is lightweight, can be set up by one person in minutes, and occupies minimal floor space. The height of each rack arm can be set independently, and the left side of the rack permits the hi-hat stand and kick pedal to be placed exactly wherever you want for maximum comfort — even if you use a double kick pedal like the Yamaha DFP-8500C. What’s more, the KP65 and KP90 kick drum pads supplied with DTX6 kits are large enough to easily accommodate two beaters from a double pedal, plus they support connection of an additional external pad if you decide to expand your kit. The output level of either can be adjusted for maximum sensitivity while eliminating double triggers, even when you’re playing fast rhythms.
A Yamaha CL-940B ball clamp is used for the snare holder. It mounts on an independent rack arm, enabling adjustment across a wide range of positions, so you can set the snare pad precisely where you want it.
Crash cymbal holders are also mounted on independent arms, using clamps that pivot 360 degrees so you can offset the position of the cymbals from the tom pads. Both cymbal and tom clamps attach to any RS6 rack arm and rotate 360 degrees, making it a breeze to achieve any mounting angle while creating your own custom setup. The clamps hold tight under all playing conditions and are secured using easy-to-grip finger bolts and key bolts that accept a standard drum key. The DTX-PRO module mounts to an independent arm that can swing to the right of the floor tom pad, keeping it within arm’s reach for convenient control while making sure it’s out of the path of drumsticks.
Yamaha DTX6 trigger pads and the RS6 rack system produce a playing experience that’s true to playing an acoustic drum set. Now your electronic drum kit can be your electronic dream kit!
Check out the other installments of our five-part “DTX6 Deep Dive” series:
Part 4: Customizing, Importing and Layering Sounds
Click here for more information about Yamaha DTX6 Series electronic drum kits.
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