Yamaha DD-65 Digital Drums 

Comments about Yamaha DD-65 Digital Drums:

I purchased this to replace the same set. (It had about 210 hours on it in a high school setting. Lasted a long time!)

Comments about Yamaha DD-65 Digital Drums:

When I close my eyes, it is hard to believe that this is not a real set of drums. Improvements made from the DD-55 make this more user friendly and give it better sound. Works better with hand playing, as well. I give this thing four stars because Yamaha does not include the power cord? What's up with that? Who is going to seriously use this thing with 6 "C" batteries? So, make sure to add the cost of the adapter (thirty greenbacks) to your price and get the PA-150 power adapter.

Comments about Yamaha DD-65 Digital Drums:

This is an ok unit to add basic drums to a small gig without the hassle of hauling a full kit out. The Yamaha KP65 kick is an absolute necessary addition if you want to enjoy playing it at all, since the included pedals are simply small buttons you stomp on. A hi Hat pedal would also be smart, but I have gotten away with using a basic keyboard sustain pedal, since the Hi Hat input is not touch sensitive anyway & only requires a momentary on/off. The drum sounds are ok when amplified through a PA system, but are nothing special. All & all, once you add a snare stand to mount it on, a throne to sit on, a kick pedal using the KP65 trigger, and a better Hi Hat pedal, this is not a bad unit for under $500. For small informal gigs where it's not worth the effort of hauling a full kit back & forth, it's a no brainer. Two easy trips back & forth to your car, and about 10 minutes to set it up... not too bad.

Comments about Yamaha DD-65 Digital Drums:

Overall, I would recommend this set to the beginner to intermediate performer. If you are like me and are a loop performer, guitarist, keyboard player or just interested in adding some percussion to your bad of tricks this is a good value for a starter kit. With a set of good foot controls, this would be an awesome first kit.
This set has good features for a begining to intermediate player. Love the built in songs with the ability to turn off the various drums and background. I gave the unit an 8 for a couple of reasons. The kick pad and high hat control are almost useless, I wish Yamaha had an inexpensive set of real foot controls in this set. The sounds are rich and full and there is a lot of them. The pads have a rather narrow strike zone, but are reasonably usable and responsive. The foot buttons need some reengineering though.
Overall this unit is well constructed. I've owned it about a month now and have beat the snot out of the pads without any visible wear or deterioration of playablility. I've also whacked the plastic a few times without any apparent damage.
For the bucks, this is a great starter set. I use it to add my own beat tracks to loops. I was using a cajone, but wanted more flavor in the beat track. The only real cheap feature is the foot buttons. With the addition of good foot triggers, this would be playable for live applications with a little practice on it. I'm not a percussionist, but this set makes me sound like I semi know what I'm doing.

Comments about Yamaha DD-65 Digital Drums:

I love my DD-65! I got my DD-65 as a "Stupid Deal of the Day" for a real stupid price about two years ago. My kid and I use it to mess around when ever we have our guitars out and want to add something to our jam sessions. The DD-65 isn't a full up set of drums, but it isn't a toy either. All of the pads are assignable and the pad rebound is good. We usually just use the preassigned kits preinstalled in the software, but every once in a while we "create our own kit" to mix things up. It is simple to use and works very well. Is it perfect...well no. I am not a drummer so my aim with a drum stick isn't that great. The upper/outter pads are a little small, but how big can they be when the whole rig is 30 X 20 inches (just a guess). But the good news is I got used to them and when I miss, the body seems pretty tough and hasn't cracked or chipped yet. The pedals seem pretty good to me...the high hat seems to work better than the bass, but my pedals have always been on carpet (a hard surface might work better). NOTE: it does not come with an A/C adapter so if you do not want to mess with batteries, you will need to find one. BOTTOM LINE...the DD-65 is a cool little electronic drum set and it sounds good. You can play along with an MP3 player with head phones or hook it into a PA system and get as loud as you want. Like I said, I love it!!
The DD-65 isn't a full up set of electronic drums, but it isn't a toy either. All of the pads are assignable and the pad rebound is good. You can hook up to an MP3 player and use head phones or a full PA system. NOTE: it does not come with an A/C adapter so if you do not want to mess with batteries, you will need to find one.
The DD-65 is portable and durable. I have owned mine for two years and everything still works just fine!
I got mine as a Stupid Deal of the Day for a real stupid price. I do not know of any other options for size, durability and features. For around $200 you can't go wrong.

Comments about Yamaha DD-65 Digital Drums:

What is advertised as "touch sensitive" would be better described as defective. I know it says in the manual that if you hit the bass drum pedal too softly then it might not make any sound, but this was just ridiculous. I really don't see the point in having such a feature if it requires you to hit the pedal hard and precise each and every time. The hi-hat pedal isn't like that at all. In fact, I assigned a bass drum voice to it and it felt just fine because it doesn't have the "touch sensitive" feature. So I figured maybe I'd just switch the inputs to control the bass drum with the hi-hat pedal and control the hi-hat with the bass pedal. Guess what, you can't. When you try that, they just don't work at all. You also can't turn off this "touch sensitive" feature, it is what it is. What kills me is that if not for this serious design flaw I would have absolutely kept it. There is an alternative, you can buy a regular kick tower like what you would have on a normal sized electronic drum set, but with the money you'd be spending all together, you might as well get a low-end full size set. It's a shame because this is an overall good product with one devastating flaw. Bottom line: I would only recommend this product if you intend to invest in a real kick tower to use with it instead of the bass pedal that comes with it.

Comments about Yamaha DD-65 Digital Drums:

It's definitely not the best portable electronic kit on the market, but being a Marine in Afghanistan who needs to practice his newly-aquired drum skills to keep from losing them, it serves my purposes.
Probably this kit's only redeeming quality. It comes with many sounds of varying styles. Could have replaced many of the world percussion sounds with standard acoustic kit sounds IMO. My favorite feature is the ablility to listen to yourself play. It allows you to critique your own style and discover mistakes and bad habits you didn't even know you were doing.
The pads and triggers are the two worst features of this device. The pads are small and have very little rebound. They are very loud when struck, so much so that even the external speakers have trouble drowning the pad noise out on full volume. The sensitivity has three settings (0-2). The highest makes pad cross-talk incredibly prominent, the lowest produces missed hits like it was going out of style, and somehow the middle manages to combine the two to make it practically unplayable. I end up just turning it to 0 and hitting hard, although this makes the already loud pad noise unbearable for any bystanders.

The pedals come in a close third for worst feature. They are simply buttons that you place on the ground and stomp on. They are too light, making them slide around with every hit, and too sensitive, producing a hit even when simply changing the pressure your foot puts on them.

Footnote: the hi-hat sound is very quiet, even when open, and cannot be adjusted seperately from the rest of the kit. You will not be able to hear it over the rest of the kit and the pad noise.
Not worth the money you'll be paying for it. Plain and simple.

Comments about Yamaha DD-65 Digital Drums:

Despite Yamaha's claim that this apparatus is not a toy, it actually is. The built-in sounds are not very realistic at all. There is no ability to adjust the tuning of the drums or volume of the individual pads. The standards pedals are unpredictably responsive and have a tendency to occasionally double-trigger and then not trigger at all.I bought this item as an alternative to programming phony-sounding drum patterns on my computer. However, the time it takes to program a drum loop is much shorter than attempting to get a good take with this drum set. I simply cannot get the set and the pedals to produce reliable timing and sounds. I literally have spent the last two hours trying to complete a 3-minute drum track because of how spotty the triggering is.I also briefly tried out the Alesis Performance Pad and would strongly recommend it over the Yamaha DD65. I'm thinking about reselling this item or giving it away to charity and investing the extra couple hundred dollars for an electronic drum setup that plays more like the real thing.

Comments about Yamaha DD-65 Digital Drums:

This is a great product for practicing independence and timing. It is not so great for practicing technique (rudiments, rebound, rolls, etc.) The pads have very little rebound. The sticks that come with it are very small and light (I think they are pine). I assume they want you to use super light sticks to save wear on the pads. This limits the rebound as well.Sensitivity is poor especially for snare sounds. Subtle ghost notes or closed rolls will not be picked up. You have to strike the pad very close to the center or it will not be picked up. For some reason the toms do not have this problem, only the snare.It is laid out like a real drum kit but it is pretty cramped and inflexible. It's not too useful for practicing around-the-kit technique, even for jazz. The most useful part for me is being able to record myself playing with one of the canned 'songs". I learn a lot listening to my playing.It does have a decent array of percussion voices, though I have not found a snare sound I am crazy about and the hi-hat is almost inaudible. You will definitely want to pick up the KP65 kick pad for this. The little ball switch does not cut it for practicing bass drum technique.All in all it is a fun toy, is very quiet and takes up very little space.

Comments about Yamaha DD-65 Digital Drums:

A Yamaha DK-65 is a kit that comes with a Bass drum tower real bass pedal Hi-hat pedal snare stand & drum seat. I played drums for 40+ years and love the portability & versatility of this set. Plug in to the PA no problems with being to loud or not loud enough . Great for small stages and club gigs. I also run direct into my computer for recording. Two improvement I would like is more user presets there?s only 3 and 1 or 2 more pads.