I highly recommend the Korg Wavedrum Global Edition.
- It uses a real drum head for input, and adds/changes that (and, separately, the rim of the Wavedrum) to provide some very good sounds. As a hand drummer who’s been unhappy with every MIDI trigger device I’ve tried, (even the Zendrum), this instrument makes me very happy.
- Playability is limited only by your skills: it’s not a MIDI trigger device, so it can play as fast as you can play, and it is infinite in dynamic range, because it uses the actual drum sound (and the varying degrees in which you strike it) as the sound source. You can also use sticks, brushes, and mallets on it.
- Check out some YouTube videos; they guy with the red plaid shirt has some good demo videos.
- Superb stereo sound for every voice, so much so that I’m trying to reproduce it outside of headphones, with an amp that supports stereo sound with external speakers for stereo imaging (I also can’t speak highly enough about the Simmons DA200S drum amp, which does have external speaker outs for just this purpose; I’m going to try it with a couple small Crate amps, which is fine for this because the external speaker outputs are crossovered so they don’t get the low end).
- I use it on a snare stand.
- The had can be replaced with any 10” drum head. It comes with a drum key and an Allen wrench needed to adjust/change the head.
- It takes several seconds to boot up when powered on, and a second or two to change voices. But it’s worth it.
- The Aux In input (into which you can plug a phone, MP3 player, or any other source that has a headphone jack) is inexplicably set to zero, and therefore doesn’t work. The process for making it not-zero is not included in the manual that comes with the Wavedrum. They also recommend that you leave it set to zero when not using it, I think because it either introduces noise into the mix, or reduces the output volume of the already too-low output, or both. Instructions for enabling Aux In may be found in the Parameter Guide on page 7.
- The instrument list (voice list) is found in the back of the Quick Start Guide, and contains a main list of the presets, and separate lists for the head and rim so you can presumably mix your own in the 200 blanks spots available.
- While all of the sounds are high-quality sounds, some of them are just plain silly, so I’ll be setting up my own favorites when I learn the system.
- This version of the Wavedrum supposedly has much better instrument-level output than the previous models… which really makes me sad for the owners of previous models. It’s still not good, and I’m looking into a pre-amp to use it with my amplifier, and I have to max out the volume to use headphones with it by itself.
- There are some tasty drum loops built into it, but they’re hard to get to, and you can’t alter the tempo, so they’re of reduced value.
- In my opinion this device suffers from having too many functions controlled by too few controllers… I suppose they were trying to keep a nice simple look for the majority of people who would just play it and not get into the deeper functions, but it makes it tough to use.
- Some of the voices have an echo built in… and it adjust to match the basic tempo of what you’re playing! Kudos to whoever thought of that.
