Yamaha DD-55 Drum Machines

 

 

The Yamaha DD55 Drum Machine is on the whole pretty easy to use. Some functions, like setting the pedal sensitivity so you can program other stuff, seems a bit complicated at first because you have to use a combination of buttons.

But once you've done it, it becomes second nature and you'll be doing it perfectly after that. The easy-to-read manual will help you with this and any other issues. It's not one of those manuals that will have you scratching your head. It's very well organized. There are many quality features.

The reverbs sound great, it's got a good selection of percussion sounds, and the polyphony of the pads is nice. You may sometimes hit two pads at once and one will miss, but that's not a common occurrence at all. As with any product, there are a few minor drawbacks. The reverbs that are built-in aren't tweakable; but if you have a device to do this, it's easy as pie to get any effect you want.

The crash symbols might disappoint you if you listen to them by themselves, but you have to remember this is a very difficult sound to achieve and few drum machines do a great job with this. When you're playing gigs with others, this will not be very noticeable at all anyway.

 

And, while the kick trigger is really sensitive, which is good, the two included pedals do not have the feel of a true kick pedal. If you have one, you can try hooking up the included trigger to it and probably that will assist you in getting the sound you want. Acoustic jazz is probably the one kind of musical style you wouldn't want to use this drum machine for. It needs a "brush-style" of playing that isn't easy to replicate.

But there are so many preprogrammed rhythms and great features included with this drum machine that, unless you're working professionally a lot of the time, you'll have more than you could ever use or need. The DD55 Drum Machine cannot replace an acoustic kit, but it's great for replicating drum sounds and hand percussion that you're trying to record.

You can buy a Quiklok stand for it, which is well worth the price at $40. In fact, for the price the DD55 is a great buy and will give you much of the percussion you'll need for your music.