The Alesis Control Pad

Alesis have been associated with electronic percussion for quite some time now, with the D4 and DM5 drum modules finding a place in many studios and drum racks, and who could forget their ‘classic’ drum machines (ok, maybe not ‘classic’ as such, but very, very popular and all pervasive) such as the HR16 and SR16. Alesis have been away from the electronic percussion field for a while but have made inroads back into it over the past year or so with their (very) cheap (and cheerful) electronic drum kits and also with the (more serious and subjects of this review) Control Pad multipad and the Trigger IO trigger to MIDI interface.

Both units share a very similar operating system (not surprising) and a few other similarities as well. Both units come with a copy of BFD Lite that is a multi layered drum sample player which can turn your computer into a very realistic sounding drum module. Both units can talk to other devices via MIDI or USB (which allows you to plug straight into your computer, Mac or PC, without requiring an extra MIDI interface). Both units have no internal sounds (but see later in the Control Pad section).

Alesis Control Pad

The Control Pad is a multi pad in the same way as the good old Roland Octapad. It has eight hard rubber pads on its top surface with editing and cursor controls above and pad, MIDI and USB connections on the back edge. The bottom surface has four rubber feet for resting on a tabletop, or there are four holes that match up with the pad/module holders from Yamaha and Roland. The eight pads aren’t all equal in size, presumably for legal reasons to avoid a copyright infringement on the Octapad – the divider which separates the front four pads from the back four is slightly curved so that the two middle front pads and the back far left and right pads are slightly larger than the other four. The layout is comfortable to play on and pleasing to the eye.

The pads themselves are rather hard to play on (and reasonably noisy too) and are more sensitive in their centre so edge strikes are less likely to trigger a sound accidentally. The pads don’t feel anything like a real drum, but I don’t think that is the point of this unit – people are more likely to buy this to have eight convenient trigger pads rather then using it as a practice drum kit. The back edge has a further two trigger inputs which can be treated just like extra top surface pads, two foot switch inputs for triggering a single sample at a constant velocity (for use as a basic bass drum trigger for instance) and hi hat open and closed sounds (again constant velocity) and another input for connecting two more switches to scroll up and down patches.

The Control Pad can be buss powered from the USB socket or if you are using it via MIDI, you need to use the supplied power adaptor. The unit is incredibly simple to program – there are only three button, seven LEDs to indicate which parameter you are editing, and a three digit numerical screen to show the value of the parameter you are editing.

The Control Pad allow you to save 20 programs, or ‘kits’, which you can create and save although there are some presets already saved in the unit which allow it to work straight out of the box with Reason, Battery 2, GM Modules or the enclosed BFD Lite. Each pad (or trigger input) can have its MIDI channel and MIDI note number saved, which allows you to set it up to ‘talk’ to other devices or computers. As well as this each kit can have separate sensitivity, velocity curve and threshold settings. The sensitivity is self explanatory although I found I had to have this on maximum to get the best out of the pads, the velocity curve allows you to adjust how the pads respond to you hitting them harder or lighter and the threshold adjusts the minimum velocity hit required to trigger the pad which helps prevent the pads triggering each other when hit hard.

Programming is simply a matter of hitting the pad you want to change, pressing the function button until the LED next to the parameter you want to change is lit, then using the cursor up/down buttons to change the value. To save the kit, just press the function button until the ‘kit’ LED is lit and that’s it.

Simplicity seems to be the order of the day with the Control Pad. I connected it to a MacBook with a USB cable and the Mac found the Pad instantly and it became available as a MIDI input. I could then play into the Mac and trigger sounds from Guru and Addictive Drums. It all took less than 30 seconds. Very usefully, the Control Pad has a MIDI in sockets and will act as a MIDI interface if you are using a computer – plug in your electronic kit into the MIDI in and the USB to the computer and everything will happily talk to everything else.

The footswitch inputs on the back will probably be ignored by most serious players, being as they are totally undynamic, but the two trigger inputs deserve a closer look. I tried them with various rubber pads and a Koby mesh head pad and I’ve got to say the triggering was superb (better than the response from the built in rubber pads), with the Koby pad giving results as sensitive as any Roland kit. Impressive. Pity there’s only two inputs on the back.

The Pad does lack a good, variable hi hat pedal as the switch doesn’t really cut it. Strangely, the hi hat switch doesn’t change the voice on a pad, it just generates a foot closed hi hat sound when pushed (if that’s how its assigned) so if you want to have an open and closed sounds on the pads you’ll need two pads rather than the traditional one. If you want it to work more like a hi hat pedal, you will have to create a macro in your sequencer of choice (Logic, Cubase, Sonar etc).

As a product for simple triggering over MIDI or USB, the Control Pad scores really highly (especially at the prices available at the moment, I have seen them for under £140). Its not perfect, the case feels cheap and plasticky and the lack of variable hi hat input is a drawback, BUT, and it’s a big BUT, for the price, you wont find a cheaper way to add eight pads and two trigger inputs onto an acoustic kit for such a small outlay. Put it above the hi hat and you’ve got access to a lot of pads in a very small space. I was so impressed I bought one.

PS - Alesis would appear to be in cahoots with Ion, makers of those (very) entry level electronic kits that have appeared over the last year or so. I only mention this as some very Alesis looking products have appeared recently with the Ion badge on. One I noticed is a white version of the (dark grey) Alesis Control Pad, but this Ion Pad has a built in Alesis SR16 as a sound source, for not much more money, which might be worth a look at if you need an inbuilt bank of sounds.

The Alesis Trigger IO

Alesis Trigger IO

The Trigger IO is a half 1U rack mount box that works as a ten input trigger-to-MIDI interface for drummers and others who want to trigger sounds from a computer or sound module by hitting things. It’s basically the insides of a Control Pad in a different box, with stereo jack inputs on the back of the box instead of the rubber pads of the Pad. The unit has 20 memories (again) and editing is simplicity again with just Function Up/Down and Value Up/Down buttons. As you would expect, you can change the MIDI Channel and MIDI Note per pad, per kit, but there are a few more parameters that are available to get the best out of the pads or triggers that you plug into it. Gain adjusts the overall level of the trigger input, Velocity Curve adjusts how the MIDI dynamics relate to the trigger input dynamics, Threshold is the minimum level at which the pad responds, X-Talk looks at the trigger inputs and tries to work out if they are deliberate triggers or if the are accidental cross talk and ignores those it thinks it should, Retrigger adjusts the amount of time after a successful trigger before the Trigger IO starts to look for a new trigger and Trigger-Type adjusts the input for whatever sort of trigger or pad has been plugged in. Between all these parameters, you can come up with some good accurate tracking settings.

The unit can be USB buss powered or powered from the supplied adaptor. Again, by using the USB socket, you can get the data straight to your computer without the need of a MIDI interface. Unfortunately the Trigger IO doesn’t have a MIDI in socket so cant be used like the Control Pad as a MIDI to USB interface. There is also a stereo footswitch input on the back of the box that allows you to step up and down the 20 kits by hitting the relevant switch.

The trigger inputs are TRS (stereo) jack sockets and are adjustable for almost all types of pads from dual piezo (Roland mesh heads with rims/Yamaha RHP pads/similar mesh pads) to piezo and switch (rubber stereo pads of all makes) and all combinations of the two. However, while the inputs are TRS sockets, they wont understand Yamahas triple zone cymbal pads (bell, bow and edge) or triple zone snare pads (head, rimshot, cross stick) as they only understand simpler two zone pads. Owners of Roland’s three zone cymbal pads are in luck as the simpler method of sending the signal down two cables works, but just takes up twice as many trigger inputs per pad.

The hi hat controller can be a switch just like the Control Pad (so you can trigger open and closed and foot sounds undynamically) but you can also use a continous controller to get all the gradual changes in between (if your sound module or computer program can respond to this). This makes it much more usable than the Control Pad for serious hi hat use though all the clever stuff is not done in the Trigger IO, so I originally missed this when reviewing it.

In practice the MIDI IO worked very well. I tried it with rubber and mesh pads and acoustic drum triggers and it behaved well with all of them. Its not as good as a Ddrum4 brain (but then it is a tenth of the price) and it doesn’t instil confidence for serious road use, being made of light plastic as it is, but like the Control Pad, for what it is, you can really complain. I didn’t get a chance to use it in a loud, on stage situation, which is where I find triggering units really show their true colours, but for basic triggering, I think it does the job really well. I can see the trigger IO being bought by owners of electronic kits who want to add more pads to their kit, and for this, it would be ideal. The Trigger IO is going for silly money at the moment so if you in the market for a simple (and cheap) trigger interface for your computer, this should definitely be on your ‘to look at’ list.