Alesis tech support... much improved!

[pfarber]

So my Alesis Crimson electronic drum kit has never really been perfect. I'd say 60% of the time it was at 90% playability. Previous calls to tech support were really just a huge shit show of 'its your fault, adjust the settings'. No support dude, there is no setting that says 'make the cymbal only work half the time.

So I googled and did what I could on my own to try and fix the playability. Mainly cymbals not triggering. Its a VERY common complaint and even Alesis's brand new top line kit, the $4k Strike, has had a short by shitty history with cymbals not working.

So after getting a laptop, EZDrummer, an audio interface and some roland CY-8 replacement cymbals I finally realized it's the drum kit and I cannot work around the problem and so I again called Alesis tech support. But I was ready for them and quickly shut down the 'did you adjust the trigger setting' nonsense.

The main issue was the Hihat and crash1 cymbal would not trigger unless you hit a 1inch zone on the rim and even when you did 20-30% of the time it still didn't trigger a sound or midi note. So I had already tested my hypothesis by running the crash cymbal into the 1/4in expansion jack on the back of the module, bypassing the cable snake used to connect to the module. Low and behold 100% triggering and the rim, choke and body worked FLAWLESSLY for 5 minutes. So I plugged in the hihat into the expansion port and it triggered FLAWLESSLY (the hihat only has 1 zone, not two). So armed with the new, damning evidence I called Alesis support.

Low and behold the woman on the phone actually believed me!!!! She said it's most likely the cable snake. My head was nodding furiously in agreement while she spoke. Since I'm under warranty a new cable snake is in the mail.

A new cable snake on ebay is like $60. So its most likely a $5 part their cost. With all the beatings Alesis has been getting about reliability they really should step up the tech support game and put parts in the mail (even if secured by a CC, I want the kit to work dammit!).

So it's kinda shitty to be so happy that the support person actually listened and BELIEVED me. Hopefully the new cable snake will fix my issue and I can enjoy the kit. I think any future purchases will make sure that there are no cable snakes required. A 6-8 ft long 1/4in TRS cable is like $1. Sure, adding the jacks to the module might add some costs, but I'm at the point where I don't care. Cable snakes suck, if one cable goes bad you have to replace all 10-12. How does that help the owner??

[pfarber]

Finally got the new cable snake. Installed and everything is working fine now.

One thing that I noticed is that some of the cables (the ride and tom3) were a few inches shorter than the one originally on the kit. So I had to rearrange one of the cymbal stands.

But I'm just happy the crash and hihat trigger reliably.