This DM-PRO has the most professional quality sound of any hardware machine except for The AKAI MPC4000.

I like the DM-PRO's sound most when combined with the sound of an Elektron Machinedrum synthesizer or a Roland MC-307 as they add more brightness to the mix. Lucky for me the DM-PRO has a stereo input. The sound of the two synths compined is amazing to me, much like my MPC4000 is alone.

The PRO has enouph features for me and will go from real drums to electro drums. It won't run out of possibilities for me. And it will have to do because I doubt gear companies are going to make anything now that can replace a programmable 20-bit 48khz drum module any time soon.

For those of you that want to get more(real)drum sounds without programing or importing them, you are upset. That sucks, what can you expect on a pro unit? At least the possibilitys are there.

Newer units will give you more acoustic drums with a brighter sound. But they will all either sound smaller and thiner or will be lower resolution or non-expressive. And the sounds in newer modules are so much of a bore.

I bought a D-4 and found it a great start. Then I bought a DM-5....a little better........

Then in 1994 ish as Alsis went Bankrupt I bought their flagship drum module the Alesis DM-Pro. Good pre-installed sounds but otherwise a criminal insult.

Do a Google search for DM-Pro sux........nuff said. And go to the Hard Drum web site and search for their comment on the DM-Pro. They were much more polit than I but read between the lines and their statement says "The DM-Pro cost us big time with angry customers so we dumped it as fast as we could".

All three units have a particular flaw which although one might accept as early R&D mistake with the D4 and "OK oops we forgot to fix on the DM-5" but on the DM-Pro ???? COME OOOOOOOOON

Most drummers will orient the module so that it is located off of their left shoulder....maybe aft of their High High. OK.... (download a picture of any of the three modules and this next part should be clear)

while attempting to adjust a parameter one will reach over with their left hand, touch a parameter such as "mix" or "trigger" or "tune" and then by glancing at the LED Display confirm that this parameter has been selected. But then the next thing one would do is spin the thumb wheel....with.... your left thumb...... but to do this (with one's left hand) the rest of your hand will block your view of the L.E.D. !!!!

A minor issue? NOT if you are trying to use the box in a live setting. Yes you can use other fingers to get the job done but....... it was called the thumb wheel for a reason!......and using any other digit just doesn't flow.

One more issue......oh never mind just Google the DM-Pro Sux.

Why such a caustic review? Because I tried playing nice with Alesis and they never even tried to fix my other reliability issues.

So in short if you buy an Alesis drum module GET A GREAT WARRANTY AND A 60 DAY MONEY BACK AGREEMENT. 60 days.....not 30 days because you will need to factor in a learning curve or just assume that you WILL take it back in 29 days.

Respectfully

It also falls into the strange position of having been the Alesis flagship drum module since 1999 AND having been recently abandoned in favour of the older 16 bit DM-5 and SR-16. Since then, it has easily been overtaken by the Roland TD series of V-Drum brains.

Since the DM-Pro has now been replaced in our rack by Yamaha Motifs (with PC and DR expansion) AND a TD-6... we have discovered a new use for it.

In a nutshell, the DM-Pro has some of the best sounding electronic drums that we have heard. Over the past 3 years, we considered replacing the DM-Pro with various Jomox and Elektron units, but quickly ended up going back to the old standard.

For techno and synth oriented production work, it has a remarkable pallette of 808, 909 and Simmons sounds, as well as Kraftwerk style kits made up of noises and blips. The separate outputs are very convenient, and the DM-Pro now has its very own mixer and dedicated delay unit in our set-up.

Since drummers have abandoned it as a "real" drum module, I think that it is destined to become a classic amongst electronic musicians. If you see one on sale cheap, grab it and head directly for the electronic kits.