Be very interested in what you think of the wavedrum.
Sorry for the delay on this, but I wanted to be sure the Wavedrum was something for me before starting to rave about it
There are pro's and con's actually, but the pro's heavilly outweight the cons.
The cons boils down to the fact that you cannot connect it to MIDI on a computer, and thus make editors for it... on top of this it has the most convoluted menu system when you want to program it.... I would REALLY have liked for this to be MIDI controllable, and send out MIDI CC data for the four sensors it has... would have been cool to use with other devices.
The reason is quite obvious though... it's made with three "microphones" that record the sound of your strikings, plus a pressure sensitive plate right beneath the center of the drumpad... the audio data is used in the DSP, so MIDI would be way too slow... but nonetheless, the slower rate would be usefull I think, for other gear.
Also... the device actually have a micro SD card inside, with all the extra samples and loops... would have been nice if it was further developed with an outboard slot for this, so you could use your own samples with it.
Another funny thing is, that it's actually capable of feedback because it records sound... you can easily make it "sing" by just clapping your hands.... and then of course, you get "confused" when you play it sometimes, because you can hear your hits on the pad, in addition to the sounds the Wavedrum makes... wotks best with headphones at high volume levels since this will drown out the noise, and also stop eventual feedback.... the feedback is a minor thing though... hardly an issue.
But the pros... the most obvious being that it is EXTREMELY dynamic to use... so much it rivals real percussion sounds many times... it senses differently depending on where you hit it, and sound different depending on both the sticks you use, and how you play it with your hands... use your palms, your fingers, your nails... everything sounds authentically different and VERY lifelike, which was EXACTLY what I wanted.
Can it do anything a sampler or physical modelling thing would not? ... yes... certainly... everything (or a LARGE part of it) is due to the way it's played and the way in which this is made part of the algorithms... You don't need to make a hell of arrangement corrections like on a sampler, to make it sound authentically... you just play the darn thing, and record it, and it sounds REALLY good and lifelike... so if you know how to play percussion tight, then this thing is a god sent for stuff like ambient, orchestral and experimental stuff.
The sounds in it are pretty good, and there are so many, you can almost find something you need... It is a keeper here, even though it has no MIDI because it will let me do percussion with a human feel extremely fast and intuitive... it lets me perform, rather than program a sampler for realism... me like!
The device has four sensors... one on each side of the rim, one right beneath the interface, and then this pressure plate in the middle... the rims have small bumps to make guiro like sounds too...
Hope that was info enough