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Casio LD-80 Touch-Sensitive Digital Drums with Guide Lights and AD-12 AC Adapterby CASIO
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Features
- Full of sounds, features and modes
- Touch Response pads for the feel of acoustic
- Lighting Guide System for easy learning
- Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) input and output
- 7 pads and 2 foot pedals
Amazon.com Review
Casio pulled out all the stops when making the LD-80 digital drum. With seven pads, two pedals, and a layout reminding us of the Millennium Falcon, we were a little intimidated at first. The LD-80, however, proved to be an easy instrument to use and navigate. The display and button layout is pretty intuitive.The ability to plug in and play is great. You could spend a long time just drumming away right out of the box without even getting into the 76 sounds or 20 built-in drum sets. The drum pads have touch response, meaning the harder you hit the louder it is, allowing for the feel of a real acoustic drum set. Indeed, once you plug in the high hat and bass pedal it is hard not to feel like you're playing on a professional acoustic set.
A real drum kit isn't going to be able to switch into lesson mode at the push of a button, though. The LD-80 does just that. And it does it with over 100 built-in auto accompaniment rhythms. The thing that separates the LD-80's lesson mode from that of other digital drum units is that you are able to turn off any of the separate drum, bass, percussion, or chord parts so you can play any part you want or adjust it to your skill level. Casio's Lighting Guide System lights a little red light at the bottom of each pad so following the lesson is easier. The metronome feature is easily accessible and is there to hold the hand of the rhythmically challenged. Add to that the recording function that lets you record your own playing up to 300 notes and we really felt like we could learn something.
In order to fit all this stuff in Casio made the LD-80 almost 2 feet wide and over a foot deep. For the size the LD-80 is very lightweight and doesn't take up much table real estate. If using the provided AC adapter, a pair of your own headphones, both pedals, and a MIDI cable, where to put all the cords can become an issue. We looked at it this way, though: a real acoustic drum set would take up much more room, doesn't have lesson mode, isn't MIDI capable, and won't record you while you play. The LD-80 can do all that and more.
We think pros and beginners alike will find the LD-80 has a lot to offer. Make a little room for it in your studio and it could come in handy all the time. The music student will love all the features of the lesson mode. Beware, though, that with two stereo speakers and the Super Bass option this thing can get pretty loud. But then again, that is where the nice big volume knob and headphone jack come in. --Brian Vandiver
Pros:
- Casio Lighting Guide System
- MIDI capable
- 7 pads and 2 pedals
- Full of sounds, features, and modes
- Touch response pads
Reviews
AwasomeThis was a very good gift. My son always wanted to play the drums, but he never had any aquiptment. I boughthim this and he leard by the light teaching device and he is pretty good. I suggest this to anyone who likes to drum
Awesome!THis is no toy! This thing rocks! It's awesome! I got it for my wife for her birthday. She played the drums in high school. We have 5 kids so a real drum set would be in danger of being destroyed in our house. We are so happy that we bought this Casio electronic drum set over the real thing. It's loud, it's digital, and all of it's options and perks make it more than fun. The headphone option is great too. Again, I can't get over the sound....it's so real and so crisp. We love it!
Casio missed a beat with the LD-80The nice features are the seven velocity sensitive drum pads which will transmit MIDI data to control other MIDI drum kits. Other than that the LD-80 does not have much to offer the serious musician.
The drum and synth samples are very grainy 8-bit sounding samples and there is a lot of noise on the signal. It sounds more like an early 80s digitial drum machine than real drums. Infact some of the sounds seem to be lifted directly from the famous Casio RZ-1 drum machine from the days when Casio still made professional music equipment. The machine has some bigger problems than mediocre sounds. For starters the pedal inputs are not velocity sensitive which means sounds played on the pedals will sound out of place with the more expressive sounds played on the pads.
Worse than this is the fact that the machine has very poorly implimented MIDI capabilities. There's no excuse for this as the machine has a good enough control panel to have been able to access more MIDI features so adding them would not have increased the cost. If you plan to use the LD-80 as a drum machine in your MIDI rig you will be annoyed to discover that the machine responds to MIDI data on all 16 channels. You cannot disable the channels you do not wish the machine to respond to. Channels 1-9 play General MIDI patches, Channel 10 plays a General MIDI mapped drum kit and channels 11 to 16 play different mapped drum kits including sounds not accessable by the pads or even mentioned in the manual. While it may sound like a bonus feature not covered in the manual that your LD-80 will also function as a synth module you will soon discover that with only 16 voices you will max out the polyphony pretty quickly in even a modest MIDI sequence. The fact that channels cannot be disabled on the LD-80 pretty much eliminate's it's usefullness as a MIDI drum machine and synth module for the serious musician who employ other MIDI synths in their rig. I was very disappointed with this. Either the engineers who designed this product were too lazy to impliment proper MIDI capabilities or they just no longer understand what musicians need in a MIDI instrument.
One thing that is rather nice about the LD-80 is the learning system built into it to help non-drummers learn to drum. A selection of auto-rythmes with auto-accompanyment as well as a few songs that the novice can drum along to in time with the syncronized light flashes on the pads makes practicing a bit more fun. Unfortunately poor implimentation of MIDI prevents these auto-rythmes from being useful for much else as you cannot start, stop, or sync the rythmes from MIDI.
It is cheaper than its closest competitor, the Yamaha DD-55, but if you're looking for a drum machine and not just a MIDI percussion controller then you'd probably do well to look elsewhere. If all you want is a set of pads to control other MIDI drum machines or a cheap kit for your kids to learn to drum on (the headphones are great for this) then the Casio LD-80 will fit the bill nicely.
Saddly what could have been a great product has been reduced to a somewhat okay product due to Casio's lack of vision.
PerfectI think it's the best present I could find for my son.
This was the worst buy I have ever madeok, i wrote a review about this product a while back on this same page saying how good it was. I take EVERYTHING i said back. This is bound to be the worst buy I have ever made. I have had this product only 4 months, and three of the pads are broken. 2 will only make a very slight noise when you beat at it as hard as you can, and the other one is completely dead, and i do not believe i hit this drum set any more than anyone else. This machine has great sounds, but it has the worst durability ever. Do not buy this machine, I swear you will regret it, it may be good for little kids wanting to learn to play the drums but for any other use besides that, DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT
very niceI just got the Casio LD-80 and it's a very nice little piece of equipment. I'm not a drummer, but the sounds seem pretty good to me. The only sound thats really lacking is the bass drum which sounds a little cheesy, but besides that, its got some really good sounds. I'm not a big midi buff, so i couldnt tell u if its a very good for controlling other midi instuments or stuff like that. i just got it so i could record a little rhythym in my songs, and i think it will probably do that nicely. The lesson mode that it includes is very helpful and is great for people that don't know how to drum or at least aren't very good.
pretty good sounds and great for a beginning drummer.
