Yamaha Finger Drum Pad FGDP-50

I'm mainly learning piano, but I figured this would give me a way to develop rhythm and more finger coordination while I watch TV at night. With an earphone so as not to disturb my wife, which mostly works although she can hear me tapping on the rubber pads. But its ok if watching some mindless tv show.Using free youtube videos I've already learned a bunch of basic beats and fills. I'm starting to think I could even incorporate this into certain piano pieces, maybe using left hand to add a few beats or fills here and there in certain pop songs for emphasis. (For example, Hotel California has a bunch of places where the main instrument pauses for a couple beats and drums take over for a fill so in that case you could use both hands on the finger drums for a moment).The best thing about this is the built-in sounds, which are fun and have a lot of variety, and there's something to be said for hitting the power button and get up and running in 5 seconds. Most other units I looked at required external computer software to make sounds.Overall, very happy with this purchase.

It is a learning curve but I love the ability to drum with a looper

Love the pad feel and total control you have over the tone, expression, and velocity of each pad. Some of the stock samples are quite typical and a bit cheesy. But if you detune,and use effects etc, they become more original. Menu diving set up leaves a lot to be desired. It came out in 2023 I believe. Yet no USB C?Fun machine!

Doesn't take up much room, relatively easy to use, quick to start up and shutdown for brief sessions. This has stiff pads, which I prefer to the mushy ones on my cheap midi controller (plus options to display and adjust the sensitivity). Construction eels solid to me and while I don't have plans to go portable with it, I wouldn't be afraid to chuck it in my backpack.All of this makes it painful to rip off a star for two sets of issues that I just wouldn't have expected from a Yamaha product:1) The built in speaker seems to have some bad bass response on a drum machine. I genuinely thought one of the pads was defective at first, but after spending 20 minutes tweaking the sensitivity I finally plugged in my headphones and realized that the kick on the default kit "Maple" just does not play back well at middling volumes and made the pads feel less responsive than they really were.2) As was already mentioned, the built in lithium ion battery and lack of usb-c is concerning. The battery is not "user serviceable" as the manual puts it and recycling requires having it "inspected by qualified Yamaha service personnel." If there is a future revision of this product I would like a replaceable battery pack and the ability to operate plugged in without a battery.

I love almost everything about this finger-drum pad. The pads are super responsive and the layout of the pads is perfect for playing fast beats. It is so much fun to play. The internal speaker is quite good and it is a blast to be able to take this thing anywhere and play drums in a convincing way without a drum kit (of course you can connect it to an amp or headphones if you want it to sound better).The one huge problem I have with this instrument is that it runs out of charge incredibly quickly. If I play it continuously, starting with a full charge, it shuts down because of low battery within 1/2 an hour. Admittedly it charges up very quickly (10 min or so), but an instrument like this should be playable for several hours on a single charge. I thought the first unit I ordered might be defective, so I returned it and got another one, but the replacement also shuts down very quickly. I am going to keep the instrument because it is so much fun to play, but this is a huge design flaw that Yamaha really should have remedied before releasing the unit.(It should be noted that you can play the instrument plugged into a power source, so the short battery life does not preclude using it in live performance.)A couple other small criticisms are that the power input should be USB C, not micro-USB, and that it would be great if the machine could perform some type of quantization for those of us who are not adept finger drummers. But I would still have given the instrument 5 stars because it is just so much fun, were it not for the battery issue.

Great sound awesome kits.Great purchase.

Amazing. I got this for hubby for Xmas. Hubby uses it everyday and loves it

You really have to whack these pads to get them to respond. Very difficult to get them to trigger consistently on a ride pattern without wearing out the old finger joints. No MIDI.