I got bored with the limiting nature of the MIDI file downloads that were available when trying to put down a drum track. Similarly, to do anything more than some basic repetitive drum loop simply took too long and detracted from the music-making process.

Having droned on about maybe buying a MIDI drumkit (the real thing would take up too much space) to get some basic drum loops down, my wife bought me the Alesis DM5 for my 40^th birthday. I've never looked back!

It makes such a difference to how rapidly I can record a basic idea. Just by shifting a few cables in the patch bay I can easily record a drum beat, bassline and guitar part to see if an idea is viable.

I've augmented the original supplied drumkit with an additional cymbal pad, a dual-trigger snare pad and the pro-standard hi-hat pedal.