The hit Alesis Crimson electronic drum kit just got an upgrade. This mesh-head favourite has been a winner with cost-conscious drummers since its release in 2021, and now the Crimson III bears a significant feature hike, aimed to put it back on top around that all-important 1k price point.
The Crimson III’s main tweak is in its drum module – previously perhaps the weakest aspect of the Crimson II given the quality of the rest of the hardware.
The Crimson III once again offers nine pads in total. There’s a 12″ snare, two 8″ toms, a 10″ floor tom, a 14” ride cymbal and two 12” crashes and a 12” hi-hat set up. The 8” kick pad comes mounted on a stand.
All the toms are pleasingly dual-zone – allowing for the triggering of different sounds depending on where you hit them – with the ride featuring three zones for ultimate playability. While there is a hi-hat pedal supplied the unit once again comes without a kick pedal, allowing the user to spec their own favourite.
Elsewhere the entire kit comes mounted on a four-post tubular rack and the snare stand is pleasingly double-braced for durability.
In fact, the only visible upgrade to the kit itself are improved mesh heads, the giveaway upgrade between the II and III variants being that the new heads are white, rather than black as previously. Doubtless these ‘more realistic-looking’ heads will turn a few… er… heads, when compared to the fake and functional black finish previously.
The brains of the operation
However, the main upgrade comes in the shape of an all-new Crimson III drum brain. The new Crimson module has 80 kits on board with 40 presets and a further 40 being user definable. All in all there are now 470 multi-sampled individual sounds, all of which are lifted from the BFD libraries.
InMusic – the giant European gear brand – bought Alesis in 2001, of course, and subsequently snapped up FXpansion, the makers of the much-loved BFD drum plugin in 2020. The Alesis Crimson III sees the company putting the pair together at last, representing a major hike in the quality and range of the III’s on-board sounds.
Additionally, there’s even a set of 100 songs to play along with, plus room for 10 user-programmed songs recorded using the module’s built-in sequencer.
And physically the Crimson III brain has had a number of upgrades too. There’s now a quick and easy six-fader mix section (beating the one-knob menu diving required on the less control-laden mkII) and upgrades to the number, size and quality of the screen and surrounding buttons.
There’s the familiar D-Sub connector for plugging in the pads and round the back there's the option to add more pads via two more triggers (assigned to Tom 4 and Crash 2) and the usual complement of MIDI, USB, stereo out and headphones.
There’s also a stereo AUX in so you can play in music directly from your choice of source and play along and Bluetooth compatibility so you can do the same without even needing a connection.
There’s an SD card slot so you can record your performances as audio (in WAV or MP3) or as MIDI files for exporting to a DAW for further tweaking. Plus – all new – you can now import your own samples into the unit, if that expanded BFD library doesn’t hit the spot.
Want more? How about a thrown-in 90 day subscription to top tuition site Drumeo and a copy of the BFD Player software that comes with the core BFD Player library plus the Dark Mahogany expansion pack?
Looks like Alesis and InMusic have thought of everything, with the kit available now for a keen €1,199.00.
