there are many things i wish it could do. the limits are many.

I really like almost everything about it. The size, battery life, sound quality, user interface and other features are all great. The only one thing I wish it had, that it doesn't is a sequencer. I like that you record your live play but it doesn't allow multi pass recording, multi track recording or the ability to compose like sequencer. Everything else is just amazing and I highly recommend it.

Before I purchased this, I was concerned it might be small and insubstantial. True, it's relatively compact, but the sounds on this thing are huge. I particularly like kit P45 -- the Japan drums. I mean, where else will you find impressive and powerful Japanese taiko drums -- and the other drums that make up a traditional Japanese performance? But all the other standard kits, and world kits, sound great, too. And it's all in a unit that fits nicely on your work surface or desktop. If you're like me, you've run out of space in your studio for anything larger. And I like the way you can play the pads with your fingers on this -- no drumsticks needed. True, as some reviewers have pointed out, you do have to charge the internal battery every few hours, depending on how much you use it, but it's not that big a deal. The single 1/8" TRS output in back means you'll have to have the appropriate cable, but Sweetwater has it for sale. (It does have a USB A out, too.) This Yamama FGDP-50 is perfect for my needs, and I'm really happy with it.

It totally changed my looper setup. It gave me another input into my rc-600 and it sounds great!

When I play the drums I only have two feet and two hands. With this thing, I have two feet and eight hands. LOL

The bass drum pad is not sensitive enough. You have to hit it hard to hear the sound. So you cannot hit it softly, which sometimes I want to. I have not try everything yet, so this is not a complete evaluation.

Very happy with this product. Sounds great for my recording. Does what I need it to do. Sweetwater service was excellent as usual.

I wish they made a better version of this because if they did it would be a great new musical instrument but, you cant even adjust the volume of each individual pad, or change all the sounds of all the pads to toms or snares, like you can on every other drum pad for the same price. Finger drums are a great idea but this version of them is not worth the practice time. I wish it was the Nux DP 2000 with finger pads on it, that's what it should be if it is sold in music stores to adults. every other instrument in music stores are worth the practice time but this one holds you back just like something you would find in a toystore. I guess it is a neat midi controller, if you hook it up to a computer and trigger Ez drummer/suppirior drummer/Steven Slate samples with it than it would be what a musician who puts practice time into it would want it to be. So if you really love the idea of finger drums I would suggest using it that way, but there are plenty of instruments to play that I don't require messing with computers so sadly I guess finger drums can wait for me. I have never both loved and hated something so much at the same time. lol. : ) I'll be playing a better version of finger drums again when anyone makes a serious version of this great musical instrument. I mean it does not even have stereo out. musicians want to record with there instrument after they spend time learning to play it. lol. Hint hint One of these things does not belong in the drum module section.

I've been part of an acoustic rock cover band and had been using a Meinl Slaptop cajon to cover drums on a bunch of the songs that we play. I had been looking for something to improve the sound that I was getting from the Slaptop when I came across this device. I took the plunge and gave it a shot. It's been a game changer.

While I miss a few organic tones that I can coax from a cajon (e.g., via head muting, etc.), this thing opens up a wide new palette of available sounds while also delivering better percussive punch and snap for the songs in our setlist. Performances are still purely live (we don't use backing tracks or loops) and I stick to acoustic drum patches. It didn't take me too long to establish basic skills for finger drumming (there's def lots of room for further skill building). Experience on other percussion devices definitely helped, but I believe that it was my decades of habitual tapping on a table or steering wheel that made this new user interface feel intuitive. I do look a bit like a court stenographer while performing live with this thing :)

As a part-time drummer-by-necessity, the form factor of this device is perfect for my needs. I am able to fit this "full drum kit" in beside my mic stand without taking up the space I need to play guitar and mandolin. I built a custom mount to fit the FGDP on a sturdy, height-adjustable tripod stand. I use a small (12"), padded laptop computer sleeve to carry it around. It also fits in my backpack or messenger bag to haul to rehearsals. The built-in speaker is really handy for rehearsing alone, but you will want a more substantial full-range speaker/amp to play with others. I use my EV Everse 8 for practice. For performances, the FGDP-50 output is easily fed to the PA system.

The included ability to save scenes (registration memories) has been an essential feature for live performance. The additional pads have been more valuable than I anticipated (for additional sounds in a layout). Battery life is just adequate for a typical gig. I turn it off between sections of the setlist that do not call for it to ensure that I don't run out of built-in juice. I can connect it to an external power source of course, but this would result in more wires than I care to deal with. When I use a wireless device (2.4GHz) to connect its output to the mixing board, I get some electronic interference. I use a short (6 inch) 1/8" stereo extension cable to provide some physical distance to mitigate this noise.

I have yet to play with features beyond my favorite drum kits, so I won't comment on those.

Things I'd like to see improved in a future version: USB-C instead of micro USB connector, 1/4" L-mono/R output jacks, a beefier replaceable battery, a proper stand mount, a beefier built-in speaker (without making it bigger), more saved scenes. Pedal (kick/hi-hat) inputs may also be useful for other drummers. Proper MIDI ports might be handy for future sequencing work.

I've been playing this drum pad unit daily for more than a month now. It's so much fun to play! The pads are very good, and while there are a lot of useless sounds, there are 1500 sounds altogether so there are also a lot of very good sounds. The user interface is very well designed and I have gotten pretty deep into editing kits, pads, a voices quite quickly and with good control. And the price is right too.

So what's the deal with the short lifespan?

It's the non-replaceable internal lithium ion battery which runs the machine. This is a very low capacity battery. Though Yamaha claims "three hours", and perhaps that is possible with extremely conservative settings and not using the on-board speaker, but my experience is different. I am getting something just over an hour of use before I need to recharge (not allowing the battery to run all the way down, which is very bad for a lithium ion battery). Recharging is quite quick -- up to an hour at most, depending on how far the battery is run down before recharging. But here's the kicker. The battery is rated for a lifespan of 500 charging cycles, and then it's dead, and can't be replaced, so the entire drum machine is dead and gone. If you play this machine an hour a day, it will die a permanent death in less than two years. If you don't mind spending three hundred dollars for a machine that will die in less than two years, then this may be OK with you. Or maybe OK for someone who only plans to use it once in a while, and stretch out the time before final death. But either way, you're only going to get about 500-700 hours of use out of this drum before it is dead and useless.

This flaw is entirely due to Yamaha's decision on how to power this unit. They could have gone with 4 or 6 AA batteries, including rechargeable NiMH batteries, which many other devices use with no problem. They could have provided an external power adapter, as so many other devices use, and that would have been fine. But instead Yamaha chose for planned obsolescence. They want you to throw away this machine after a couple years and buy another one -- for another couple years use only.

The kind of non-replaceable battery in this unit is very similar to that in the Apple iPhone, but with slightly less capacity. Apple states that the iPhone battery is good for 500 charge cycles, and expects the life of an iPhone to be 18 months to two years. Which is a horribly short lifespan. However, it's long enough for there to be a new model iPhone when your present one dies due to the dead non-replaceable battery. So people are supposed to think "my iPhone is dead, but there's a new one now, so I might just as well buy that". That's the marketing strategy. Not too many years ago mobile phones had replaceable batteries. Not any more. Why sell you a new battery, when they can force you to buy a whole new phone?

Yamaha has now adopted this same strategy! Except Yamaha is not going to release a new updated FGDP-50 every year or two. So if you want to keep using it, you're going to have to buy the same product that just died, again and again -- even though the unit is perfectly fine except for the dead battery.

This is a HORRIBLE development in the music world. I already have the FGPD-50, and I love it, so I'm thinking I'll keep it and play for a year or two until it dies. But I will NEVER buy another device of any kind that has a non-replaceable internal lithium ion battery. That's a deal killer for me. If you have a lot of money to throw away on a product with a very short lifespan, I highly recommend this drum. It's great. But if you want a product that will last awhile, that isn't meant to die on you quickly, then look elsewhere.

I got this in a last-ditch attempt to have a drum performance workstation for my home multitrack (TASCAM 24-track). My room is small, my budget limited. I used to have a Yamaha DTX kit, which I loved, but had to give up for space's sake, in order to have a piano in my room. I tried to employ the pads of a popular drum machine, then a stand-mounted unit, played with drumsticks. In both cases, I found the triggering of the sounds to take 'way too much force to be useful.

The FGDP-50 has ticked off pretty-much all the boxes: it's small, it's inexpensive, and has proven to be pretty ergonomic. The samples are pretty high-fidelity, though some could have a little longer decay time (admittedly, I'm new to the unit and haven't explored all 1500 (!) sound samples). My M.O. for using this is evolving, but will probably end up being: one stereo track for kick drum only, one for snare and tom fills, and one for all cymbals and percussion, then mix these down to one stereo track to make room for all vocals and instruments.

So far, this is working quite well, and I look forward to getting better performances out of it, as I learn the unit's capabilities and learn to play it better. My 'three wishes from a magic genie' scenario would be a big, acoustically-treated room with real, well-miced, drums and cymbals. Until I find the magic lamp, this will do very nicely.

This pad is outstanding. So compact and versatile. I use entirely for recording and it fills the bill. Would love to see next gen version with high hat, base drum foot pedals and updated electronics. But very intuitive with great sounds. Thanks to Jaylen for the great service!

This is a really innovative machine - the equivalent of a new model of typewriter keyboard that's faster and more usable. Nicely built.

The tragic flaw, which makes me feel that, should this be a successful product, we'll be buying again in version 2 — is no MIDI. I knew this fact going in. But I don't know I appreciated how much of a crying shame it is that this can't act as a MIDI controller. It would be awesome to swap this in place of any of the 4x4 grid controllers. Hence my conviction- really now, my desire - to have this output midi over USB.

This means it's a bit more of a novelty act or you - but wicked fun anyhow.

I produce downtempo instrumentals with vinyl-sourced samples and a hardware-only workflow. Drum programming has always been a bit of a slog for me, because placing triggers on a grid so often fails to capture the natural motion and intent of a live percussionist. I find myself painstakingly balancing velocities and nudging individual hits this way or that, in hopes of humanizing the arrangement or imbuing it with a groove.

Enter the FGDP-50: after a few months practicing finger drumming on this unit, I am now able to lay down vibrant & humanized rhythm tracks in a fraction of the time I once spent on grid recording.

It's got some 50 unique kits ready to go within 10 seconds of booting up. It has an internal battery and a punchy little speaker, so I can practice in bed or wherever the mood strikes me. I can load its user memory with my own home made sounds, my favorite drum packs, and I can even build "kits" comprised of musical samples, textures and washes.

While this unit has made production a much smoother and more enjoyable affair in the long run, it's also gotten me deep into finger drumming as an artform. Make no mistake, the FGDP is a musical instrument more than it is a drum machine. It is limited only by the skill and creativity of its user. Be prepared to put in work and expect to reap rewards - namely the ability to conjure up lifelike, custom built drumloops in seconds.

The only thing I would change is the file system and configuration process. While the unit sounds and plays fantastic right out of the box, if you'd like to use it to its full potential and add your own unique sounds, you'll be doing a fair amount of menu diving on a two line screen that reminds me of the MC-505.

Right out of the box, after a charge I was playing with out even looking up instructions. I'm used to 90s style drum machines, so maybe that's why this came so easy to me. As others have said, USB-C and stereo L&R 1/4" outs with an additional headphone output would have been better. Built in samples are great… I tend to use the natural sounding ones. I wish it had a simple step-sequencer built-in like my old Roland DR-5. Also, 5 pin midi ins and outs for connecting external gear. But, I knew all those shortcomings when purchasing. I'm short on time these days so having something I can literally just turn on and drum away is great. Speaker sounds good too— really surprised me. I'm using it with a looper pedal and layering other instruments. I haven't messed with importing my own samples yet. Also: BE WARNED: if you have young kids, they will want this for their own. Any time mine see me turn it on, they're all over me wanting to play with it. Haha.

I'm really enjoying the FGDP-50. The built-in speaker sounds great, the pads are rather responsive, and all of the default tones are quite nice. There are a lot of very useful options for manipulating the pads in the menus (which are also fairly easy to dive) and the ergonomic layout makes this easy to jam on for a long time.

The only drawback I can identify is the lack of looping on the device. This is easily addressed externally but it would have been cool onboard.

I can see a lot of potential uses for this device and am impressed with the functionality and build quality. If you're in the market for a drum instrument / controller, this will deliver for you.

I bought this to use with my loop rig to play live drums along with my guitars. I previously (and still) use(d) a Roland HPD-20, and while I think the Roland is better for what I do now, I don't think the Roland is better--they're two different tools. This one has excellent samples and feel, the ergonomic finger-drumming layout and trigger sensitivity is really amazing, and overall it's excellent. It's not the most intuitive thing I've ever used, in terms of changing the pad locations or settings, but you can do it. My one-star deduction is because this (as has been said on the web many times) is lacking some very commonsense pro features, such as USB-C (why doesn't anyone ever use anything else?), MIDI in (it only does MIDI out), and professional output cable types (it only has stereo 3.5mm). For my use case, I lock-taped the Roland stand mount to the bottom of it and stuck it on the HPD-20 stand, and that setup was excellent. In the end, though, I did go back to the HPD-20, keeping this around for fun and maybe later for home recording applications. I hope that they will someday come out with a professional version that has those improvements--the sound and use are really amazing and fun.

As an international Sweetwater customer i always get looked after.
I placed my order 2 months ago and no sooner had it arrived to the Sweetwater warehouse
my Super Sales Engineer Dennis Konicki had it out the door in no time.

I was super pumped to use it in my show over the weekend on Saturday night.
It didnt arrive but it felt like xmas all over again when i saw it near my office door on the Sunday.

Super easy to use and some great sounds.
Although i am not a finger drummer and as an electronic musician i have alot of bases covered this is a great little addition to my setup.
Excellent quality unit.
I will be doing another live performance soon near the beach in my town before the end of January and definitely utilising this piece.

Big shout out to the worlds best online music store Sweetwater and my Sales engineer Mr.Dennis Konicki.


Cheers

Andron Van Es

aka Marvin Nelson

The stock kits sound great and they included a good variety of kits, and even some eastern/western percussion instruments, also the pads are very responsive. I just power it on and start jamming, battery powered portability, decent internal speaker. You can tell they put a lot of thought into designing this product. Instead of programming drums in a traditional step sequencer I am jamming on the track. Lots of fun to improvise fills and flourishes. Definitely glad I bought the 50 version because it has an LCD screen and additional pads.

Ergonomically you wont find an easier instrument to play, and you can expand the sonic palette with your own samples. The only thing I wish it had was a separate 1/4" stereo line out.