Hey in case people are interested, I messed around with the FGDP-50 on the livestream just now. It’ll probably take me another week or so to record a proper review video but this should also give you an idea of some of the functions and also what it sounds like when I play this thing.
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Damned! I saw the livestream info but I was sleeping, forgot :s
And you did drum’n’bass^^
There is a livestream this evening isn’t it?
I’ll watch now the stream 
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Yeah tonight as well. For now you can watch the recording of this morning!
I got a chance to play one yesterday and I have to say, I was impressed. The speaker is pretty nice, it’s a decent size, the layout is just slightly different to what I use most of the time but I could get used to it pretty quickly.
The pads do seem just slightly less sensitive than my Maschine Plus but they also feel much more robust so if you’ve already got well developed wrists you can just bash it a bit imo.
I’ll probably pick one up as a travel instrument some time soon. Seems like the best pads for a beginner at this point.
I’ll still use the + in the studio but it’s a definitely passable device.
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no stream this evening finally?
I’m on your channel but can’t see any stream ongoing…
Ahh sorry man, the stream is hidden. You get the links in your user dashboard when you’re a premium member!
Too late now though… make sure to also subscribe to the stream reminder emails in your user dashboard once you have a premium subscription, then you won’t miss them in the future!
OK didn’t get they were private, my bad.
Missed one but i’ll keep (tons) of questions for the next one… I’ll watch the replay for now (again lol).
Good evening mate.
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Also just email me any questions you might have. I will keep a list for the next stream!
OK will do don’t worry the message board is there!
btw i’m premium now, subscribed today.
We’ll have plenty of time to catch up! 
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Looking forward to your Review, Robert.
I can relate well to the points you mentioned on the livestream.
What I like very much: How detailed you can customize the behavior of every single pad individually.
Btw. Yamaha has a Feedback software, where you can put suggestions. But there’s no official place for the FGDP yet: YamahaSynth - by IdeaScale
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If possible, I most likely won’t be the only person with such a question to bring up the topic of this device with respect to newcomers
No I can imagine more people will have questions. I probably have to add a page to my beginner course setup guides and explain how to use the FGDP devices and also add a special explanation to my “buy” guide explaining that you might run in to trouble with tom fills and stuff like that.
With the tradeoff being that mobile practice is worth a lot.
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I would probably setup the Toms on the FGDP-50 like this when playing along to QFG lessons. Two pads for each tom. That way you’re basically just using the QFG layout.
This way you can easily keep the hi hat going while playing on the toms. Something I do a lot.
I will probably try and learn both the FGDP toms as well as te QFG toms. With smaller tom pads I do notice the FGDP plays better with the standard tom layout that it has. Using that top row of small pads for toms is not that great. But… it’s not better than my 3 big Maschine pads up top. That’s still my favourite.
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Btw. I have now returned my FGDP-50 and hope to get one with more consistent pad sensitivity at some point. I’m now back to my Launchpad Pro Mk3 and it’s interesting how the transition feels:
The Launchpad pads do clearly have a better sensitivity and are also more consistent than my particular FGDP unit. But now that I got used to the bigger pads of the FGDP, I’m really annoyed by how small the Launchpad pads are. I felt much more confident playing the FGDP than the Launchpad. It clearly pays off that it’s layout is meant to be used as a finger drumming instrument. I do like that the Launchpad is so flexible, I can just come up with all kinds of custom layouts.d
Unfortunately, I don’t have a NI Maschine to compare. But I think I get now why the Maschine Mk3 is your preferred (?) controller if it has nice, consistent pad sensitivity and bigger pads at the same time.
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Yeah I just bought a new Maschine mk3 the other day and big pads with a nice response are incredibly nice. You just have to work less hard.
This is the first time in my finger drumming career that the standalone benefits of the FGDP make me want to use both devices. But I would not replace my Maschine mk3 with and FGDP altogether.
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Michal I feel the same as you in terms of pad sensitivity. It’s not the greatest and my humble MPD218 seems more sensitive, it feels way easier to play soft notes.
That said my dynamic control is still very poor and I feel like it’s OK for now because I have other areas to improve first (hands independence and timing).
The more I practice with this layout the more I love it. It’s really natural and convenient, the pads are the right size for me and more importantly the spacing.
I do switch back to MPD218 some time to time and I had slightly more difficult time playing the toms that I have placed at the very top row of the pad controller. The stretch from kick at the bottom and toms up top is kind of big and requires me to do faster movements i.e. less accurate (for now).
But after 1 month of daily practice with my little FGDP-30 I don’t want to send it back because it really helps me having a very regular practice and I think it is more valuable than an average pads sensitivity.
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Yes, I’m now also considering going with that combination. FGDP is very nice as a standalone device and I definately want that back. But maybe I want to replace my Launchpad Pro Mk3 with a Maschine Mk3.
Or alternatively, I might just stick to the FGDP. But additionally also using the Lauchpad Pro Mk3 doesn’t feel like it’s giving me good enough reasons to do that.
Apologies Fannon, I wrote Michal in my email :s
Working on that review video and today I recorded a performance of me playing along to that funk track with an onboard acoustic kit.
I uploaded a declipped version of the performance because apparently if you turn up the headphone amp high the device seems to bring in some distortion when there’s a lot going on, like kickdrums and bass notes at the same time. Since it was already recorded I just used a declining plugin, but the real solution is obviously to just turn down the headphone amp volume. Not a big deal
Again, the fact that I could practice this every day, for 15 minutes, over the past week just sitting on the couch after a long day at work and working on the exact placement of each kick drum was really nice. It’s not easy to be very consistent and when I played along to this for the first time it sounded like shit and now it’s pretty damn tight.
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