Alesis has unveiled its latest electronic drum set, the Strata Prime, and it’s not playing around. The 10-piece setup boasts mesh-head pads all-round, a 20” kick drum, and most impressively, a 40GB sound engine packing sounds straight from BFD. Let’s dive in!
First, we’ll start with the Prime drum module. Alesis acquired BFD in 2020, and has already started rolling-out products containing BFD-derived samples, such as the Alesis Nitro Max we saw earlier this year.
However, the big news – and it’s pretty massive – is that the Strata Prime module houses the full BFD 3 library inside. That’s over 40GB of samples, split into 75 core presets offering multi-sampled, multi-microphone (close mics, overheads, room mics) playable across the pads. What's more, it's driven by a multi-core processor to trigger the samples with zero latency, all without having to go near a computer, making this a huge game-changer for live use as well as home practice and recording.
It’s all largely built around a 10.1” colour touchscreen display, meaning that you can simply tap your way through your settings and selections without having to scroll through screens of text. However, at the bottom of the display, Alesis has equipped the Prime module with six rotary encoders for fine-tuning your adjustments, and there are also additional hardware controllers for scrolling, confirming selections and adjusting volume levels.
On the back, the Prime module is well-stocked with connectivity with 14 trigger inputs, master L/R outputs (balanced XLR sockets), four assignable outputs (jacks) and a stereo aux input. The internal 128GB memory is also expandable thanks to SD card slot and USB memory stick slots, and the Prime also features a USB connection for hooking up to your computer. Meanwhile, MIDI in/out is delivered via 5-pin connections, but the Prime also features wireless Bluetooth MIDI.
As we’ve already mentioned, Strata Prime comes with 10 kit pieces: 8”, 10”, 12” and 14” toms, a 20”x14” real shell bass drum, and 14” snare pad, all of which are equipped with tuneable mesh heads. The toms and snare are all dual-zone, offering assignable head and rim sounds (including rimshot when played together).
Cymbal-wise, we get a full set of Alesis’ ARC, 360-degree-playable cymbals, with 2x 16” crashes, an 18” ride and 14” hi-hats. These are triple-zone, offering bow, edge and bell sounds throughout, and the hi-hat makes use of Alesis’ Active Magnetic acoustic stand-mounted sensor.
The whole lot is mounted to the Strata Prime four-post frame, which is made from sturdy-yet-lightweight steel and features locking clamps to keep everything where you put it.
Included with the Strata Prime are the cymbal boom arms and snare stand (hi-hat stand and bass drum pedal sold separately). As well as this, Alesis is bundling a 90-day subscription to Drumeo, a 30-day subscription to Melodics, plus a free copy of its BFD Player software for Mac/PC.
The Alesis Strata Prime is priced at $3,499. For more information, head to the Alesis website.
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