Alesis DM-5 use?

[sbcgroup2]

I have a DM-5 I bought off ebay about a year ago and am going to give it a go soon. I'm only using it for kick drum triggering and I get no volume out of it on the recording/thru the meters. Do I need to run the outs thru a preamp? I was told on this board a while back that I didn't need to.

Also, is there a quick, easy way to start using this thing? The owners manual is way complicated (I haven't had much time with it though).

Thanks!

[sbcgroup2]

Okay I found some answers on this board I'm gonna try first...lol...

I was too quick to just post

[MadAudio]

Trigger input 2 is for kick.....

"Way complicated" is not how I would describe the manual, though.

[Seeker of Rock]

I'm speaking from a DM Pro, but no, you don't have to run it through a preamp. The level knob will, however, affect the amount of signal going through the output, so make sure you have that turned to about halfway up.
Other than that, you plug in a trigger to an input, connect the L or L-R output(s) to a channel on your board/recorder, and you should have signal. I'm pretty sure it is similar in operation to the DM Pro, so there are several reasons internally why it could be not giving signal out. Anything from a simple pan to a trigger assignment to a particular output, and that is a little harder to figure out. Can you plug in headphones to the headphone jack and hear the trigger signal?