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Yamaha FGDP-50

Finger Drum Pad By Mark Gordon
Published February 2025

The (black) FGDP‑50 and slightly smaller in size FGDP‑30 (white).The (black) FGDP‑50 and slightly smaller in size FGDP‑30 (white).

Yamaha’s FGDP‑50 drum pad is designed explicitly for the digital percussionist.

Everyone likes to tap along to a song. Whether you’re a drummer or not, you’ll almost certainly find yourself involuntarily finger drumming to a tune on the radio or in the studio. If you fancy harnessing the true power of those digits though, a unique combination of electronic drumming and finger drumming has emerged in the shape of the Yamaha FGDP‑50 Finger Drum Pad.

The FGDP‑50 offers the functionality of a MIDI pad controller with the sound‑generating capabilities of a drum machine, in a compact package that includes a built‑in speaker and rechargeable battery, enabling it to be used as a standalone instrument. Featuring 50 preset kits and over 1500 sounds, as well as the ability to import and export WAV files and samples, the FGDP‑50 can also integrate with your DAW via USB, making it something of a power‑user tool for finger drummers!

Index Finger

The first thing you notice about the FGDP‑50 is its unusual pad layout. The familiar design of 16 square pads in a 4x4 grid pattern seen on most MIDI controllers has been replaced by 18 pads of differing sizes, ergonomically distributed specifically for playing beats with the fingers. If you place your hands onto the FGDP‑50, your fingers naturally fall into a comfortable playing position, with your thumb on the large kick drum pad, index finger on the snare pad and middle finger on the hi‑hat pad, with other sounds such as open hi‑hat, cymbals and toms distributed around the remaining pads in what feel like natural locations. The size of the pads and the symmetrical layout (where several sounds are duplicated on the left and right sides) also make playing with two hands very comfortable. I found the layout worked perfectly, but you can potentially assign any sound to any pad if the default layout doesn’t suit your playing style.

Eight RGB‑illuminated pads are located across the top of the FGDP‑50, which light up in a wide range of vivid and, as far as I can tell, random colours and perform different functions depending on the mode of the unit. In standard Kit mode, these pads are assigned to play additional sounds, such as cowbells, claps and, of course, the obligatory vocal samples. If you use the click features, the RGB pads will flash in time from left to right, to provide a visual metronome.

The FGDP‑50 measures 223 x 223 x 51mm and weighs 1.1kg.The FGDP‑50 measures 223 x 223 x 51mm and weighs 1.1kg.

A small LCD sits above dedicated buttons for Menu, Kit, Audio, Session, Registration and Click settings, with navigation arrows and +/‑ buttons to the right. Setting the FGDP‑50 apart and putting it squarely in the instrument category is the small but surprisingly powerful 2.5 Watt built‑in speaker. Along with battery operation, this allows the FGDP‑50 to be used as a standalone device with no requirement for power supplies or additional amplification.

The connections at the rear of the unit are minimal: just two USB sockets and two 3.5mm jack sockets. The first USB socket is a micro‑USB connection used to charge the battery and to transmit audio and MIDI data to and from a computer. With USB‑C being the connector of choice on the majority of modern devices, and offering greater power, more charging capacity and faster data transfer speeds than micro‑USB, I was surprised at the choice, although (apart from charging speed) I wouldn’t expect there to be any performance difference between micro‑USB and USB‑C.

The second USB socket accepts a standard flash drive that can be used to record audio from the FGDP‑50, which is saved as a WAV file. You can also import sounds, samples or play back audio files, again in WAV format, directly from a connected USB drive — which we’ll come to later.

If you’re more comfortable with analogue connectivity, Yamaha have provided a 3.5mm aux in jack that you can use to bring in audio from an external source to play along to. A second 3.5mm jack socket provides a stereo output you can connect to headphones or external amplification.

Round the back we find just a pair of USB sockets, an aux input and headphone/line output, both on 3.5mm sockets.Round the back we find just a pair of USB sockets, an aux input and headphone/line output, both on 3.5mm sockets.

Trigger Finger

The FGDP‑50 includes 50 preset kits, spanning everything from acoustic maple, birch and oak kits to EDM, big beat and metal offerings. Percussion is also well catered for, with African, Brazilian and Arabic collections alongside orchestral and classic 808‑ and 909‑style drum machines. A further 50 user memory locations are provided to save your own kit creations made from the 1500 onboard samples.

The pads are extremely sensitive, allowing a great deal of expression when playing with fingers. They also feature aftertouch, which is used to great effect on several preset kits, enabling crash cymbals to be choked, effects to be added and even pitch‑bend to be applied to drums for authentic African talking drum and Indian tabla sounds.

A feature applied to the sounds on the RGB pads in the preset kits, but available on any...

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