That’s purely personal. I bought sticks to play on my ND3p but ended up having to play with my hands during a trip and i feel much better playing with hands/fingers than with sticks.
I connect an external controller, but I get no sound out of the FGDP-50.
The pads work normally. I verify, for example, that the kick is on channel 10, note 36. MIDI Monitor verifies that my controller sends this channel and note and also verifies that the FGDP is MIDI thru-ing the same channel and note. I verify that the trigger setting MIDIRcvPad is On for every pad. I even tried toggling Local Control in the Utility menu. Still, I get no audio out of the FGDP via the external controller, only its local pads. Any suggestions?
I don’t own one so can’t test but have been curious to have a look at the manual and your post prompted me to do so. The manual is awful.
The first thing I thought was if midi thru is turned on then some devices will ignore incoming midi messages and just pass them to the output. Manual makes no reference to midi in/out/thru settings.
I suspect it might relate to the trigger presets (which I think are set on a per pad basis?).
This page says you have to be on preset 6-12 for the pad to be set to receive midi. That being said it sounds like you are manually making the right trigger settings anyway.
https://manual.yamaha.com/mi/de/fgdp50/en/fgdp50_en_ug_011.html#Trigger_List
I meant it’s MIDI-thruing in an informal sense: I verify MIDI is passing through the FGDP-50 back to my MIDI hub even if the FGDP has no explicit MIDI thru function. That’s just to demonstrate that everything else looks to be working as it should.
Yeah, I set my trigger presets to P07 Normal Rx. I’ve tried the other Rx’s, but no dice.
The manual is kind of a pain, but since it’s not too long for this not-too-complicated device, you kind of get used to it. The search function usually works out.
It was a routing error in my MIDI hub. It’s fixed now and working normally. Sounds good, with a nice feel played from my Zendrum controller, whose larger triggers make more intricate and lengthy drumming far more comfortable and easier to use more parts of your fingers and hands. The FGDP is just too tight a fit for two-handed grooves and lines. I like to do hats and rides on one hand, with kick and snares on the other. I wing it with toms and play downbeat crashes with different points on my palm, which isn’t possible on the FGDP. I rarely strike the Zendrum with fingertips, mostly using the knuckle nearest the tip and sometimes the middle knuckle. FGDP is biased toward the fingertips, especially as the pads get smaller.
I just got the FGDP-30 and as a stand-alone finger drumming instrument I love it! I’m curious if anyone has got it running as a midi-controller with their Syntakt or Digitakt II, since the velocity macros could make this a lot of fun! Is there any way of hooking them up without a pc involved?
EDIT: With Retrokits RK-006 probably.
Also, after 10 months the FGDP-hype train still hasn’t left the station… 
Did you ever try connecting it with the retrokits? Obviously this is old, but I just got the FGDP50 and plan to use a Kenton USB Midi host to control my Model:Cycles.
Retrokits is dope, i use it with a m:s , the arp firmware