Drum Machine Recommendations

[Sonic_Groove]

What drum machine can you recommend for home studio/song writing & possibly small live work?

I've got a DR-3 and although the sound are good it is driving me nuts -- You can't switch off the programmed bass unless you save a preset then edit it. A separate volume control for the accompaniment would make this a better machine for me. Is the DR-808 (or whatever new version is called) as annoying?

So any cool drum machine with a good cosmopolitan range of patterns/presets up to £500 but cheaper the better.

Brendan

[Spike Vincent]

I'm not up to date on contemporary drum machines, but if you're happy with second hand, I suggest a Boss DR 660.

[Grand Wazoo]

Alesis SR18 probably the best drum machine ever?

[bartelby]

Although I use a Roland R-8 for sequencing it's midi'd to an Alesis SR-16 for the sounds. You can pick SR-16 for around £50 off ebay or get a SR-18 for about £100.

[AndyTravis]

the dr880 i had was superb, couple of hand amp models and effects too.

sold mine for next to nowt on here, thery're under £500 new...

[Geek99]

I'm not keen on my sr16, the programming steps are very clumsy and although you can set up
Lots of drumkits, you can't associate them with specific patterns so you need to manually select the right kit each time.

[bartelby]

[quote name='Geek99' post='1307898' date='Jul 18 2011, 02:48 PM']I'm not keen on my sr16, the programming steps are very clumsy and although you can set up
Lots of drumkits, you can't associate them with specific patterns so you need to manually select the right kit each time.[/quote]


That's why I program my R-8 and use the SR-16 as a sound module.

Not sure what you mean by having to select the kit each time. The preset patterns have fixed drum kits but the user patterns can have any drumkit at all.

from the SR-16 Manual:
"1. Press the PRESET/USER button to choose the desired bank of Drum Sets.
2. Enter the desired Drum Set number (from 00 to 49) with the number or INC/DEC buttons.
With the number buttons, enter a leading zero if necessary.
3. User Patterns will remember the selected Drum Set assignments (Preset Patterns have
fixed Drum Set assignments; if you exit from the Preset Pattern, the SR-16 will forget any
assignment you made)."


But I do agree that programing the SR-16 is pretty tedious.

[squire5]

They're not drum machines......THIS is a drum machine! [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ycju4Nl1nMY"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ycju4Nl1nMY[/url]