Drum machines - what are you using?

[BigRedX]

18 minutes ago, Beedster said:

Go over to Gearslutz and you'll find that it's not only a thing, but a time consuming and expensive thing  

But nowhere near as expensive in real terms as it was back in the early 80s when programmable drum machines first appeared. 

The TR808 my band had, cost about £800 back in 1982 IIRC, and the better alternatives - LinnDrum, Oberheim DMX, and Movement MCS were all significantly over £1k.

[Beedster]

20 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

But nowhere near as expensive in real terms as it was back in the early 80s when programmable drum machines first appeared. 

The TR808 my band had, cost about £800 back in 1982 IIRC, and the better alternatives - LinnDrum, Oberheim DMX, and Movement MCS were all significantly over £1k.

Tell me about it, I was doing Electronic Music Technology at the LCF in the early 80's, we were lucky enough to have a lot of decent tech including a Fairlight, but the prices were astronomical, to the point that it was simply cheaper to have a drummer and a bassist than a drum machine and a keyboardist, despite the trend for keys to encroach on the latter's territory (and the fightback from us lot with slap and fretless, which were beyond even the best keys players) 

[Al Krow]

3 hours ago, Geek99 said:

I’m a programmer by trade and it was the worst interface design I’ve ever encountered 

You gents just don't realise how cathartic it is to be hearing that the pain threshold I experienced in trying to program my SR-18 wasn't unique! 

1 hour ago, Beedster said:

Likewise, I spend enough time at a computer to not want to have to be in front of one when I'm playing music for pleasure

Although we're completely agreed on this point, if someone did ask us what a drum machine is - a fair response might be "a box with a programmable computer chip inside"...

It's key redeeming feature is that it doesn't look or feel like our laptops!

😁

[Beedster]

Keep hearing Akai MPC mentioned on other forms, any thoughts here? 

[Beedster]

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

You gents just don't realise how cathartic it is to be hearing that the pain threshold I experienced in trying to program my SR-18 wasn't unique! 

Although we're completely agreed on this point, if someone did ask us what a drum machine is - a fair response might be "a box with a programmable computer chip inside"...

It's key redeeming feature is that it doesn't look or feel like our laptops!

😁

Yep, true but I don’t receive email notifications etc on my drum machine  

[Cuzzie]

8 minutes ago, Beedster said:

Yep, true but I don’t receive email notifications etc on my drum machine  

In the good old days I used to program beats and then play them on mini disc - that was cool

Edited January 25, 2021 by Cuzzie

[BigRedX]

My drum machine history goes like this:

1. 1981-1982 Boss DR55 Doctor Rhythm. Used live. Had just about enough patterns (one per song) for a 10 song set with careful use of the A/B switch and some external triggered percussion sounds to add variation to duplicated patterns. Didn't sound anything like "real" drums but the band had a percussionist to add the rhythmic interest.

2. 1983-1985 Roland TR808. Recorded to cassette for live use. Just one song memory so recording to tape was the only way we could get a whole set out of it. I did see a band use one live instead of a drummer, but it could only be done with a lot of lateral thinking and live pattern/fill-in changing. Still didn't sound much live "real" drums, but we were an all-synth band so it didn't really matter. As we were recording all the drum parts we took full opportunity of external percussion sounds and studio processing to get the rhythm track sound we wanted.

3. 1985-1987 Yamaha RX11. Recorded to cassette for live use. Had up to 99 pattern and 99 song memories, but in practice the rhythm parts for 2 songs would use up all the available pattern memory. Typical 80s sampled drum sounds. Kick, Snare and Closed HiHat were pretty good, the rest were generally replaced or augmented with extra samples or synthesised percussion.

4. 1988-1991 Alesis HR16. Used live in conjunction with a drummer playing an acoustic kit. Now that finally had a drum machine that sounded (at the time) like a real drummer, I spent most of my time trying to manipulate the built-in sounds so they wouldn't conflict with what our drummer was doing. Use to add some extra percussion sounds (and something for the drummer to keep in time to) for about half the set where we also had sequenced synth parts. That pretty much used up all the available memory.

5. 1992-1996 Ensoniq EPS16+ Sampler with build-in sequencer. The sampler part was great, but the sequencer wasn't a particularly user-friendly way of programming drum parts. Most of the time I would bash away at the keyboard until the quantisation gave me the rhythm I wanted. If the beats were out, it was generally easier to have another go than try and edit them into the correct place. Used live. With the expanded memory there was just enough room to get all the sample we needed for a complete set loaded up simultaneously. The sequences for each song had to be loaded as required from floppy disk, but it was fast enough not to ruin the flow of the set. From 1995 onwards I got a Mac and Logic V2 (IIRC) sequencer, and all the rhythm parts were programmed on that which was a lot easier. For live use they were saved on floppy disks as Standard MIDI files and play back from a MIDI file player, which was probably the most unreliable piece of high-tech equipment I have ever had the misfortune to own. It would go wrong (usually in a quite spectacular way) almost ever other gig. Was finally replaced by...

6.1997-2002 Akai S2000. Pretty much as before but all the drum parts were created in Logic and loaded into the Akai as MIDI files. The Akai was expanded to the max with Flash RAM which allowed 16MB of samples to be permanently loaded and retained even after the power was turned off. The MIDI files still had be loaded from floppy disks, but went into RAM rather than being read in real time from the drive, so it was rock solid. We liked the drum sounds we had sampled so much than when we came to record our album all the live drums were replaced by them except for the HiHats.

7. 2002-present. EXS24 sampler plugin in Logic. The original version would read Akai formatted floppy disks and sample CDs so I simply loaded all my Akai programs into it and this is what I have been using ever since. For live use the drum and percussion tracks are saved as a stereo audio file since reading that from an SSD is more reliable than running the plugin.

[bartelby]

1 hour ago, Beedster said:

Keep hearing Akai MPC mentioned on other forms, any thoughts here? 

That would work as a sampler based drum machine. I’ve not used one since the MPC2000, but we used it as a drum machine.

The MPC One looks nice.

[Beedster]

7 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

My drum machine history goes like this:

1. 1981-1982 Boss DR55 Doctor Rhythm. Used live. Had just about enough patterns (one per song) for a 10 song set with careful use of the A/B switch and some external triggered percussion sounds to add variation to duplicated patterns. Didn't sound anything like "real" drums but the band had a percussionist to add the rhythmic interest.

2. 1983-1985 Roland TR808. Recorded to cassette for live use. Just one song memory so recording to tape was the only way we could get a whole set out of it. I did see a band use one live instead of a drummer, but it could only be done with a lot of lateral thinking and live pattern/fill-in changing. Still didn't sound much live "real" drums, but we were an all-synth band so it didn't really matter. As we were recording all the drum parts we took full opportunity of external percussion sounds and studio processing to get the rhythm track sound we wanted.

3. 1985-1987 Yamaha RX11. Recorded to cassette for live use. Had up to 99 pattern and 99 song memories, but in practice the rhythm parts for 2 songs would use up all the available pattern memory. Typical 80s sampled drum sounds. Kick, Snare and Closed HiHat were pretty good, the rest were generally replaced or augmented with extra samples or synthesised percussion.

4. 1988-1991 Alesis HR16. Used live in conjunction with a drummer playing an acoustic kit. Now that finally had a drum machine that sounded (at the time) like a real drummer, I spent most of my time trying to manipulate the built-in sounds so they wouldn't conflict with what our drummer was doing. Use to add some extra percussion sounds (and something for the drummer to keep in time to) for about half the set where we also had sequenced synth parts. That pretty much used up all the available memory.

5. 1992-1996 Ensoniq EPS16+ Sampler with build-in sequencer. The sampler part was great, but the sequencer wasn't a particularly user-friendly way of programming drum parts. Most of the time I would bash away at the keyboard until the quantisation gave me the rhythm I wanted. If the beats were out, it was generally easier to have another go than try and edit them into the correct place. Used live. With the expanded memory there was just enough room to get all the sample we needed for a complete set loaded up simultaneously. The sequences for each song had to be loaded as required from floppy disk, but it was fast enough not to ruin the flow of the set. From 1995 onwards I got a Mac and Logic V2 (IIRC) sequencer, and all the rhythm parts were programmed on that which was a lot easier. For live use they were saved on floppy disks as Standard MIDI files and play back from a MIDI file player, which was probably the most unreliable piece of high-tech equipment I have ever had the misfortune to own. It would go wrong (usually in a quite spectacular way) almost ever other gig. Was finally replaced by...

6.1997-2002 Akai S2000. Pretty much as before but all the drum parts were created in Logic and loaded into the Akai as MIDI files. The Akai was expanded to the max with Flash RAM which allowed 16MB of samples to be permanently loaded and retained even after the power was turned off. The MIDI files still had be loaded from floppy disks, but went into RAM rather than being read in real time from the drive, so it was rock solid. We liked the drum sounds we had sampled so much than when we came to record our album all the live drums were replaced by them except for the HiHats.

7. 2002-present. EXS24 sampler plugin in Logic. The original version would read Akai formatted floppy disks and sample CDs so I simply loaded all my Akai programs into it and this is what I have been using ever since. For live use the drum and percussion tracks are saved as a stereo audio file since reading that from an SSD is more reliable than running the plugin.

Great post, what a journey

 

[BigRedX]

1 hour ago, Beedster said:

Keep hearing Akai MPC mentioned on other forms, any thoughts here? 

I have been looking at this as an alternative to the Roland.

I think the only way to know for sure which is the best for you is to try them.

[Al Krow]

33 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

I have been looking at this as an alternative to the Roland.

I think the only way to know for sure which is the best for you is to try them.

Any obvious significant +/- to either of them in comparison to the other?

[Beedster]

33 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

I have been looking at this as an alternative to the Roland.

I think the only way to know for sure which is the best for you is to try them.

Just the sort of advice that gets expensive! For me the hardest part of selecting gear is knowing when something is enough; I'm all too often sold on the possibilities way beyond my needs, and end up never exploring or exploiting them (I tend to run all my amps flat and active basses in passive mode). My sense here is that the Roland might meet my needs while the Akai might significantly exceed them. But damn, I bet I end up owing both at some stage

[Stub Mandrel]

4 hours ago, Al Krow said:

7 hours ago, Geek99 said:

I’m a programmer by trade and it was the worst interface design I’ve ever encountered 

You gents just don't realise how cathartic it is to be hearing that the pain threshold I experienced in trying to program my SR-18 wasn't unique! 

Who would have thought it could be harder to punch a rhythm into a drum machine than into a drummer.

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, Beedster said:

Just the sort of advice that gets expensive! For me the hardest part of selecting gear is knowing when something is enough; I'm all too often sold on the possibilities way beyond my needs, and end up never exploring or exploiting them (I tend to run all my amps flat and active basses in passive mode). My sense here is that the Roland might meet my needs while the Akai might significantly exceed them. But damn, I bet I end up owing both at some stage

Well first dibs on whichever you let go of then please 😁

I get what you're saying about gear though - been through a similar journey with my pedal collection in 2020. I moved on a shed load of pedals (15?) and have now got a little board with "just" 7 units on (tbf including a budget multifx), but which are getting used to something like their potential now and I couldn't be happier. Not missing the stuff I never got around to using, one bit! 

Edited January 25, 2021 by Al Krow

[sammybee]

5 hours ago, Beedster said:

Keep hearing Akai MPC mentioned on other forms, any thoughts here? 

Long time MPC (MPC 2000, 2000xl, 3000, 2500, 1000, Studio) user here. I've had a quick look through this thread, and I see people have recommended (probably without owning or using the TR6/8/8s). I would give those ones a wide berth, as it is primarily (read only) house/techno box (which I dont think is what you seek). The MPC is much more suitable for your use case. It does lack the x0x style of programming that the Roland's have, but is very intuitive with the real time input via the fantastic feeling pads. The 'one' you probably want is the MPC One - £550-600 street price. Works well as a standalone (read simple) and also able to integrate well into a computer based setup. Because it is sample based,  it can adapt to any genre. Also worth noting, the Roland's x0x style input usually leads to a very robotic sounding drum as you are basically bound to the strict 16 step grid, the MPC more flexible as you can have the quantise on/off as you desire.

[Beedster]

10 hours ago, sammybee said:

Long time MPC (MPC 2000, 2000xl, 3000, 2500, 1000, Studio) user here. I've had a quick look through this thread, and I see people have recommended (probably without owning or using the TR6/8/8s). I would give those ones a wide berth, as it is primarily (read only) house/techno box (which I dont think is what you seek). The MPC is much more suitable for your use case. It does lack the x0x style of programming that the Roland's have, but is very intuitive with the real time input via the fantastic feeling pads. The 'one' you probably want is the MPC One - £550-600 street price. Works well as a standalone (read simple) and also able to integrate well into a computer based setup. Because it is sample based,  it can adapt to any genre. Also worth noting, the Roland's x0x style input usually leads to a very robotic sounding drum as you are basically bound to the strict 16 step grid, the MPC more flexible as you can have the quantise on/off as you desire.

Thanks sammybee

I'd like to use the same machine for practicing, jamming and rehearsing as I will use for recording, in short I don't want a collection of rhythm boxes! The main thing for me is that I can get a decent drum sound that will pass for real drums to the non expert listener, in my case I want a small jazz kit type feel for most sessions and recordings, although the option for other kits is always going to be useful. I'm not too fussed about the interface because even those that are described as intuitive tend to have unknown unknowns, so I'm prepared for the learning curve. i assume it's a case of uploading samples as opposed to sampling samples (as we used to do back in the 80's)? 

I get what you mean about robotic, when we used to rehearse with a drum machine it was chaos when a real drummer came in for that very reason, the whole band had become too tight if you get my drift, so some 'looseness' is good. One thing I do like about the Roland and similar interfaces is the 16-beat step input, because I'm going to be using the machine with my daughters and it's a lovely way of them learning and the rhythmic structure of music; I've no doubt that within days they will be far better at programming whatever I choose than I am

[bartelby]

All this talk has made me unearth my Roland R-8 and drag out the manuals (the official manual was notorious for the dodgy Japanese to English translation, so someone produced a better version). I’ve not used this for about a year and have forgotten all the intricacies...

 

[BigRedX]

17 hours ago, Beedster said:

Just the sort of advice that gets expensive! For me the hardest part of selecting gear is knowing when something is enough; I'm all too often sold on the possibilities way beyond my needs, and end up never exploring or exploiting them (I tend to run all my amps flat and active basses in passive mode). My sense here is that the Roland might meet my needs while the Akai might significantly exceed them. But damn, I bet I end up owing both at some stage

My plan, once I know that the band are about to start rehearsing again and that we are definitely going to be without a drummer, would be to buy both and spend a week getting the existing drum parts from the 6 songs we have recorded programmed in each device. Then decide which one suits the band sounds and my workflow the best and return the other one under the distance selling regulations.

[Beedster]

2 hours ago, BigRedX said:

My plan, once I know that the band are about to start rehearsing again and that we are definitely going to be without a drummer, would be to buy both and spend a week getting the existing drum parts from the 6 songs we have recorded programmed in each device. Then decide which one suits the band sounds and my workflow the best and return the other one under the distance selling regulations.

When I was in a band in the early '80s I used to occasionally head to the West End (what was the keyboard shop in Paddington called?) and watch our keyboardist play keys for hours, checking out every tiny detail. A different era I guess, and whilst so many shops either don't have the stock on display or don't welcome that style of auditioning or gear (or both), I guess at least we can use the distance selling rules to compensate as you suggest. I have to say that I'm already looking forward to reading your direct comparison of the Roland and the Akai BRX. Reading I've done over the last few days leaves me torn with a slight bias towards the Akai. 

[Beedster]

3 hours ago, bartelby said:

All this talk has made me unearth my Roland R-8 and drag out the manuals (the official manual was notorious for the dodgy Japanese to English translation, so someone produced a better version). I’ve not used this for about a year and have forgotten all the intricacies...

 

That has seen some action  

[sammybee]

5 hours ago, Beedster said:

Thanks sammybee

I'd like to use the same machine for practicing, jamming and rehearsing as I will use for recording, in short I don't want a collection of rhythm boxes! The main thing for me is that I can get a decent drum sound that will pass for real drums to the non expert listener, in my case I want a small jazz kit type feel for most sessions and recordings, although the option for other kits is always going to be useful. I'm not too fussed about the interface because even those that are described as intuitive tend to have unknown unknowns, so I'm prepared for the learning curve. i assume it's a case of uploading samples as opposed to sampling samples (as we used to do back in the 80's)? 

I get what you mean about robotic, when we used to rehearse with a drum machine it was chaos when a real drummer came in for that very reason, the whole band had become too tight if you get my drift, so some 'looseness' is good. One thing I do like about the Roland and similar interfaces is the 16-beat step input, because I'm going to be using the machine with my daughters and it's a lovely way of them learning and the rhythmic structure of music; I've no doubt that within days they will be far better at programming whatever I choose than I am

The MPC One would definitely fit your needs, and is available at a reasonable price. I'd normally recommend one of the older MPCs if you were just using it as a Drum Machine, but COVID and lockdowns have priced these old classic machines out of most people's pockets. The MPC is also a fairly well featured sampler/synth/sequencer all in the same box, so you do get a lot for your money. It's worth looking beyond the hip-hop tag that these machines have, they really are the big beasts of the drum machine world. I have a fetish for collecting drum machines (TR808, TR606, TR707, Jomox XBase09, Roland R8x2, R5, Boss DR550(&mk2), Korg DDD1/DDD5, Korg Electribe, Ensoniq ASR-X Pro, Behringer RD-6 & RD-8, countless plug ins & software & more hardware that I've probably forgotten) have all passed through my hands over the past few years. The one constant since 2004 I've always kept is an Akai MPC close by my side

[BigRedX]

32 minutes ago, Beedster said:

When I was in a band in the early '80s I used to occasionally head to the West End (what was the keyboard shop in Paddington called?) and watch our keyboardist play keys for hours, checking out every tiny detail. A different era I guess, and whilst so many shops either don't have the stock on display or don't welcome that style of auditioning or gear (or both), I guess at least we can use the distance selling rules to compensate as you suggest. I have to say that I'm already looking forward to reading your direct comparison of the Roland and the Akai BRX. Reading I've done over the last few days leaves me torn with a slight bias towards the Akai. 

Might be a while yet. 

Personally ATM I'm leaning towards the Roland.

Back in the 80s and 90s I had close friends in the high-tech musical instrument business and it would normally be possible for me to borrow anything I was interested in for a week or so (depending on stock availability) to see if it really was what I wanted. I spent a lot of money this way, but I also avoided some costly mistakes where for instance the features available didn't make up for the unfriendliness of the user interface.

[Beedster]

35 minutes ago, sammybee said:

The MPC One would definitely fit your needs, and is available at a reasonable price. I'd normally recommend one of the older MPCs if you were just using it as a Drum Machine, but COVID and lockdowns have priced these old classic machines out of most people's pockets. The MPC is also a fairly well featured sampler/synth/sequencer all in the same box, so you do get a lot for your money. It's worth looking beyond the hip-hop tag that these machines have, they really are the big beasts of the drum machine world. I have a fetish for collecting drum machines (TR808, TR606, TR707, Jomox XBase09, Roland R8x2, R5, Boss DR550(&mk2), Korg DDD1/DDD5, Korg Electribe, Ensoniq ASR-X Pro, Behringer RD-6 & RD-8, countless plug ins & software & more hardware that I've probably forgotten) have all passed through my hands over the past few years. The one constant since 2004 I've always kept is an Akai MPC close by my side

Thanks for the advice, I've owned a few of those also, have to say the one I liked the most was the Electribe, just so easy to use, and at the time we were playing a lot of stuff that allowed for its very tight and obvious albeit quite characterful tracks (seemed to work very well with Prince tracks IIRC, we even did some RCHP tracks using it, it was extremely easy to programme). 

COVID has done some very odd things to prices across the board, I was looking at used Roland gear a few days ago and some of it is more expensive than RRP simply because they're not available to order at the moment. Must be hell to be in retail at a time when people want to buy this stuff but they can't get stock. I had to take all my face-to-face stuff online earlier this year and wanted to buy a decent hardware compressor, shops were simply not able to help, and eBay/Reverb sellers were having a grand time of it!  

Anyway, re the MPC One, do you know if it comes with decent samples or whether I have to go looking for them from word go? 

[Beedster]

24 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

Might be a while yet. 

Personally ATM I'm leaning towards the Roland.

Back in the 80s and 90s I had close friends in the high-tech musical instrument business and it would normally be possible for me to borrow anything I was interested in for a week or so (depending on stock availability) to see if it really was what I wanted. I spent a lot of money this way, but I also avoided some costly mistakes where for instance the features available didn't make up for the unfriendliness of the user interface.

The times they are a-changing

If you had a spare few minutes, could you share what is making you lean towards the TR8S over the MPC?

[Al Krow]

28 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

...the unfriendliness of the user interface.

There is so much value in getting the UI right! I think we've all agreed about how shocking the Alesis SR models were in that regard.

It's something that Zoom have got very right with their budget multis like the B1-4 and which put significantly more expensive pedals to shame e.g. something like the SA C4  where the tech looks just great but where you have no decent ability to edit without recourse to a PC. Anyway I'm avoiding SA pedals until they can be ars*ed to provide some form numeric display, at a minimum, to at least let me know which of the 128 patches I'm on!

Edited January 26, 2021 by Al Krow