20 Best Drum Machine For Live Performance (2023 Updated)

I’m a 54 y/o bass player who seldom has rare access to an adult human drummer who isn’t too busy to practice. So I bought this little box of drummers with the intention of saving a little and practicing my bass with drum loops and creating my own loops as I gain proficiency with the unit.

So far, so good, but there are definitely a few things to consider before buying. I wish I had known then what I found out after buying. Pros: Great variety of sounds for an entry level drum machine.

Does what it is supposed to do, and is simple to operate the preset patterns right out of the box. I like the volume control and the response of the pads when creating my own beats, but the buttons could be a little larger for my old guy hands.

Cons: The biggest complaint I have is that the LCD display is not backlit and is extremely difficult to see the small letters and numbers without a direct light right over it. A small desk lamp solves it, but a small desk lamp is just another thing I don’t need to clutter up my rack.

The instruction booklet seems to have been written in an age before software like Garage Band or Ableton were sparkles in a developer’s eye, and refers to cassette tapes so often I feel I am reading the manual my old 4-track recorder from 1983.

It’s 2020 and cassette tapes are pretty rare. I can recommend this little unit to anyone looking for a jam buddy in a box, but be aware of the limitations. If I were to buy another Alesis drum machine for the same purpose of practice, I would consider spending the extra money and upgrade to the SR-18 with the backlit LCD to avoid eye strain and enjoy a bunch more sounds.

As I primarily want this as a composing tool at home and as the amps we have at home are too big and cumbersome to set up and put away, I went out and bought a tiny amp for £35 and a new guitar cable – without which this is just a box OK, I am no drummer, but this little gizmo looks like it could be my drummer/ percussionist until I get one.

Really I just want it for composing with – and it looks promising for that: but from what I have read up on this – it does a lot more than that. OK I still need to learn how to use it – but there are lots of on-line tutorials for that.

As such mu feedback in 6 months time would be a lot more valuable than my feedback now.

I investigated quite a few models, but many of them are geared toward on making beats, being a DJ, etc. – not on primarily being a drum machine. Then I discovered a video where the reviewer said he really didn’t need to program anything on the Alesis SR-16, he just punched in a number and hit play.

That was what I was looking for (and got). I’ve had the unit for a little more than a week and used it every day. At this time, I have primarily been using the preset patterns (and installed the five 3/4 time waltz patterns and use them too).

Some of the drum pad events needed volume tweaks, so I have five customized “user” patterns that I use along with the preset and downloaded patterns. It has met all my needs and expectations. I am playing it through a bass combo amp and when the amp’s treble is increased a bit the SR-16 has a very realistic sound.

Minor nitpicks: I would be nice to have a back-lit display. They should have included the 3/4 time waltz patterns with the standard preset patterns. The instruction booklet has not been updated for the 2004 hardware change.

For example, pictures still show the older 1991 jack layout, and therefore many menu instructions that refer to them are also out of date. Backups have to be through MIDI-unless you have a tape backup system from the 90s (ha ha).

I bought one of these from Musicians Friend about a year ago and I am still not at the “advanced feature” stage. Not because the learning curve is too steep, but rather because I find uses for the SR-18 at each “learned part” of the curve.

Also because not every piece of music that I do, requires Drums. That being said, there’s something in this machine for everyone, including those folks who want to customize every aspect of their Drum sounds.

The sounds are high quality and quite varied, as are the types of music in the preset/user banks. Yes, one can obviously buy a more expensive, feature packed Drum Machine, but if you are just beginning with Drum machines or you just want something that is affordable, versatile and relatively easy to use, then the SR-18 is a great option.

95% of the presets are really good. I’m 75 so my next comment most likely won’t resonate with you younger guys. Quite underwhelmed with the Bossa Nova patterns but not really a problem as I’ll be programming my own.

Apart from those all the others are first class. Especially the Latin patterns. Just great. I haven’t gotten too far into programming yet but it all looks relatively simple. It’s a very well thought out bit of gear in a small footprint.

Huge choice of assorted rock patterns so something for everyone. Also great is the ability to put in tempo changes at various spots in your compositions. I advise looking at all the video’s on line as you will pick up some tips that will save you time when going through the manual.

In closing I thoroughly recommend the this drum machine.

Alesis Sr – 18 : lots of prefessionally created drum patches including 100 user programmed locations. The device can play drums, percussion and bass simultaneously. Songs are easily created by adding patches together.

The SR 18 is very easy to use with a user friendly layout of the buttons and pads. The system can by backed up and restored via its midi I/O using your DAW. 😊.

Overall: Plenty of options to choose from in the groove/beat box scene,really glad we went with this one. Solid sounds and endless options! We needed those individual outputs,too. For the money,this is a solidly built unit that is easy to use.

Syncs w our Roland JD-XI for a powerhouse hardware beat/synth set-up. Recommended for beginners and pros.

More addictive to mess with than an 808/909/clone, but less addictive, less versatile, (and far less expensive) than the Dave Smith – Roger Linn Tempest beatbox. The Drumbrute is good. I enjoy the filters and the repeat/stutter ribbon in combination with the randomizer.

Bit of a pain needing to hook it to USB to change many settings that are necessary and should, imo, be on the panel. Im not a DAW person, I prefer MIDI analogue instruments. Bringing a laptop into the studio feels yucky to me.

But it works great, programming in step is easy; programming in real time record is accurate and excellent. Downside (?) its analogue, so where the knobs are left is where they exist, i. e. , no midi control of clap or snare decay, tuning of bass or zap, etc.

Fine with me, might annoy you.

Solid machine. Great sounds. Super sequencer. Built like a tank.

I upgraded to the Drumbrute from the Drumbrute Impact. Not every sound in this is ready to go, for my taste, but with the ability to take select instruments out of the master mix out and into a pre-amp pedal (or whatever you like or need) this is easily fixed with awesome results.

The sky’s the limit. The native sounds verge on 909 and or 808 feel, but not exact clones, which works for what I like to play: post-punk drum machine based rock, think Big Black, mixed with psych with a little dub thrown in.

I pair the Drumbrute with my Behringer RD-6 (606 clone) and I have my own robot Rhythm Devils. If the RD-6 is Bill Kruetzmann, the Drumbrute is Mickey Hart. That brings me to my favorite thing about the DB: it’s live, intuitive playability.

This isn’t a program, play and leave it be machine: it’s an instrument. With polyrhythm per track, 64 step sequences, and the step repeat / roller function, this machine can jam out while my RD-6 holds the beat.

I also own two Arturia analog synths, Micro and Mini 2, so I’m an Arturia fan. What you get for what you pay is mind blowing. Definitely worth checking out!.

Let’s be clear: for the price, I am absolutely in love with this unit. And I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to someone looking for an “inexpensive” analog drum machine. The workflow is intuitive. Programming basic tracks is simple, and flexible.

The fancier features are well documented. The kick is fantastic, as are the hats and main snare; If you’re looking for some basic 808-ish sounds, you’ll be able to get there quickly. It also makes for a pretty great drum MIDI controller with a DAW.

That said, I have a few quibbles that prevent me from rating this 5 stars: 1. The “FM Drum” seems fiddly to get anything usable out of, beyond a Simmons-style “beeoo beeoo” tom. 2. The “Snare 2” voice seems vanishingly similar to the “Snare 1” unless its set to “Clap” 3.

The “Cow” bell voice has no “color” options. The only voice on the unit to be fixed that way. It seems like including _something_ (a stick, or shaker, or something) wouldn’t have been too hard. 4. The pitch range on the “Tom Hi” doesn’t go as far as I would like.

I’m I picking nits? Yes, definitely. I would still buy it again if I’d known these things going into it. But if some future firmware upgrade could resolve one or more of these, I certainly wouldn’t complain.

Sequencer is great, but it takes a lot of work to get a balanced, useable sound (unless you’re going for a blown out distorted sound). Toms are pitched too low to be useable imo, unless you have the tuning set to max they sound like bass drums.

The bass drum is a little flabby and boomy, I wish it could be more blippy. Sequencer is really good, and ability to introduce randomness is great, feels like it’s a real person playing. It’s fun to play and it’s good for the price, but sonically it just feels unnecessarily compromised.

Maybe it will sound cool and interesting in 15-20 years though lol.

Absolutely great piece of gear. Addition to my J6. Easy to operate, tones of tweak features. Added 303 sounds are great. Basically you have a drum machine of 606, 808, 909 elements with added bass 303 sounds.

Add overdrive to parts you want and it’s a gem. Sidechain compression? Yes! The only thing I am after is the price to remain the same as it jumped up after a week or so.

Excellent, portable, feature packed fun. Not the best sounding 303 clone, or drum sounds out there, but for the price, size and flexibility it’s replaced a good deal of equipment for me! The reverb and delay are incredible also.

This is the best set of triggers you can get for this price point. Very happy with the function of device, the library of sounds (a nice variety, everything you’d expect plus a little more), the feel of playing and how compact it is (without feeling too small to play).

The reasons to get this device are: -Looking to spend around $300 all in (for this, the power plug sold separately, and a snare stand). That’s less than half the cost of the 6 to 8 trigger pads from Roland and Yamaha that are the “bees-knees,” industry-leading products.

This isn’t that! This is perfect for entry level, self practice, and possibly small gigs + enhancing a kit with a couple of extra digital triggers. -Need a small profile – I was debating this vs. a low-end Alessis mesh pad kit, but in my tiny apartment, this is perfection! -Quality / Price / Features ratio is great – I was very close to getting the 6 trigger Alessis pad that’s rectangular for around $300 – that doesn’t come with the stand or pedals, so all in you’re closer to $400.

The 2 biggest reasons I didn’t do it is because of other reviewers saying the triggers sometimes wouldn’t register, or would register others close by when you hit it (dependent on the sensitivity), and the fact that all the sounds have unadjustable reverb!! Including if you plug in your own music through the Aux cord! I would freak out if I couldn’t edit that / turn it off.

This set doesn’t have any of those problems. No issues with the pad sensitivity (which is adjustable), with triggering neighboring pads accidentally, and reverb is up to you entirely :). Only 2 “dings” against it – the foot pedals slide a little – for me I found a way to get them to stay put, thus not a problem anymore.

The other is the triggers can’t do flams. would have been nice but I understand that’s more of a high-end feature!.

The Portasound product line is Yamaha’s “consumer” line and given that it will never have some features that are standard in even the lowest end “pro” hardware, like a USB jack or real drum pedals or a way to add your own samples, the DD-75 and the entire DD line are great.

Great sound, great pads. Try running the audio out to something better than the built-in speakers (which are pretty good) and try using guitar pedals and effects on it. For me that’s where the real fun begins.

Oh, and as for MIDI, it is actually a perfectly acceptable drum brain/controller, and is a solid performer. Nothing a professional would scoff at using at all. Easy and reliable. The deal about any Portasound product is that it is suitable for use as a toy or as a serious tool for playing and composing.

It’s all one piece, is solid and sturdy even if it’s all plastic, it’s totally plug and play, and portable. But anybody will eventually move on to a more serious instrument that’s got some of the features that are readily available.

But you’ll still be able to take this with you, play it anywhere, and you can use it to control drum machines of all sorts with this, so any portasound is a winner. The DD-75 isn’t that substantial an improvement over the DD-65, which wasn’t.

over the DD-55, but they are all still pretty great.

Overall: I play this small, compact digital pad kit live, on stage for a major Motown production. No other drums are present, just this kit and NOBODY can tell the difference. As a matter of fact, audiences all over stand up to try and see where the drums are.

They hear them but, don’t see them. It’s funny watching them look for them. I use a Yamaha KP65 Kick Tower and the Yamaha HH65 Hi Hat pedal for precise, real kick & hihat sounds. Haven’t had any problems or “ghost notes” in over 7 years with it.

Highly recommended.

I have always felt like a drummer trapped in a guitarist/bassist body, however, due to circumstances beyond my control (parents then later wife and children) prevented me from ever owning an acoustic or even a decent electronic kit for a very long time.

Due to the plague of 2020 I found myself with a little more space, a little more free time, and a little more hspending money, so I decided to pull the trigger on a lifelong dream of mine of finally becoming a drummer of sorts.

I ordered the DD-75 after reading a few reviews online on various “starter” electronic drum sets/pads and this little friend showed up a few times. I liked how compact it was, fine for someone who has only ever played their drummers kits at various practices and jam sessions through out my life.

The way it is set up is very comfortable, the snare and toms all feel about where I’m comfortable having them on an acoustic set, and the pedals are very compact and easy to use. I only wish they would have shipped with some sort of Velcro pad since I have to play on carpet and they slide very bad.

As far as how it sounds, after rummaging for hours through the different voices for the 8 pads (finding a lot of the great animals noises and various hip hop sound effects I’m used to finding on Yamaha keyboards) I finally decided that I did, in-fact, enjoy most of the voices.

I usually use a custom kit, which is painfully easy to set up, so I haven’t messed around a whole lot with the preset kits. Both kick pedals function great, the bass pedal works on pressure, so playing on carpet is a tad difficult but that’s more my problem.

Having drums I can plug headphones into and adjust the volume is a major plus, it’s compact but not fragile. I have even used it as a studio kit, just to play different patterns and jam with myself, and it records beautifully.

I would defiantly recommend to any beginner or even intermediate who just doesn’t have the space and wants to practice.

I used to be able to drum fairly well, but then I got injured and lost the use of my legs. A few years back, I got the crazy idea to get an electronic drum machine so I could hit the kicks with one of my hands.

I’ve had an Alesis drum unit that I’ve used for a few years and it works okay, but I’ve had to sacrifice one of the pads for the kick. With this Yamaha unit, I’m able to place the kick sensor on the table and hit it with a stick, freeing up all of the other pads for their original intention.

Works like a charm! The unit has lots of really good sounding drum tones. It’s very responsive. I do have a little lag in the MIDI-to-USB connector I’m using, but I think it’s probably more on my connector side than with the unit itself.

There are lots of built in drum loops and songs to experiment with. The menu system is a LITTLE wonky and cumbersome to get the hang of, but it’s not unbearable. For the price, this is a really great little drum kit.

I’m not a huge fan of the construction, as it sits fairly high and doesn’t have adjustable angles of any kind. But, for an average person who can adjust THEIR height relative to the kit, it is probably less of a problem.

I’ve had to get used to being a little more precise with my drumming, as well, due to the height and angle difference with it sitting flat on a table. But, once again, I think this has more to do with my disability and trying to play it from a wheelchair than any actual flaw in the design.

In the end, I would highly recommend this to any person looking to get a portable electronic drum kit or get something to use as a MIDI controller in their studio for a good price. The main reason I rated it 4 stars instead of 5 is because I reserve 5 star reviews for products that REALLY wow me.

But this was absolutely a solid purchase and I would buy again if given a chance to rethink my purchase.

I think one has to set their expectations. This is a low-end drum machine and the cost matches that. It has a huge amount of preset patterns and, thankfully, the ability to make your own through using the buttons as drum pads.

The sound is kinda bog standard but not bad in any way. It is a portable drum machine (another brilliant feature) and so has an in-built speaker and can work on batteries (included) as well as through a 9V AC plug (not included).

There is a standard 3. 5mm output jack for listening through headphones or speakers. If you have the right equipment, you could also just as easily record this drum machine through this 3. 5mm jack as well.

It has a tempo knob which will set pre-set drum patterns and user-made drum patterns to the closest correct beat. The only downside of this machine is that for more complicated functions (I. e. complex user-generated drum pattern recording and editing), the manual does a poor job of explaining the how to.

YouTube videos will help a great deal. Brilliant little machine if you know what to expect. This is for guitarists playing on their own who need a drum accompaniment or needing something more sophisticated and interesting than a boring metronome.

It’s also good for those who are getting into music production and want a simple yet effective drum machine for laying down pre-set or user-made beats.

The KR Mini is worth every penny nothing fancy but that’s fine for me. For what I use it for it does the job except for a few things. It’s missing a waltz , Shuffle, ballad, and swing beats but if you are strictly a rocker there are some very nice usable beats and fill ins inside and a few variations.

The instructions are vague. You have to figure a lot of things out for yourself. If you use foot pedals you have to unplug them first and then start it up first. also you can’t program it with the pedals plugged in.

Once you figure a few things out for it’s size and cost it does the job and easily responds.

Before I purchased this item I read reviews about this product. The reviews seem to be 40/60 percent. 60% being on the not so good side. From the musicians opinions were not very good. Personally I agree with the musicians.

The sound quality is sub standard. I was surprised to find out that there were no country beats, no country shuffles, no walz beats. Trying to program beats is not easy. Tapping on the pads double click when not expected.

There is no indication for the BPM for the tempo knob. Using this machine for live performances would not be very professional. The audience would hear the operator adjusting the drum tempo before each song.

The instructions are not easy to understand. The tempo seems to speed up. The Korg KR Mini Rythum Machine needs improvements.

I am a solo guitarist and I’ve been using midi files and MP3 backing tracks for years. Back in the late 70’s when I started, they didn’t have these backing tracks. It was me & a drum machine. I long for those times again.

If you’re doing a solo act and just need some good quality drum and percussion sounds to fill in your sound, this unit will do it. A small foot print and quality sounds. You can choose a drum beat and if desired, add conga, bongos, tambourine, shaker, hand claps and cajon sounds by the touch of a button.

If you want, you can skip the underlying drum beat and just have congas or other percussion sounds for a nice island feel. This is a great unit and I recommend it highly.

Excellent beatbox. This is really useful for acoustic practice but could also be used live. The sounds are high quality and there are loads of variations for each instrument so there are many different combinations possible.

The 50 favourites function, footswitch compatability and line-out mean this is usable live, too. I’d’ve liked extra footswitch functionality but otherwise this is an excellent bit of kit.

I play this through my Traynor sb bass amp. It sounds fantastic!. It can spice up a coffee house gig, as long as you don’t force it into every song. Easy to find a quick match for most my songs and is easy to adjust.

You must have a footswitch if performing. Lack of adjustability while playing is the only drawback. I set the footswitch to start/stop and a cymbal accent.

Save your Doe and get an Mpc! Even if you Start out with the MPC Element, you can Create any beat you would like. The MPC is Known for having Hardly any Limitations. I have the MPC Renaissance and its amazing! But they also have the MPC Studio, which basically does what the Renaissance does, But in a more compact slimline form For a few hundred less than the MPC Ren.

If you are a beginner i suggest you start with the MPC Element. For about one fifty you are on your way to producing great Music. But this is Just an Opinion. :).

Have you ever been sitting around, tapping on a table because you have a drum beat stuck in your head? Me too. The Akai XR20 was the solution to that problem. You just plug it in and start to play very clear, professional sounding drum beats.

It is very simple to create short or long form drum loops with fills. The A and B side are awesome for Verse and Hook style beat creation. I could go on for days but I’ll end it with this: I owned the XR20 for 4 years.

I came on some hardships and had to sell it last year. I loved it so much that once I got finacially stable again I purchased it right away.

I have owned the XR20 for a few years now and I’m very pleased with it. You can assign sounds to the pads but you have to edit the kits to do so. If you open up any of the kits and hit user, it will take you into edit mode.

From there, you can change what each pad does, EQ it, and even add reverb and other effects. I use it at church for our tracks sometimes and it works great. The start/stop pedal feature is great too.

Just connect a sustain pedal or a trigger pad and you’re ready to go.

The TR8s is not a piece of Hardware I hate nor love. It is great for out of the box drum patterning, and really offers to being creative, with the real deal drum sequencing, you will find yourself choosing a workflow way different to what you would do programming drums in your DAW.

This being said, when it comes to then recording into the DAW, it is a pain in the arse. I bought this to use in a live set recording scenario, in which it lends itself awfully to. To multitrack record you must using the TR8s driver, which cancels any chance of you being able to monitor the other hardware running through the system, essentially destroying the chance to have a good jam, unless you use your external driver and record the drums as one Mono or stereo recording.

The interface is clunky and outdated, and I often find myself putting it back into its box, as I realise I can create the same, if not better sounding patterns in Ableton. For more complex patterns such as IDM type drums, this is brilliant, but for anything else, not so much.

Like I said, I do not hate this piece of kit, and I am not planning on selling it, as it does serve some functions, but for the price tag, get something like a Minilogue instead, and stick to the DAW for the drums, as it is no where near worth the price.

(This being said, check out ‘Belibat’ on Youtube, they are a beast on this machine).

Had this for a while, just like the Tr909 it is an inspiring machine to use, and is great for quickly developing ideas on the fly. Whilst the old tr units are lacking modern sounds, the TR8s brings the inspiration of a drum machine, with the ability to drop your own samples in.

For this reason, it gives you the ability to combine different sounds and do so much more. Whilst sample import is a bit limited, it could really benefit from a software utility to do this, it’s fairly straightforward but a little annoying to do on a two line LCD display.

As for the tr emulations they are great but the real power comes from dropping your own sounds in there. The FX are the usual Roland poor offering, but you can record in the audio and use some decent plug ins.

Very flexible machine, audio interface to boot, and plenty of jamming if you prefer to work this way.

A really powerful drum machine with midi connections, multiple audio outs, sd card slot and capacity to load your own samples. It comes loaded with all the classic Roland drums and some classy and contemporary samples to get started with.

The V2 firmware upgrade also gives you a load of FM synth sounds. The programming workflow is so logical and intuitive that you can really let your creativity flow, and also perform live with it. It’s been beautifully thought out.

I watched a couple of tutorials on youtube to get up and running and then just learnt as I went. The manual is good and but only really needed to work out the more advanced functions. It looks amazing too!.

First off its a great looking a physically well made. Not including the individual 3. 5mm outputs which is what attracted me to it. The buttons, knobs and display are fantastic. It interferes well with my computer (2012 Mac Mini Core i7 server, Pro Tools Ultimate and Steven Slate Drums), MatrixBrute and other Midi devices.

The Arturia drum sounds are Okay but lackluster. After about 6 months of use I never once used the Arturia drum sounds in a recording. I let my 8 year old son and his friends use the sounds when they want to play with it.

When I saw the unit had individual outputs I thought, “how exciting! This could be an endless mission in sonic experimentation. ” I made a mini jack snake with Neutrik connectors. Fed each output into a nice collection of Neve and Chandler Limited pre’s, to an Apogee converter and into my Pro Tools.

SHHH is what I heard plus the “meh” level drum sounds. The individual outputs physical quality is just an absolute shame, absolute junk. I feel the jack inserts would break when inserting and removing.

Pushing jacks in was rough and wiggly, same is to be sound about removal. When I spoke to Arturia about this (and someone on a forum actually defended this) they said, with the DrumBrute’s low retail price there had to be some compromises.

Thats why there is hiss and the jacks are not high quality. I moved forward and found mapping the DrumBrute to SSD5 reaped incredible drum sounds. The DrumBrute’s pads are great, it’s knobs, layout and other features are fantastic.

I’d say for a while I was able to overlook it’s weaknesses. Arturia posted on their site there were issues with certain DB models thats when I realized I had a lemon. I sent it back and it returned a lemon again and its out again.

This time they said they couldn’t find anything wrong with it but they are replacing mine with a new one. Kudo’s Arturia! I hope the his is gone and Maraca’s have some volume. BTW the MatrixBrute is AMAZING!!.

I use this mainly for sound design of drum sounds for samplers I own. It punches above it’s weight class and I have gotten amazing sounding results with it, but it’s a very frustrating device in some ways.

There are two layers per drum sound and it’s very easy to mess up your settings while working. Pros: This is a great drum synth machine capable of generating drum sounds from almost realistic to other worldly.

The quality of sound is great. Quick to learn. The sequencer is solid. Connectivity is pretty decent for this size of device with sync in/out, midi and headphone out. The randomize functionality is very cool and well executed.

Cons: No included power cable. Unforgiving interface for sound design can be fiddly and frustrating. The speaker blew out during normal usage which isn’t bad, because I don’t use it that way. Bottom line: I love what this thing can do, I hate using it sometimes.

The sound design tools are amazing and it’s actually the most capable outboard drum synth I have, but the controls make it difficult to tweak a sound.

Cool sequencer with motion sequence and Elektron style parameter locks, 2 independent layers for each drum and very good FX module. The only disadvantage i found – is the one knob switching between the modes of a soundsource waveforms, modulation and EG.

But when you remember the price it seems not so critical, especially when you get used to the order of combinations. Read next text carefully: I recommend that device to either experienced users or those who want to learn sound synthesis and ready to spend some time tweaking the knobs and trying to understand the principles.

When I’ve just bought I’ve spent an hour while trying to make a kick drum. But now I need a few seconds. FM synthesis is also possible by modulating sinewave with another sinewave. So it’s up to you.

And It’s not for every kind of music. Perfect for electro, minimalistic house, glitchy and noisy sounds etc. Highly recommended.

This is a great little instrument, makes for endless experimentation and the sounds are great. Seems to be pretty efficient with the batteries so far, I’ll probably get a power supply. Only cons for me: 1- the instructions are a little vague on the recording key sequence, I am still trying to figure out exactly what combo of buttons to push to get it to record every time.

Sometimes it saves things and sometimes it doesn’t, wierd. 2- in tandem with the above #1, triggering record sends it into some altered-sound mode where the recording is not exactly what the thing is playing when you trigger record.

Again, instructions are not clear on why this is, you have to play around a lot to figure the thing out. Still, for the budget it’s an easy way to get your hands on this kind of a synth and see if higher grade gear is worth your time.

You can be Roger Waters for cheap!.

Sounds great. This machine is easy to use and tonnes of fun to play around with – especially if you’re syncing with other Volcas. The internal sequencer is limited but it has MIDI-in so you can get longer sequences via an external sequencer or DAW.

Built-in speaker is pretty average but it’s a handy backup if you forget your headphones. Also runs on 6x AA batteries, so you can travel with it. The small footprint helps with that too. I like to feed mine into some long reverbs and channel my inner Bladerunner soundtrack.

Can’t really go wrong at this price point. Shipping was fast once in transit, though it did take a few days to dispatch once ordered.

So, I’m a drummer mostly, but I like to play the piano and synths and record little song ideas. This is the best sounding drum machine on the planet – the groove is so good, the patterns are interesting and tasteful, and it’s drop dead simple.

Something other reviews and demos don’t illustrate (at least in my research) is how the patterns simplify at lower tempos. Other machines have had a “complexity” slider and such, but this does it solely by tempo.

And as expected, it does this very well. Occasionally I’ve wished I could keep a 60-80 bpm pattern going up above 80 bpm, etc. but that’s a minor thing. This is just such an inspiring songwriting, practicing, and possibly open-mic-type performing tool.

No, you can’t edit patterns – I don’t want to. No, you can’t play in 5/8. That’s a bummer and it would be nice to have a few swappable slots for downloading stuff like that. And finally, no MIDI which will definitely kill this device for a lot of people.

I’d like it just so that it would sync to the little sequencer/recorder on my Yamaha Clavinova. But let’s just call this the WORLD’S BEST SLIGHTLY OVERPRICED GROOVIEST METRONOME EVER.

Overall, the Korg KR55 Drum Machine is OK. For me, a person for whom music is a hobby, the Korg provides rhythm and also functions as a metronome. It has a good range of set drum beats from Latin to rock.

In addition, one can devise one’s own drum sounds. The Korg is small with a size and weight that facilitates transportation. The technical manual is comprehensive and very useful. Two negatives for me : 1, would have liked a wider range of Rock beats.

2. Disappointed that the recommended foot switch is not available!.

I have been using drum machines for various applications for 3 decades, watched the ping pong sound go from Packman to Garage Band. They won’t tell you a Roland drum machine is not compatible with a Yamaha drum machine, they won’t synch.

The Roland sound is tight with too much FX on each track. Yamaha has the ability to make it dry or with lot’s of reverb like Roland has. When you trigger both of these unit’s they have an immediately response, you get used to this like a friend who plays in your band.

But the sound doesn’t really come close to sounding like a “in the room instrument”. It’s polished and over produced, sometimes giving you a cheap sounding piece of electronics. So I was never happy with drum machines and only used them because I had to in some cases.

As technology improved I waited for the day something would come on the market that I could say, “YES” that’s a great drum machine. After reading and watching the you tube promo on the new Korg KR 55 Pro Drum Machine, I purchased one from Musician’s Friend in great confidence.

I plugged it and right away you can see the new technology at work. It’s like a mini-light show watching the KR 55 light up! After that bit of awe, I began testing it out. I was amazed at the realness of the drummer in my house, I started putting it to the test like only somebody like me can, and realized unlike Yamaha and Roland that give an instant response, the Korg KR55 is like a fine wine and says ok, no problem I’ll get to it, you just have to hit the 3, or the 7, instead of the 4 and the 8, to give flawless fills and turn arounds.

At first I hated the fact it doesn’t respond like I was playing drums, however giving some time to learn it’s proper intention of it’s functions, you will learn to love it. The incredible drum patches are top of their class, and really do sound like a real drummer is doing a session, just like you like it!.

Roland really does a great job with this piece of equipment. I really enjoy the cameras that let me go back and review my set and the work flow that is highly detailed in the consoles massive screen and also the instruction manual that comes with it.

There are so many hidden features, that I’m always discovering new things that sometimes help improve the overall use. The Bluetooth is an awesome thing, I can make midi clips when I’m on the go, so I don’t have to chase a wild goose through home Depot because, well, who wants that? I got mine custom painted and they did a wonderful job at letting me know which parts to avoid painting so I wouldn’t interfere with the sensors and NFC which allows me to enjoy the tremendous amounts of fun that are totally worth the $10.

I love taking selfies with it and using the lasik. The built in mic sounds fantastic, like very professional. There might be some bugs, but Roland does an amazing job at spreading the good word of Jesus, your Lord, Savior.

The multiplayer mode is such a blast. The presets are awesome, the delay and other filters are maxed out for every new project so you don’t have to worry about doing all the hard work. If you press all 4 arrows and the exit button you can explore a whole other side, where the long list of crash reports are saved, they are about as fun as, and even take up just about the same memory as all the sounds.

The only thing that it needs is probably one more 8gb memory card so you can move a ten seconds clip if you need to. Besides that, it definitely does an ok job. The resonance overpowers all the other sounds, which I absolutely love, my neighbors agree.

They can here it come through the cable TV sometimes, which definitely let’s you know it makes some super pumped pumped up jams they everyone will love. The battery pack is an amazing feature, which is also water resistant.

I got mine soaked from all the sweat and beer, and it repelled it like a doves pearly white down jacket, but more gangster, like a homey pigeon of sorts. The built-in help line is great for contacting customer service in a pinch.

They will even press your music on a cd-rw, just like Napster. It reminds me of when we all would share music on the Peer2Peer platforms in the late 90’s, which explains the one guy who left a 1 star review, I bet it was Lars from Limp Bizket.

I fell in love with it, and now I think I have erectile dysfunction, but the dysfunction is easily replaced with all the combo button functions, it’s all in great balance. Almost got a MPC Live, but who would want a machine that is straightforward with a touchscreen that’s not analog with fonts that you can actually see, instead of the super cool alarm clock letters.

They’re badass, I mean, they kick butt, Amen to that. I bet Roland is impressed by the things they are capable of. It’s like at home chemotherapy with all the interference it picks up and returns at approximately 10x the level needed to cure cancer.

It made me slightly cross-eyed, but hey, at least the cancer went away, along with the pedophile couple from across the way. Roland hired them and even paid for their relocation. Sometimes the walls will start to get a little wavy, just like the old WWii footage when they were testing hydrogen bombs and all the trees would sway back and forth.

Every once in a while I see my own skeleton through my shadow. Its quite fun actually, although I admit, I was somewhat confused at first, but even more concerned.

Great machine, the synthesizer Zen Core is extremely powerful and you can go very deep into sound design. Lot’s of connection possibilities with external audio patched through the MC707 and using the FX engines.

Detailed information on any sound manipulation via pop up windows in the main screen. The output sound is of very high quality. Interface with DAW very easy and gives 9 stereo channels in (8 tracks plus stereo input) and is effectively an external usb sound card.

Very happy with this groovebox as unlike the previous grooveboxes this on has a fully implemented synth engine for constructing user sounds from scratch. NB you store your own sounds as part of a project and can then load them into new projects from the sound load function.

So I’m looking for a simple drum machine to replace my ancient TR-505, which is still functional but showing its age. I was hoping that this machine would do that, but it has too much of things I don’t want and not enough of what I do need.

I use the TR-505 to play drum loops along with my piano playing. I have a set of simple patterns with fairly spare playing, and I use a pedal to start and stop the loop, and the tempo dial to change tempo.

That represents about 1% of what this machine is capable of, but it’s not easy. The learning curve is relatively steep, and I’m a techie. I set up my loops with a lot of help from the manual, and I’m sure that if I want to make changes I’ll need to pull out the manual again because the user interface is not very intuitive.

I don’t like the way the machine forces you to step through patterns when playing, I don’t like the way the start and stop pedal works, and bottom line, I’ll be keeping my TR-505 a little longer and continuing my search for a replacement.

I’ve tried the Alesis SR-16, and that’s OK, but still not exactly what I need. I hate the thought of dedicating a laptop to solving the problem, but it may come to that. However, if you want to make bass and drum loops and create songs, this is probably a good value.

The sounds are pretty good, but the functionality is just not a match for me.

I bought this because it’s advertised as an entry-level model that allows a musician to construct rhythm tracks for individual songs (I write a lot of original material). I hoped to be able to use it in small live settings as well.

I don’t know how many hours I’ve spent trying to figure out how to do this, and I’m no closer than the day I bought it. After my first attempt, I bought the DVD instruction manual. That didn’t help in the least, and it feels more like a demo video than an instruction video.

There’s a whole lot of “You can do this and this and this” with no explanation of how or why. The preset styles don’t seem to follow any kind of common chord progression, they’re mostly just random patterns strung together, so they’re not really helpful even as a practicing tool.

I’d say, if you want to spike your blood pressure, if you want a grey box with a lot of flashing lights that makes random sounds, then this is the product for you. If, however, you’re looking for an easy-to-use backup player for practicing and performing, then give this a miss.

It’s far, far too difficult to use to be considered entry-level.

I use it for practice and gigs. To do this a Boss FS-6 dual foot switch is a must. That allows you to start and stop drums where needed in a song and skip the intro or fill. Otherwise you have to operate it with a free hand which is impossible when you are playing guitar and singing.

The foot switch works great but I finally had a DC power inlet put in the switch so I can use both items without concern about depleted batteries. Both the drum machine and foot switch eat up batteries in no time.

I purchased this kit back in December 2019 along with the Simmons DA50 at Long McQuade (Canada). So far has been serving me really well, I really love it and use to play in Church. At the moment the snare mesh started to break in the corner.

Long McQuade doesn’t sell it, I tried Remo, it doesn’t work and it does feel that Long McQuade don’t care to serve me, I think they no longer sell them or such. So I decided to phone Simmons and I did explained the situation.

First phone call the guy said, I’m sorry but we don’t cheap to Canada, it seems that he didn’t care much, but the call dropped. Since I need the mesh, decided to phone again, second guy, so promptly to help me, then he asked my info and to make short, said that he would cheap the mesh for me for free.

That was awesome, he didn’t know, but I was looking to upgrade my kit, I was looking at Roland TD17, Alesis DM10 MKII, but what I really wanted is the amazing Yamaha DTX8, but price was my issue. With Simmons service, I decided to check on the SD1250.

The reason I did not considered at first, is because only Long McQuade was selling Simmons drums in Canada and they said they don’t have and would order the SD1250. But with a special going on, the discount price did make up for the shipping and import fees, so I’m waiting for my new drum kit.

I am a guitarist who does a lot of finger drumming and programming. I bought these so I could learn to play drums. THE GOOD: Aesthetics are nice, great looking and compact kit. The rack works well and bang for buck seems decent.

Module has pretty good features especially when paired with app. The Bluetooth works great. I like the kick a lot! THE BAD: Inconsistent triggers, dynamics and volume responses , especially with hi-hat.

The snare also has a centered trigger that you can feel with your hand and it creates a super sensitive spot in middle that means much higher volume hit when you strike the middle, so its a little out of balance imo.

All of this can be remedied with good eDrum technique which I dont really have! OVER-ALL – This kit seems to be a good one for price, but I have not had any experience with under $500 kits so no real way to compare.

I have played a $1000 Roland kit that felt way more responsive , but probably to be expected.

I’ve been playing the drums for over 30 years. I was in Wire Mother, the best all-psychology-faculty alternative-folk-rock cover band in Northeast Ohio. Everyone thinks I am a great drummer. They are wrong.

Yes, I can play along with the amateur stuff bands play. However, the 21st-century youtube drummers have shown me that I have not improved in decades. What’s a shed? How do I play a herta? The problem for the middle-aged family man with a career is that I don’t have a lot of time and I constantly face the “noise barrier.

” That is, when I play my kit in the basement my children can’t watch TV upstairs and their braces start to shake loose. Yet, I have learned a thing or two about skill development from my (professor) day job, such as the importance of deliberate practice with feedback.

Eureka! What if I got an electronic drum set, and arranged it with the exact ergonomics of my 5 peice?Same heights, angles, and distances (center to center), so my Simmons feels similar to my Gretch.

Using the principle of transfer-appropriate processing, if I develop muscle memory on the Simmons, it should transfer to the Gretch. No, they don’t feel exactly like acoutstic drums. So what. The smaller sizes and altered feel require greater concentration and more precision.

Online reviews criticize the stock sounds. Not important. I’m using it to practice, and may never leave the first preset (“Maple ki”). Finally, it had better be fun. When you still have the attention span of a 9 year old (I am a drummer, right?), there has to be a ‘fun factor’ to motivate the time needed to practice coordination, pocket, and so on.

I’ve never had a metronome, and I can record myself to get the all-important feedback required for deliberate practice. You can “gamify” drum practice. Thus, they are fun to play, and make me want to run over to the set after every you tube video about “the five rudiments that will triple your hand speed” or whatever.

Now I have a shed of my own.