Drum Machines

Handy but dull

Advantages: cheap, easy to use
Disadvantages: no effects limited sound editing, dull sounds

The Alesis SR-16 holds the title of the best selling drum machine of all time and some would say with good reason. The sound quality that this machine can produce is excellent but the drawback is that the 230 odd sounds contained within the unit are uniformly dull and uninspiring. If you need a workhorse set of drum sounds for backing tracks etc then the SR16 will do the job in style but i would not recommend it to anyone who has any kind of imagination ...
...some of the pattern editing is fairly cryptic if you don't have a manual, apart from that it's pretty easy to figure out whats going on. The SR16 can has 150 somewhat dodgy preset patterns but you can create another 150 of your own to string together in the 100 available songs. Outputs consist of a stereo pair and an pair of assignable outs. This lack of outputs is a pain in the arse when you realise that there are no onboard effects. If i was in ...

crustypaul 19.12.2000 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Alesis SR-16

Roland Drums... my pride and joy!

Advantages: Great authentic sounds, feels like playing real drums
Disadvantages: knowing that if you had £5000 you could get a much better one

I brought my Roland V Drums about a year and a half ago. I love them to bits. At the time, i couldnt afford them at all. However I played on a kit in a music shop and fell in love with them. I immediately promised myself to get a job and save up to get one. So, eventually I did. I still struggle now to understand the technology. You're hitting rubber and plastic pads, and real drum sounds come out... its increadible. Although the TD8 is not the ...
...next room. However, with the roland V drums, there is very little noise. You can plug in your headphones and not have to worry about the neighbours complaining. Also, having one of these is like having 64 drum kits all in one that are all fully customisable. There are so many voices to choose from to build up your drum kits. However, admitedly i have about 6 that i use regularly and the others rarely get a look in. There are 1024 voices in all, ...

priesty8899 20.01.2007 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Roland V Drums TD 8

Drum, DD Do

Advantages: Cheap, feature-packed, responsive and great sounding; perfect for many standard professional needs and beginners who want to splash out. DD's have been manufactured for atleast a decade or so
Disadvantages: No match for an acoustic kit or VDrums, toyish looking, some minor irregularities in pad response and limitations to the in-built recording feature

It's been a while since I've written a review, and the DD55 is one such surprising product worthy of a praising one as it's one that I would like to discuss with many people, without boring the uninterested. Thus I'm sparked to write. Digital percussion (or electronic drum kits, to be less snobby) has existed in many forms in the last few decades, most notably in late disco and early eighties pop which didn't do much for the longevity of it. The ...
...their age-old acoustic counterparts. They were fancy executive toys (which many still are) relegated to attics. Nothing has changed much but electronic percussion has become much more fashionable in the last 5 years than it ever has - mostly due to the fact of successes like Roland's VDrums range (though expensive) - and electronic aided compositions (whether the end sound is more organic or not) are no longer a scarcity due to the slow progressive ...

mo79 08.05.2003 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Yamaha DD55

Drum Machine Dinosaurs

Advantages: Individual outputs, mental tuning options, good pattern programming
Disadvantages: Primative, some dodgy sounds, small memory, early versions are tempramental

I used to own a drumtraks drum machine but it got nicked by someone who was in love with the kickdrum sounds. Plainly the man was either deaf of insane as i certainly would not buy another one today. The SCI drumtraks is a fairly primative drum machine released in 1984 alongside the SCI sixtraks synth/sequencer. The front panel has 13 drum buttons divided into six channels with each channel having it's own monophonic output jack which is handy for ...
...be excited about, the clap in particular sounds like no human hand was ever involved in its production. This is odd as the Drumtraks was one of the first drum machines to use sampled sounds. The fact that you can play each sound at 16 different tunings makes up for the crap sounds to some extent as each sound can be tuned at different pitches over the course of a programmed pattern. The drumtraks can store up to 99 patterns and 99 songs of up to ...

crustypaul 03.01.2001 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Sequential Circuits DrumTraks

Good Rhythm

Advantages: Realistic drum sounds, inexpensive, can synchronise with MIDI equipment
Disadvantages: Expandability limited to user defined patterns

The Zoom RhythmTrack RT-123 is a good quality and fairly inexpensive (about £120) drum machine. Aesthetically it looks good, with a very compact body (dimensions are 20cm * 25cm), and the unit has a hard, transparent blue casing. It can produce backing patterns made up of two drum tracks and one bass track. There are 297 preset patterns, providing a wide variety of popular rhythms - everything from Hip Hop to Stadium Rock! 99 additional patterns ...
...You can create a backing sequence (song) with up to 99 patterns, and as many as 99 songs can be stored. The RT-123 comes with a demo song pre-loaded which gives a good indication of the type of output you can create with a bit of practice. The pads light up when the sound is played, which is useful for non-drummers, to see how the rhythms are composed. You can choose from 105 built-in drum and bass sounds which are very realistic. There is a line ...

heneghan 16.01.2001 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Zoom Rhythmtrack RT-123