Drum Machines > by Manufacturer

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 ... Read review

Advantages: none
Disadvantages: none

Hello and welcome to the review that should have been here. It was here but its not here now as I have taken it and put it into my private stash somewhere else. It may well appear somewhere else online and if it does it will have my name on it. Thank you to everyone, to all the people in my COT over the years who have stuck by me and who have been great influences over the reviews I have written. It is indeed a sad case that reviewers have to come ...
...sense at all when the original content should be listed and frankly because of endless problems with Ciao I no longer have the time and energy to carry on. Each time I tried, it didn't work. Each message I sent to other members, they didn't appear. Each rate I applied, it didn't show. So that's the end of it. Ty for reading. ... Read review

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, ... Read review

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 ... Read review

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 ... Read review