Drum Machine Recommendation?

Bob Snelgrove · From: san jose, ca

Hi Guys,

Our real drummer is down for a while and I have a Boss DR-3 that is making me crazy and doesn't even sound all that great.

Is there a simple drum machine with great country styles that is simple to get up and going with?

thx

bob

Bob Martin · From: Madison Tn

Hey Bob, there are a lot of choices for drum machines today but my favorite one is the Boss Dr-660 I've seen then on ebay for less than 100 bucks I even have one that you could use for a while if I had a way of sending it to you. But right now I'm not able to drive yet and I sure hate to ask my poor wife to do any more chores than she already has to do for me Smile

But if it's a deal where you might need to keep one for a while ebay is a great place to buy one.

My second choice would be an Alesis SR-16 they are in the same category as the Boss Dr-660 and both are good buys on ebay as well as great sounding drum machines. The only reason I put the Boss in the number 1 slot is because of one little caveat in the Alesis SR-16.

The Alesis has wonderful sounds and is simple to program but the cross stick sounds like a big old fat log clicking on the rim of the snare hehe, actually it's a real drum stick cracking the rim of the snare but I'll bet you that the sample they used was the drummer using the fat end of the drum stick and for my tastes I like the brighter and sharper attack of the small end of the stick. As far as I know inside of the SR-16 there is no way to eq it to sound like a small end of the stick or change the preset reverb which doesn't sound to good to me. You might like the fat cross stick sound and if so then I would go for the Alesis.

The Boss Dr-660 is a bit more versatile in editing the sounds meaning that each piece of the drum kit can be edited in many ways such as putting reverb, eq, delay and chorus on each piece of the kit while the Alesis has less editing options but still sounds quite good.

Good luck and remember there are at least 100 other choices as far as cheap drum machines go including software drum kits.

Big Bob
_________________
***Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow***

Bob Snelgrove · From: san jose, ca

Thanks, Bob

I'm downloading the manual now (Dr-660). I hope it's more intuitive than the DR-3 !!

Thanks Smile

bob

Bob Snelgrove · From: san jose, ca

http://www.bosscorp.co.jp/products/en/_support/om.cfm?iCncd=275&ln=EN&SearchBy=RcId&dst=P&iRcId=0000010023&dsp=1&iStcd=4

What about this one?

thx

bob

Bob Martin · From: Madison Tn

Howdy Bob, although I don't own one I'm pretty familiar with them and they are more in line with the older DR.5 which is a jam along type type box. What you will be getting with the Jam station is a kind of a band in a box but not nearly as flexible.

The JS is a great little box especially if you want to do singles or just turn it on and play along with the songs already programmed into it. It does however have an audio track that can be recorded to just in case you want to have a harmony voice for your show or a lead guitar, fiddle or basically any instrument you want to record along with the midi songs that are preset on the JS or you can even program your own chord progression and style on your own.

I mentioned the Dr.5 but don't get the wrong idea because the JS is a lot newer and the sounds are better and the complete package is far and beyond the capabilities of the older Dr.5 which by the way I have 2 of them LOL. Long story short I was looking for one and a good Christian friend from the forum here found out about it and sent me one for free and I had already bid on one here in a local Craig's list deal and won it Smile

so I used both of them together quite a bit. I got them to be able to go out to nursing homes to do shows for the folks without having to do just an acoustic guitar type show and the things worked great in tandem Smile

I only refrained from mentioning the good friends name here just in case it might embarrass him because he did this as a Christian donation type thing and usually folks don't like to brag about those types of donations. Now if he wanted to post here and OK it I would love for all of you to know what a great guy he is Smile

One last word these type of all in one boxes are somewhat harder to program than a drum machine because a drum machine only does one or two things such as the Dr-660 does Bass and drums and mostly if you want you can just find the pattern you want and hit play to start and it will count off the song and if you want to go from a verse to chorus change up it has an A and B button so on the chorus it's ride cymbal and open snare and mainly changes the beat up a bit so you can go back and forth to make it sound more like a real drummer and it does very simple real drummer type fills between the 2 styles without any trouble other than hitting the a-b button which can be done with a foot switch and then at the end of the song if you want to you can hit the C button or tap the foot switch 2 times it will end the song like a real drummer instead of just hitting stop. So there's a complete song with just 3 button pushes, by the way the alesis does it as well. I think the JS will also do that in the simple mode. Good luck and let us know what you decide.

Bob
_________________
***Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow***

Bob Snelgrove · From: san jose, ca

Thanks for all the info, Bob!

After I finally got the DR-3 to actually make a sound, I thought the styles sounded really cheesy, especially for standard country stuff. I haven't heard the JS but looked at the manual and it looked like it included a nice collection of country, not just "country 1 and country 2" !!

I really need a country friendly machine that is easy to get up and running. This is for playing live with a bass player and guitar player. Being able to compose songs with chords (ALA BIAB) would be cool for practicing too.

The drum machines with their pads for cymbals, etc have no use unless they can mainly be a "sub" drummer in a live situation.

What we really need is BIAB in a box!, but using a laptop live is not practical at the moment.

Thanks again for you help and knowledge!

bob

Tony Palmer · From: St Augustine,FL

Drum machines are really a problem for me. I had the DR-5 and finally got rid of it because it was so hard to program. Yes, it had great sound to it but what good is it if I couldn't easily and quickly find a 3/4 beat or a shuffle?
A lot of people I know use the Alesis and it sounds very good. I believe there is a lot less programming involved but you still have to know your way around it.
I've never found a real plug-n-play drum machine yet.

Clete Ritta · From: San Antonio, Texas

I like the Alesis SR-16 too. I used one for years when I got into serious MIDI sequencing on the PC. I really didnt program beats on it much, just triggered the samples from Voyetra Sequencer+ on a 386 DOS IBM. That was a long time ago, but it's still a great sounding drum machine for the money.

Nowdays if I needed a drum machine, I would bring my laptop and use Garage Band or a software based sequencer like Logic. There are plenty of very realistic drum kit samples in a library. It's a lot more for a Mac than an SR-16, but its plug and play. Wink

Clete

Bob Martin · From: Madison Tn

Hey Bob, just about all of the drum machines are user friendly as long as you just want the same variation of a song all the way through. As far as I know most all will start up with a foot switch, change from cross stick to full snare and from high hat to ride cymbal with the foot switch and then end the song with a pro sounding ending with a click of the foot switch.

But if I were a betting man I'm betting that you would like to have some real good country variations in each verse and then good fills going to the bridge and then a real sounding ending.

To be honest Bob it's been quite some time since I used a drum machine so now you know why I know more about the older Dr-660 and those units but as far as I'm concerned the older units at least the one's I'm referring to have 16 bit 44.1 hz sample quality and in a band situation I don't think you would notice much difference between 12 to 15 yr. old drum machine and todays much more expensive machines. Most of the drum machines today have upped their sample bit rate up to 24 bit and are using better recording techniques when they record the drums to make the samples and the only reason I know anything about newer machines is just do to being nosy and reading reviews and listening to demos online.

Drum machines today are having a tough time selling due to the move towards software drum samples in a drum machine kind of package and boy do they sound killer. I listened to Rolands newest big gun's drum machine or it might have been Boss but anyway the samples sounded great but not as good as a cheaper software version to use on the computer and they can be manipulated in so many more ways but just like you mentioned earlier if you're going to go through all of that you would need to take a laptop to the gig which a lot of musicians do now days or maybe I should say some do.

Have you had a chance to listen to any audio samples of the Jam Station if not I'll try to scare one up some where for ya.

Of course it all boils down to you deciding if you want to spend the time tying 3 and 4 beat bar patterns together programming the song before the gig or doing the A-B foot switch method live as you're picking. I know you realize that you can spend a lot of time making songs that way but when you get done with them they most definitely sound better than the A-B pedal method.

Anyway good luck and let us know what you decide on!

Bob Martin
_________________
***Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow***

Bob Snelgrove · From: san jose, ca

For now, I would just like some good styles and not worry about programming fills, intros, etc. Just pick a good swing style, adjust the tempo and be able to start/stop with a foot switch. SIMPLE BUT REALISTIC!

Maybe an accompaniment type keyboard would be better? I have a Yamaha PSR-560 here at the house and just picked a swing style found the tempo and played "My Window Faces The South".

I would love to hear some Jamstation sample if possible. BTW, the old Yamaha KB sounds way better than the DR-3, even with just drums, no accompaniment!

I hope I am being clear as to what the goal is here!

bob

Bob Martin · From: Madison Tn

Yeah Bob, you're being very clear I probably just offered way to much useless info LOL! I'll see if I can find some audio clips of the JS. So now that I know for now you just want to push start and play and then also have good country beats and sounds you should have no problems finding a machine.

Bob
_________________
***Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow***

Bob Snelgrove · From: san jose, ca

Jason Hull · Posted 3 Jul 2010 5:10 am

I'll second the DR-660. Used it for many years, until I got BFD on my 'puter.

Bob Martin · From: Madison Tn

Bob, I'm having a hard time finding a good quality demo of the JS-5 there are a few on youtube but most are terrible recordings and not really good enough to let us hear the real quality.

Then as far a Boss goes it seems after a product is no longer being sold they take their audio demos down so there's not any demos on Boss's site at least as far as I can find.

I will end with this Bob if all you want is a plug and play using a pattern then your search should be easy and I'll go back to my original suggestion Boss Dr-660 it has a tempo button and a play button and has just about every pattern you might want in a country music gig including brush patterns if you like them also including an old fashion country waltz. That's another minus with the Alesis many folks complain of no waltz patterns. So good luck.

Bob
_________________
***Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow***

Bob Snelgrove · From: san jose, ca

Bob Martin · From: Madison Tn

Hi Bob, most all drum machines will brag about how editable they are because most folks want to be able to create new patterns and songs to sound more like a real drummer but I completely understand your reason for wanting to just find good country patterns and hit play but maybe this will shed a little light on all of Boss's Mumbo-Jumbo Smile

Before I tell you which patterns are often used in country music let me say this. The drum kits on any pattern can be changed to a country kit rather than the rock and roll drum kit that is already attached to these patterns ie any drum kit can be used with any pattern and it's done with just a couple of pushes of a button. Once you get a 660 if you do there is more than one drum kit that will work very well with a lot of these patterns that are labeled as rock but when used with a country kit they are useful as a country pattern.

The patterns I point out will be drum patterns that are used routinely in country music and all that would need to be changed is the drum kit in place of the rock kit or what ever kit it might have attached to it just use the country kit.

Pattern numbers used in country but are not marked as country patterns are as follows.

Pattern 0 through 35 are very widely used daily and even back in the 50's, 60' 70's 80's and right up to the present country music as long as the country drum kits are used with them.

44 through 59 are this way as well.

76 through 87 used with songs like older Marty Robbins songs, Billy Walker and some other type of south of the border type songs.

So if you assign a country kit to all of those patterns and adjust the pattern to the tempo of your song you'll have a pretty good selection of patterns to choose from. By the way once you set the drum kit to country you will not have to do this again unless you decide to change the drum kit to another kit.

The patterns that have names such as hard rock will sound just fine with songs that have fast country tempos like The race is on, a lot of Alan Jackson's faster songs Waylon's faster songs, Gene Watson's 14 KT. Mind and just about any fast country song.

Just try to look at it like this Boss named every pattern trying to entice people from all genres of music to like it and buy it so they put names like "rock, hard rock, samba and many others but like I said most all will work with country and sound like country if you assign a country drum kit to it. But in the scheme of drum patterns there are only so many patterns that most bands will ever use in the course of a night and if you want to dig into the basics of drumming or want to talk to a drummer he will most likely say the same thing and I'm willing to say that 8 or 9 patterns is all most drummers will use all night long of course with some variations of those same patterns as not to sound redundant.

I promise this is the last paragraph LOL I asked my wife if she would help me out so I could help you out and she said yes, so if you want to let's do this. I'll get the 660 boxed up and she will send it USPS to you 3rd day shipping and you can try it out and see if you like it and if you do fine I'll sell it to you for whatever they sell for on average on ebay but you will have buy a boss psa adapter. I seen one on line on ebay for 9.95 last week but I just don't use the 660 much at all and when I would use it I used my One Spot adapter that has 8 or 9 adapters in a row on it and it was used as a drum pad controller. So say if you found 2 or 3 of the 660's on ebay for an average of 70, 60, 50 or even 90 bucks I'd sell it for that and if you are in a bind I would gladly send it and you can send the money when you had it, I just want to make sure you have a drummer for your gigs Smile

Bob

So try to forget about how Boss named them and just listen to them. Now one last thing every drum machine on the market will basically be the same they will all have very few patterns named country but most all will work with country songs especially when you don't plan on using the fills and jusat mainly want to pick a pattern and let it play.

I hope this helps a little Smile

_________________
***Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow***

Bob Snelgrove · From: san jose, ca

Thanks again, Bob

I actually put BIAB on my netbook w/ Big Jim's material and used it last night. Seems to fit the bill for now.

Thanks for your generous offer. If I need to, I will let you know if BIAB desn't work out!

thx

bob

Bob Martin · From: Madison Tn

Bob I think you made a very wise move! BIAB is the only way to fly LOL!!Just protect your netbook and you'll have the best drummer around that will fit in a box Smile

Bob Martin
_________________
***Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow***

Ernest Cawby · From: Lake City, Florida, USA, R.I.P.

Ken Fox has a DR 5 and it sounds like a whole band, or orchestra, best I ever heard. Billy Cooper can program them very good,

ernie

Forum Index > Electronics		Next oldest topic :: Next newest topic