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Topic: Roland DR-5 Rhythm machine |
Tommy Auldridge
From:
Maryland, USA
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Posted 7 May 2020 2:38 pm |
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| For practicing at home, or at a jam with other steel player friends, I use a Roland DR-5..It's more than just a drum machine. If you have ever messed with one of these, you know what I mean. The pre-set things that are in it, aren't good for anything. But, if you spend some time building your own patterns, you can end up with stuff that sounds better than band-in-a-box. You can adjust the volume levels of each drum or other instruments, like bass, piano, or acoustic guitar. That's the only four things I use in each of my patterns. It has all kinds of different voices, but they're just not needed. The unit will store 20 songs. One cool feature is, you can set a repeat somewhere in your song, so that it will play a certain part of the song over and over, until you tell it to stop repeating and go to the outro. It sounds so good, Billy Cooper even recorded a C.D. with it. If you didn't know better, you could assume it was real musicians in the studio. I don't know why, but Roland no longer has these available. I just thought I would share my experience about this, to see if anyone else has a DR-5 and likes to use it. Thanks, Tommy..... |
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Larry Dering
From:
Missouri, USA
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Posted 8 May 2020 7:11 am
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| Tommy, I've had one for so many years I don't remember when I got it. It's one of many drum machines in my hoard. I quit using after Band in the box and computer backing tracks. I will have to dig it out and use it again. |
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Tommy Auldridge
From:
Maryland, USA
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Posted 8 May 2020 8:10 am Dr-5
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| Larry: There is an after market book that is much better at explaining how to use it. That book is by Scott Summers. Billy Cooper also wrote a book, which shows all the patterns he built, but I think that would only help if his complete program is in there. When he was selling the DR-5, he would put his program in there. Thanks, Tommy..... P.S. If you decide to sell yours, please let me know. |
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Larry Dering
From:
Missouri, USA
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Posted 8 May 2020 11:18 am
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| Tommy, good to know about that book. There is also an edit program that was supposed to allow you to use your computer to do many of the functions. I never tried it but looks interesting. If I decide to part with it I will get in touch. Thanks. |
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Steven Paris
From:
Los Angeles
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Posted 8 May 2020 10:32 pm Re: Dr-5
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| Tommy Auldridge wrote: |
| Larry: There is an after market book that is much better at explaining how to use it. That book is by Scott Summers. |
Do you have a link to that book? Couldn't find it on Google.
_________________
Emmons & Peavey |
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Tommy Auldridge
From:
Maryland, USA
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Posted 9 May 2020 4:46 am Dr-5
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| Steven: That book is actually from Roland. It has a part number on the back DR-5GD.... Maybe available from Roland Corporation U.S. 7200 Dominion Circle Los Angeles, Ca. 90040 The book has 49 pages, but only the first 23 are important. The last 26 are the transcriptions of what's in the factory pre-sets. I wonder if there is some way to load Billy Cooper's program without sending him the unit?? Thanks, Tommy..... |
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Larry Dering
From:
Missouri, USA
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Posted 9 May 2020 5:23 am
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| Should be a midi file and may be possible with a midi bulk dump. I'm not all that savvy on the process but I do know midi files can be sent over the Internet. Otherwise the old floppy disk and a midi data filter was the format most common. I have a Yamaha floppy disk midi data that did that and a pile of old disc's that had downloaded sequence files I used for backing tracks. I had to keep a notebook of tracks and their info. Sometimes the tracks wouldn't play and give me corrupted files warning. Not the best way to play out live but at home it was a good backup band. |
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