Grateful Dead Music Forum

What's up Rukind familia'! Can someone give me advise on what drum machine I should look into aquiring for practice sake. I don't need anything to high tech but something that sounds good for when my drummer is not available. As always, thanks for all your help...

Duhigg.

For you or your band?

For me personaly along with my friend who plays guitar. My drummer isn't always available and I'd like something to be able to practice with.

I should note that I'll be running it thru my mixer. I think something with midi capabilities would be something I'm interested in as well. Thanks for your help Stummin

http://www.rolandus.com/products/produc ... arentId=69
I have this.
Its $$$$$$.
Lots of good stuff
drums sound great esp. cranked
programmable
lots of extras'
*tuner*

Tj, that DR-880 is the bomb! However a little hefty on the price tag for right now. I'll see what an ebay search brings up in the used department. Thanks for your input bro!

Peace and may Jerome be with you!

Duhigg

I am still using the Alesis HR-16 I bought in 1989.
I see them for under $50 on Craigslist.

Pete B. wrote:I am still using the Alesis HR-16 I bought in 1989.
I see them for under $50 on Craigslist.

Pete, Thanks for the info dude... I assume this little devise serves your purpuse for practical pratice applications then? How does it sound?

I am still using the Alesis HR-16 I bought in 1989.
I see them for under $50 on Craigslist.

I bought the Alesis SR-16 new, years back and it was awesome! I sold it because I needed the cash, but it sounded really nice back in the day. Light, compact, packed a good punch and almost indestructible.

If you're MIDI and computer savvy you should give Reason a try. The kits sound amazing, to me that is important. Shitty sounding kits are always a buzz kill for me. Then throw a bass line on it, also done from your MIDI controller. Once you get the hang of it, you can whip up pretty stellar sounding backing tracks in a few minutes.

The benefits of practicing to a click, or anything in perfect time like a quantized beat made in Reason are immeasurable IMO.

Zoom Rhythm Trak MRT-3B. Does the trick for me. Tons of presets, and you can lay down your own tracks.

Crazy 9.5 Fingers wrote:If you're MIDI and computer savvy you should give Reason a try. The kits sound amazing, to me that is important. Shitty sounding kits are always a buzz kill for me. Then throw a bass line on it, also done from your MIDI controller. Once you get the hang of it, you can whip up pretty stellar sounding backing tracks in a few minutes.

The benefits of practicing to a click, or anything in perfect time like a quantized beat made in Reason are immeasurable IMO.

This is great dialog- Thanks ya'll!

Fingers....I like the sound of this. Especially the fact that the kits sounds good b/c that's important to me also. And you hit the nail on the head regarding the benefits of practicing to a click...which is the main reason I'm pulling the trigger on a drum machine. I feel my playing is becoming stale with just using my looper...and when using my little click metranome last night I realized I will missing something. Thanks!

Yeah, all the cops in the world will do you no good if your timing stinks. I have seen so many guys who have great melodic ideas but drop the groove half way through a run. That too is a buzz kill.

Crazy 9.5 Fingers wrote:Yeah, all the cops in the world will do you no good if your timing stinks. I have seen so many guys who have great melodic ideas but drop the groove half way through a run. That too is a buzz kill.

That guy would be me at the moment and it's toally killing my buzz!

Well nothing a can't take off...

Duhigg wrote:

Pete B. wrote:I am still using the Alesis HR-16 I bought in 1989.
I see them for under $50 on Craigslist.

Pete, Thanks for the info dude... I assume this little devise serves your purpuse for practical pratice applications then? How does it sound?

The HR-16 sounds good to me, but it is old technology now. fwiw, I gigged with it pretty much every weekend throughout my college years doing a midi style 1 man band gig in restauraut lounges. Most songs had Drums, Bass and either organ, piano, or horn section, then I played guitar and sang with that.
I quickly got good at making beat loops, but that is the thing... you have to manually punch in the beat you want, so there is a learning curve.
It has a "piccalo" snare patch that I like alot for Billy K sounds (think Mama Tried snare tone on Skull & Roses).