The Alesis SR16:




Anyone used one of these before? Are they any good?

I've never used a drum machine before so I just wanted to know if anyone had any tips...

i prefer the boss units (dr-5 and dr-770)

that drum machine has been around for some years. it has been an industry standard as well. it has great sounds. these sounds are the ones that are used in Alesis keyboards and the D-4 and D-5 drum racks.

I've had one for almost four years now. It's cool, though I've become enamored with the drum samples on Garageband...

I used to use an SR16 for recording demos in the 90s.

It has a wide selection of drum sounds, half of which aren't really usable, but I guess that goes for any drum machine. Has some terrible 80s rock ballad type sounds drenched in reverb but has some nice 808 and LinnDrum type sounds as well.

The A & B fills for every pattern is a cool feature and it's very easy to program overall.

The only minus for me was one day I turned it on and everything had vanished from the memory. Turns out the battery dies after several years and can only be replaced if you're handy with a soldering iron (which I'm not).

Nowadays I use VST instruments for drums and get the samples of whatever machine I want from the Internet.

stim said:

Just what I do, saves you a lot of money!

stim said:

reallly? I have the boss dr 770 and it has 808 and 909, and some "electro" sounds which are more like Simmons.

Does Aleses really have Linn type sounds? I never could find a drum machine that did

stim said:

Didn't you use a power supply?

Or do you mean the battery actually inside the drum machine?

I've bought one now from ebay so your message has me a little worried....

GaryMF said:

Weeell, OK... allow me to back pedal on that one. It has some electro sounds kind of like those you mention. Doesn't sound identical to a Linn, though.
[Edited 11/8/05 3:25am]

MattyJam said:

I was referring to the battery inside the drum machine. It's not impossible to replace, just a pain, so I never bothered!
Found a reference to it on this website.

Nowadays, drum machines are catering to different needs. Are you going to try to perform live with the thing backing you up, or are you going to record some simple stuff with it, or are you going to do some in-depth arranging and create your own patterns and then design the drum kits.

How hands-on do you want to be?

The SR16 is great for just recording, but the drumkits are a little hard to modify (or can you modify them at all?) after awhile you might find that you really like the snare sound from one kit, the bass drum from another, and the hi-hats from a third. If that kind of stuff matters, then you'd do better to get a drum machine that allows you to build your own kits.

And then there's the method of recording the patterns... Zoom screwed up in that, once you start recording a pattern, you can't change the length of the pattern, (8 beats, 16 beats, 7 beats, etc). But Alesis allows you to. In fact, you can take a pattern, copy it to itself and bam, you've gone from 8 to 16 measures right away (saving you basic pattern-building time, allowing you to focus more on the fills - which is how I prefer to do it).

Boss's interface is insane... burrowing down to the copy command can be crazy on some of their better machines, (I have the BR-3) whereas Zoom has a damn button labelled "COPY". The BR-3 is an awesome machine but takes a TON of prep-time to get your stuff recorded the way you want it.

Me, personally, I still believe that the Alesis HR-16 was the greatest drum machine ever built. The interface was great, the kits were editable,you had 4 outputs so you could route SOME sounds thru a reverb, but keep others dry, editing songs and patterns was just DAMN EASY.

Unfortunately, the 8-bit drum sounds, circa 1985, just don't cut it anymore.

Have you looked into computer drum machine apps? Fruity Loops, etc.?

(my final verdict: the Zoom 234 was pretty easy to program and use, the BR-3 has some fantastic features but what a pain to program new patterns) and the SR-16 for a basic bread-and-butter drum machine. (Except that it's now almost 15 years old and they haven't updated it at all since the intial release).

Just want to add thta in addition to my DR 770 (which i agree has a bad iterface) that my first drum machine was Kawai R50 which was really cheap but SO EASY TO use!!!

The interface was so simple.....and had lots of sounds for low end machine...a ll editable too (i detuned the claps and sidestick to get that Linn sound)... but no "electro" sounds. very natural sounding, plus latin percussion.

For those of you who listened to the Quest for Minneapolis sound, I used that to do my song (with some extra Simmons snare from my keyboard).

It al depends on what you wanna do, you can google around for soundfiles and see what type you wanna put into your music. When I buy a new drummachine I look for the possebilities "seperate outputes" , tuning of the sounds, the sequencer that's inside etc... I prefer stand alone drummachines that hava all inside. If you look for a cheap way to get that "Prince"-Linn Sound check out the drumtracks (Sequential Cirquits). It's like a cheap version of the LM 1 & Linn Drum.

DONT DO IT !!! u will be wishing you had new sounds in no time...trust me..i had that machine YEARS AGO...mid 90´s...get a computer program like "REASON" by propellerhead software.. u will pay about the same and be able to make complete tracks...

Do NOT buy a hardware drum machine, unless you are a collector and just have to have the real thing. There is no need for them anymore - they are not expandable, seriously restricted on memory and available tracks. I have been using a shareware program (read:"free") called leafDrums for years now. http://www.leafdigital.co...eafdrums/.

And if you want a plug-in that incoporates directly into your sequencing program you can search one for at www.kvraudio.com

Novabreaker said:

Amen!

It all really depends on what you wanna do.
If you want to be able to switch around every day... indeed do NOT BUY a hardware drummachine. Cause it is like a hardware drumkit. You get the sounds that are with it.
With a computerprogram like reason You'll be able to put in more sounds. (the quality is another subject).
Just try to figure out what you expect from your drumsound.
I don't mind ending p with over 10 drummachines...but thats me.
I don't like messing around with all the possebilities of a prgram like reason... it makes me loose my groove in a way.. 2 many options.
It's all very personal.