Re: The Best Live Drum Machine

[Mark Sottilaro <sine@zerocrossing.net>]

Right, if you're looking to program your own sounds, forget anything 
Roland, I agree.  On the other hand, there's such a variety of sounds on 
board, I've yet to even feel the need for editing the sounds.  The Korg 
stuff is solid, but I rely too much on odd time signatures, and I feel 
it's a crime to not have built in that functionality.

But this brings up a point that I still kind of fight.  I used to spend 
hours doing sound design.  Tweaking my Korg DW8000 or Roland Juno 106 
until the cows came home.  While it was great fun, I started to realize 
how much time it took away from me actually playing.  Sure, if I was 
independently wealthy, and didn't have to put time into maintaining a 
relationship and having a social life, I'd be all over sound design.  
Something had to go, and that was it.  Luckily, there's some really 
great gear with huge libraries of sounds.  When I bought my Roland 
XV-5050, it took me weeks to fill my preset bank with the 128 sounds I 
liked.  Sure, I did tweak them all a little, but not building them from 
scratch, that's for sure.

One day, when I retire I'll buy what ever knob ridden monstrosity exists 
at the time, and tweak tweak tweak, but until then, I've got to get some 
actual playing in.  I'll conceder the people at Roland my collaborators 
until then.

Mark Sottilaro


On Sunday, June 9, 2002, at 11:25  AM, Eric Williamson wrote:

> i would strongly recommend you stay away from _any_ of the new
> (post-1995) Roland drum machines. they have impenetrable user
> interfaces for real-time rhythm composition and rely too heavily on the
> Sound Canvas synthesis engine for my taste. sorry mark, i'd never buy
> your mc307.
>
> if 4/4, 3/4, 4/4 triplet feel are all you need, get a Korg Electribe 
> ER-1. they're
> plenty cheap, and feature direct control over the percussion synthesis 
> and
> realtime knob record. a good deal for 2 hundred bucks.
>
> if you have more money, i'd go for an Elektron Machinedrum. i spent 
> about
> 5 hours with one in my studio last week and boy am i in love! this 
> thing is
> just the bizzomb. all sorts of percussion synthesis, knob record (better
> than on the ER-1), anywhere from 1 to 32 steps per bar, great effects, 
> and
> very high quality build. you get what you pay for, which would be about
> eleven hundred dollars.
>
> those are my two favourites. yeah i know they're a little extreme on 
> both
> sides, but those are the two most immediately accessible and
> programmable drum machines on the market. very easy to mute parts
> and write new ones.
>
> no spending an hour trying to get into EDIT mode and still not finding 
> it
> (true story. roland groovebox sp505). these two have excellent 
> interfaces. i
> think that the Jomox xBase09 has a good interface, but i've never played
> one.
>
> Eric Williamson
> www.suitandtieguy.com
>