Re: Best Drum Machine

["Rick Walker/Loop.pooL" <GLOBAL@cruzio.com>]

I have a couple of solutions:


I have been programming drum machines since the early eighties and the one
thing that has always bugged me about
them is that most all but the very expensive ones are closed architecture,
meaning that you are stuck with the sounds in
the unit.    Because musical trends come and go, this means that you are
usually stuck with the flavor of the month
(does anyone ever have to hear a Roland TR 909 sound again in a techno
piece?).

Sooooo,   my advice is:

1)buy a drum machine that has really good midi implementation and
flexibility (I love my
Alesis SR16 which can be had for $199 brand new and has the suckiest most
overused sounds in the world
and then have it trigger either:

        a)   a dedicated drum module------Alesis DM4s or DM5 can be had
inexpensivelly
         and have the added bonus of having the ability to plug audio
triggers into the back as midi triggers----cheapest way to
         get an electronic drumset on the entire market ---- or:

        b) and preferably,  a sampler module.   With a sampler module you
can constantly upgrade your sounds with the coolest things
         and, as in my case,  create your own idiosyncratic drum or
percussion sounds (ever sampled a frisbee struck by a that is      
abolutely
one of the coolest kick drum sounds on the planet, IMHO).    Samplers can 
be
expensive, but a great thing to do
          is to go out and buy an older used sampler.............The Akai
s950 , as an example,  is only a 12 bit machine (though it used
         16 bit filters) and , for some inexplicable reason,  sounds
FANTASTIC with drum and percussion sounds..............so does
         the old EMU  SP12 or SP1200 although these machines are so popular
with hip hoppers that their prices have become
        ridiculously inflated.         If you are really on a budget (I've
always put together high tech kits as cheaply as I could afford)
         there are used casio and yahmaha home market (non-pro) keyboards
that you can find at flea markets for a song that
         have surprisingly good drum kits in them.........you just trigger
them with midi from your drum machine.


or, what I do for my live shows (when I'm not playing my own drum sounds
live which I mostly do)

 2)     Use the best software drum machine in the world,  FRUITY LOOPS
PRO...............which will load any sound from
.wav or .aiff files (there are thousands of sounds for free on the
web.............try the fabulous drum machine museum for a
great source of sounds) and has incredibly simple and intuitive process and
mangling available in the program..........................
create your own songs (make them 5 minutes longer than you would EVER use
them live for) and burn them to a CD.
Then, take a portable CD player to your gig and use up two channels on your
board for fabulous stereo sounds.
I even use this method and then loop the results so that I have syncability
with my loopers and processing effects.

Have fun,

Rick Walker (loop.pool)