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Looper's Delight
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Kevin wrote: > OT I know, but then again, you all know a lot of useful OT things like > which is a better cheap drum machine, the Alesis SR16 and the Zoom RT > 223. I can find both used for less than $100 and was curious if anyone > had any experience with either of them that might sway me one way or > another. I'm basically looking for a machine I can play live and has > Midi out. Beyond that I'm flexible (other than wanting to keep my costs > around $100). Kevin, I owned the grandaddy Alesis HR-16 (precursor to the SR-16) since 1980-something, and finally had to retire it last year when the LCD window got all mushy-black and the pads needed continual cleaning to work. I loved this machine in a way that would make my wife jealous. I got the Zoom 223 to replace it. Initially I was pretty jazzed up - good effects, good sounds, moderately easy programming. Then I hit the memory wall. The friggin' thing has NO memory. You'll get a few sets programmed, a few patterns written, a few songs assembled, and right in the middle of writng something you'll get a "memory full" message. For me, this is a real deal-breaker. It has other shortcomings as well: * No MIDI out! No MIDI Thru! (MIDI in works fine, I drive it from my recording workstation) * You can't overlay sounds as on the Alesis. I used to build the coolest patterns by mixing just a hint of timbale with a snare, maybe a deeply detuned snare really soft on all the drums as well to simulate snare rattle, stuff like that. No can do on the Zoom 223. * Zoom 223 has only 2 outputs. Alesis has 4. I used to program my cymbals to outputs 3 and 4 and run them through a Microverb to get a l-o-o-o-n-n-n-n-g cymbal wash * Zoom 223's little backlit LCD window of information is painfully small. I will say this for the Zoom 223: * It runs on batteries. I get totally in another world when I carry this little paperback-sized box around, slip on a set of headphones, and lay down some whack gamelan-meets-rave patterns while sipping a latte at Starbucks. * The sounds are really good, and deeply tunable. * The pads on the 223 are better than the old HR-16. Can't compare them to the SR-16. * Some nice bass sounds on the 223 (upright, slap, synth, harmonics, etc.) * Some nice effects (good reverbs, compression, bit-reduction distortion, distressed analog distortion, etc.) If you'd like to hear my use of the Zoom 223 in a standard song context, you can go to my web site and listen to the one song I've posted so far. Try this link: http://www.thecoyote.org/music.cfm Scroll down about 1/3 of the way and look for "Postmortal Postman." The drums are a Zoom 223. Yesterday I bought the Alesis/Ion drum pad-drum machine set at Costco for $200. I've heard that the pad-to-MIDI interface is glitchy, but I figure I'm getting the drum machine for $150, plus some pads and a glitchy interface for $50. Bottom line: I'd grab the Alesis SR16 over the Zoom 223, particularly used for $100. Best, dB Douglas Baldwin, coyote-at-large www.thecoyote.org coyotelk@optonline.net "Life! Life! Clouds and clowns! You don't have to come down!" - Sly and the Family Stone PS - I love your ps: > Till now you seriously considered yourself to be the body and to have a > form. That is the primal ignorance which is the root cause of all >trouble. > > - Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950)