Squeak,

Question 1.. does the 550 support midi sync ? Does the drum machine support midi and midi sync ( and will it act as a slave device ? )?
If the answers to these are yes.. problem solved. I have used several schemes to sync my Jammer pro drums to my arrangers and or internal soundfonts / samples. They all work flawlessly.

There are several different schemes i can think of for you ( especially since you have XG works ) . Typing them here won't necessarily be fruitful because I don;t know what else you have there. If you have a program like Yahoo messenger that allows voice conference, perhaps we can hook up and I can talk you through it. Email me if you'd like and we can set it up