Wow what can I say about this drum machine...??? This thing is awsome! The kits are amazing.. The were sampled above CD quality.. The pad sensitivity is really cool.. Example if you hit the ride cymbal pad lightly you get the sound from the outside of the cymbal.. The harder you hit the sound moves closer to the bell.. Talk about control! It's like that with all the pads. The kits are great.. They sound so real and are by far much better than the PSR. It has 396 preset patterns, and has space for 99 user. The best part is that a single pattern can be up to 99 bars long.. Yes I you saw that right.., 99 bars long!! There are 50 preset kits and 20 user kits.. When they say user kits they aren't joking.. You can totally edit the kits any way you like. It has 7 pads on the face and there are 2 banks for each kit, giving you a total of 14 pads per kit. You can assign any sound from any kit to a pad. That's not all.. You can also adjust the pad sensitivity, tune, pan, and level. Recording patterns is so easy.. It has realtime and step recording, plus full quantizing. To spead up recording you can also copy your user or even preset patterns. You can connect a footswitch that can be set to control things like "Open Hat" start and stop, and a few other things.. Recording songs is easy because it uses something that I think all arrangers should allow and that's PATTERN CHAINING.. Putting the piece together takes no time at all.. The internal memory is 20,000 notes. A song allows up to 99 patterns.. Here's the good part.. You have up to 99 slots to put your patterns in the order you want.. Each slot can have a pattern with differnt bar lengths.. Example the first pattern can be 10 bars and the next one can be only 1.. It's so fun putting them together too.. Honestly I don't think I will ever use the internal kits on the my PSR-550.. I got so spoiled with this thing last night.. Plus I'm also a drummer and I need good sounding kits and something that's easy and fun to program. Well that's all for now.. If there's anything else I'll add it later.. Off to making more patterns..

Squeka

Good report, man! Boy, i'd pay extra grand to have all that in any arranger. Why they can't add that?

Anyway, please tell us how you will progress with this thing and how you gonna make it work with your PSR.

Are u gonna use patterns on Zoom or on Arranger using sounds from Zoom?

Forgot to ask! How are the dance/techno kits on this Zoom? It's important to me!!!

Thanks man.

New Yorker,
I plan on using the Zoom for all my drum tracks.. After spending some time with the machine I honestly don't think I can go back to the kits on the PSR.. They really lack the realism and umph the Zoom puts out. Plus there's 50 kits on the Zoom with room for 20 user kits. The dance/techno kits are pretty good.. By far better than the dated dance kit on the PSR's. Also remember that you can adjust the kits to your liking, making it more versitile than the kits on the PSR's...... With the PSR's the effect is global across the entire kit.. With the Zoom you can edit the sound of each instrument within a kit..... For only $119.00 this has to be the best and only drum machine you can buy brand new for so little money. Zoom packed a lot of features in this little box for a really low price....

Squeak

Very nice!

So how you gonna record a song using Zoom?
I guess u'll have to have audio cables run from PSR and Zoom to your computer (or any mixing board)?

And the patterns: how do you integrate the patterns from Zoom into your mix on PSR?

NewYorker,
Actually I wasn't planning on using it with the computer.. I'm going to sync it directly with my PSR... I'll use the PSR for the sound source. minus the drum kits.. That's where the Zoom comes in.. I'll just be substituting the Zoom for the drums on the PSR. I really have no need for a mixer.. I have a nice set of Roland Micro Monitors that have several inputs.. I can run both the PSR and the Zoom through the Roland Monitors. Those Roland Monitors really sound great too... After I get it all synced up I'll report back on how well it works....

Squeak

I'll let everyone know how it syncs up here in a bit.. Intros won't be hard.. Recording intros on the drum machine is a breeze.. You can have the intro be from 1 -99 bars long.. Remember the machine uses pattern chaining, and that's what makes putting the drum track together so easy....

Squeak

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 09-16-2002).]

Any chance of an mp3 demo for us to listen to? Would like to see how the sounds compare to the Live! kits on the Yamaha PSR9000.

Regards
Simon

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________________________
Simon G.K. Williams
simon@svpworld.com
Creative Music & Multimedia
http://www.svpworld.com
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I know the machine will sync up great with the PSR.. It's actually quite simple.. The PSR's start and stop button will control the drum machine. Since I'm using an arranger rather than a synth I just have to either mute or turn the volume down on tracks 9 and 10 on the PSR and it will work fine... I can also use the PSR's kits with the drum machine.. Example I mute track 10 and record a drum track on track 9 of the PSR using it's kits and let that play in synch with the machine.. It's going to be really fun playing the two together.. As far as mp3's, I'll see if my wife can hook that up.. I've never really messed around with that. If you guys like I can chain together some of the different preset patterns of the drum machine, so you can hear what it sounds like... That part will be easy for me, but never have tried to make an mp3 out of anything...

Squeak

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 09-16-2002).]

Squeak, so you're using the patterns off Zoom or you're using just the sounds of Zoom, means that you've created patterns on PSR and using Zoom as a sound module...?

I think you're using patterns off Zoom and you just chained them together. In this case you'll just need to know exactly when your fill-in comes in and so on. Am I right?

NewYorker,
I'm not even bothering with the patterns on the PSR.. I'm using the Zooms patterns and the ones I create.. Doing fills is simple.. You just record the fill and pick where you want it.. Really easy... Not using the Zoom as a sound module, however I can play the Zooms sounds from the keys if I so choose... It's a really simple set up.. I record my patterns on the Zoom (fills and all) then I just chain them together in the order I want... I then record all my other tracks on the PSR and voila...

Squeak

Great! Was it a simple midi setup or you had problems?

AS I posted on the other thread, I concur that Zoom makes great drum machines. I have an RT-323 which has the flash card, and 3 banks to play with. The sounds are great - I even sampled them all for use with the DR-008 in SONAR.

Zoom has more than surpassed Roland (I've had the DR-5 and the DR-770) in sound quality; as I said my only quibble is the inability to program with eigth note takt.

For $100, there isn't anything even close to the Zoom mirco composer; and its big brother (the RT-323 is there when you decide to move up (it has tabla, dumbek, sounds etc.)

will this unit sync to a psr while playing styles also?

Yeah it'll sync while playing styles.. You can have the Zoom's internal presets play in sync with the keyboard, or you can either directly mute the drum tracks on the keyboard or just turn the volumes down within the mixer function

squeak

[This message has been edited by squeak_D (edited 09-17-2002).]