Well my drum machine met it's nemesis, a tall gin tonic and now it is dead. It has served me well after six years on the road. So now I'm looking to replace it. I was thinking that instead of getting the same one, maybe there is something on the market now that has more features.

What I need is:
Compact light weight
good live feeling drums
easy to operate in a live situation
easy to organize beats by song names
At least 2 variations per beat

What would be great to get is:
Bass lines following my piano playing
Set lists
midi and/or mp3 playback

Is there anything out there that fits? Either an arranger module or drum machine?

DocZ

Ahh death by G&T, so its not just human drummers that meet their demise through alcohol!

Because you need some backing in the form of a bass line that follows your playing it cuts down the choice a fair bit as most have pre-programmed chord progressions and bass lines.

I have spent a lot of time with live drummers and its hard to swallow Midi drum kits after that; a B3 just doesn't sound right with a standard Midi drum machine, but Ketron stuff has a nice live feel to them and amplify up very well. The Midjay+ is a great little unit that plays SD5 styles, MP3, Midi & Wav files but lacks quick access buttons to the styles in real time (have to use a data wheel). The SD3 (module version of the SD5) has the styles in categories, but also is a full blown arranger and does not play mp3 files. So they are probably not what your after.

Does anyone remember a drum machine called a 'Powerhouse'? It was an 8 track player with a tape library of live drum loops with 4 stereo variations for each.

Sorry I have not been much help!

TWD

edit: http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2006/10/scottish-made-powerhouse-drum-machine.html

thats the powerhouse! useless for you, but my Dad still has one somewhere.

[This message has been edited by Tonewheeldude (edited 01-25-2010).]

[This message has been edited by Tonewheeldude (edited 01-25-2010).]

You might check out the Roland DR-880 demos. Pretty good, IMO. Mind you, no bass following, but it's got guitar and bass amp sims in there

Got a pretty decent live feel to it, I thought.

Your options with an arranger module these days are pretty much Ketron and Ketron... Mind you, a nice PSR probably weighs not too much more than the Ketron (7kg to 11kg). I know it's not what you want, but arranger modules are pretty much a thing of the past. If you want modern features at an affordable price point, you may have to go to a keyboard...

Thanks for the reply. The drum machine that met it's demise was a Boss DR-3, it had great sounding drums and percussion. It also had bass sounds that were good, but they were pre-programmed and there was no real way of controlling them. I had copied the styles I liked to the user section, and I had them renamed for song names, it worked great in a live situation. I did check out the DR-880, it sounds good, and you can program songs with the ez compose feature, but you are tied down to the structure you program. You can't do an extra chorus if the crowd is into the song, or you can't stop the song one verse early because the crowd didn't take it, or just switch songs while playing.

What would be cool was if the machine could pick up the two or three lowest played note played via midi, and use a pre-programmed pattern to modulate them. Because you don't need full blown chord recognition just for bass I thought maybe there was something that could do this. But I'll guess I'll just get a new DR-3 or something similar with a larger user capacity.

Doc-Z

I think the DR-880 and maybe the 660 too, they both have the ability to link several patterns, and basically do the arranger-like Variations and Fills thing with a footswitch. So instead of pre-programming the entire song, you just kick the patterns as you see fit... Just like an arranger

I definitely think that Roland, and any drum machine manufacturer, really, have missed the ball by not really porting over the arranger's system... four patterns, six or so fills to link them, and an Intro and Ending or two. For the B3 player, or anyone kicking LH bass, it would be a great product.

Oh well...

I have a DR-660 that has been hardly used. Make me an offer.

Bernie

Your absolutely on the money Diki. If your using vintage or acoustic keys, you need something with more than a two bar midi pattern and a fill in, its just not inspiring.

TWD

I looked at that DR-660 and the DR-670, what puts me off is that they seem to be organized in a different way than the DR-3, and no backlight on the LCD really makes it hard to use live in a dark pub with 1000 screaming drunken maniacs But thanks for offering!

I checked out the new Alesis SR-18, it is cool for having guitar effects and the ability to loop song sections, and a big lcd display is a big plus, big downside is that it only has room for 100 songs. It also has some kind of bass functionality, but no arranger capabilities. If only I could hack that one and expand the memory so that it can hold 300 - 400 songs I would be home free

Maybe there is a software route? For the price of these things I could probably get a small Atom based PC. I've tried groove agent, that didn't cut it - at least not live, but maybe something that could loop sections of a midi file or something...

When it comes to bass, it is not that important, I did try the LH bass thing a couple of times, it just isn't for me. I know some guys can get it to sound real good, but when I do it I sound like a bassplayer on speed, and a one-armed pianoman....

I'll guess I'll get a new DR-3, or the SR-18
I don't really feel like spending 900$ on a DR-880, it is over six years since it came to the market - seems a bit overpriced even though it is top of the line.

Thanks for the advice guys.
DocZ

Another one worth looking at it is the Alesis SR18.
It's a modern remake of the classic Sr16 which pretty much owned the drum machine market outright once upon a time. By far the most popular machine ever. The original was a little temperamental but the new SR18 is supposed to be nothing short of flawless.
http://www.alesis.com/sr18

Regards
James

Well, several of your desires rule out any drum machine mentioned, and others that weren't mentioned.

If you want at least two variations, MIDI playback and something to create automatic bass lines to what you play, then some form of arranger (module) is the answer. Someone did mention the Ketron Midjay and that would work, albeit fairly expensive.

I still have a Generalmusic WK2MA MIDI Arranger Module that I would sell. It has four intros, variations and endings per style, tap tempo, internal hard drive and floppy drive, 4 part vocal harmonizer, etc. It can function as a simple drum machine or drum and bass accompaniment, or full blown accompaniment. Or you can let it play SMF's that you can play along with. There is also an S-Video output that can display SMF's lyrics on an external TV or LCD monitor. This would really fill all of your requests.