Drum machine that's easy to program/trigger?

[opivy3056]

Hey fellas,

I'm looking to start up a solo project type thing pretty soon, i'm having trouble finding bandmates who aren't dedicated to anything other than themselves. So I'm gonna try to focus focus more on something that doesn't involve anyone else.

I need something to create/trigger electronic beats on the fly via footswitch (I intend on using it live). I dont want to spend a ridiculous amount of money, but I'm considering doing a tour this summer, so quality constuction and ease-of-use are a bug plus. I guess between 150-250? New or used, doesnt matter. But used would be cool.

I'm looking for something more oriented towards electronic beats specifically. The regular drum machine sounds remind me of the 80's so bad.

Any thoughts?

[gishlullmoon]

i will tell you this. wether you like sega saturn or not, i just bought one and bought ultimate mortal kombat 3 for it and xmen vs street fighter which are the two best danm games ever even tho you can buy a mod chip for it, which i tried but i have to bang it qarround like a fucker to get it to work so i just buy them now.................by the way im not in a band and would love to see how this thread turns out.........................................................................sega saturn

[opivy3056]

on a side note: sega saturn was pretty awesome for its time. I remember playing world cup soccer, virtual fighter, knights into dreams, and virtual-on cyber troopers. They were all really entertaining.

[effetebomb]

my wife and friend have been doing noise pop for about seven years and their was a no drummer period. They would sometimes use beats that were programmed/looped into the boss rc-20xl loop station twin pedal. it seemed to work well. I don't know how hard it was to record the loops, though. I'm pretty sure it couldn't generate anything internally, but did come with some presets, the rest you had to record via input.

lap tops are the way to go in my opinion, but you would need an external controller if foot ability is a must for you. (Actually, the spacebar is a pretty easy target!!) Laptop music IS cool and DOES combine well with live instrumentation/performance. But if you don't already have a laptop then it could be pretty spendy. Software is easy though...

[ohsojayadeva]

the alesis sr16 had some footswitchability, was dead simple to program, but lacked any real convincing electronic tones. i think they have released a newer (well, last few years) machine that may be worth looking into, but i don't know anything about it.

echoing the above, if you have a laptop i would definitely consider getting abelton live. i'm a cubase user myself, but got a version of live lite with my sound card, and can attest to it's ease of use, and that it is dead simple to assign everything, including loop changes, fills, etc, to any controller, anywhere, meaning a foot controller is not out of the realm of possibility.

[jrmy]

Also, for my two bits: if you find something cheap, but don't like the sounds, have you considered putting the drum machine through some pedals? I recall someone saying that they loved the sound of drums through a DE:OK... and you could probably do some wild things to drums with a Holy Stain and a delay...

[effetebomb]

more on able ton: you can download the full version with everything, and get a two week trial for saving and exporting.

*edited

[ohsojayadeva]

with respect, ableton is a real company run by real people. money was spent developing their product. if you use it, especially if you make money using it, you should buy it.

[opivy3056]

i downloaded hydrogen and it has some cool sounds, but it keeps crashing because it's a linux designed program.

most of the beats sound like techno stuff...its hard to get away from that sound

[smile_man]

So far Hydrogen has been the most useful drum machine I've ever used, hard or soft ware.

[opivy3056]

So far Hydrogen has been the most useful drum machine I've ever used, hard or soft ware.

do you know where I can downlaod the effects for the drumkits? Some of the multi-layered kits didnt even work on mine. Instead of drum names it just came up with numbers.

[smile_man]

No, sorry. I actually don't use it often enough to look that in depth into it, but I thought it was very easy to program.