quote:

Originally posted by TranceElevation This one is a great suggestion Alpha. I'm slowly immersing my self into the world of analog drum machines. And preparing a budget for the big analog buy. 5000€ at my disposal. Please suggest more similar options.

If you want to get in to that sort of thing then any of the Electribes, such as the ES-1 and EA-1 (both of which can be had for pennies these days), the next generation of Tribes such as the EMX and ESX (which were an upgrade and cost about $300-400 now), or the newest Tribes (which the jury are still out on).

You've then got the legendary Korg MS2000R which was like a souped up tribe and synth all in one. (if you can find one these days).

There were also the Yama RM1x and DX200 which were buckets of fun too but had a few programming quirks.

Then all the roland grooveboxes, so it all depends what you want.

The tribes and 2000r were the most fun to use IMO.

I'm evaluating still. Don't know how things will turn. Surely I wanna have some certainties before acquiring anything I might regret on a later stage. Still not sure if it is worth it. Many of these classic analog hats/hits have been sampled and delivered comfortably in a modern wav. format.

Synths I will be purchasing for sure, that's decided already. However, for drum machines, I'm evaluating.

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cit. "Back then people danced to a dj set. Nowdays they are recording it with their smart phones."

Can't really go wrong with the older tribes. I got my ES1 for £50. You can pick any model up for less than $100 now. The EMX or ESX go for about $200 to $400 and again, it's not a big hit if you decide you don't like them, but honestly, I've never met anyone that said they hated them.

Either way, they are so low cost that if you don't like them, it's no big loss and you'll probably get back what you paid for them.

I were leaning towards the TR-8, but it seems like you can't load your own samples. In that case I will pass.

Any advice for a contemporary drum machine that let's you do that?

Maschine is not an option for me. Too cumbersome for my taste.

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cit. "Back then people danced to a dj set. Nowdays they are recording it with their smart phones."

quote:

Originally posted by TranceElevation I were leaning towards the TR-8, but it seems like you can't load your own samples. In that case I will pass. Any advice for a contemporary drum machine that let's you do that?

You can load all sorts of samples (I've loaded drum samples and Alien movie samples) into the Korg ES-1. The drum kit in the ER-1 (R) is excellent, but you cannot load additional samples.

maschine is shit. i am selling mine currently and just took delivery of a korg volca bass, and have a beats on order.

i came to the conclusion that there really isn't an all-in-one box these days. the old EMX is the closest, but there are issues there. was disappointed to learn the new electribes was castrated it terms of programming.

there will always be something important that an all-in-one box wont do, so you probably need to look at the right pairing of two bits of hardware that compliment each other well.

the volcas are quite simple, but a TR8 would be my drum machine of choice for something serious. you can get a volca sample for £100, i don't know if the volca bass or keys would be fully featured enough everyone's personal needs.

having never used an analogue synth, i was blown away by the inexpensive volca bass.

ableton push seems complex and like it would be very configurable. don't like it aesthetically though.

Last edited by rubez on Mar-12-2015 at 15:29

Why is the Maschine bad?

the workflow. absolute shit.

well documented as obtuse, unnecessarily so.

it SOUNDS great.

Yeah, I don't know anything about it, but I did hear it sounds great.

I played with a Maschine at a friends a little while back and have to admit, although the thing sounded fucking GREAT, the integration with a computer was so alien I couldn't get my head around it.

The ES-1 isn't great if you really want to use tons of samples. You have to convert them to 16bit 32k (WTF) and load them via smartmedia (card WTFBBQ). Thankfully some nice geeky chaps made some free programs to batch convert and name them so at least the tough part is done in seconds.

The only problem then is that you only have access to 99 samples at a time, to be used on 8 parts, so basically a choice of 11 or 12 samples per sound. 2 of these are stereo, 6 mono.

However, what i have been working on (and not really given it enough time yet) is a midi map so that the parts buttons correspond to pads within battery in your daw. Thankfully you can assign a note value to each part and then you just have to make each one correspond to battery's appropriate cells. The only problem with this is that the note value may well have nothing to do with the actual pitch of the note, especailly when you use the pitch knob on the tribe to raise or lower the pitch of the sample for drum tuning.

So basically as long as you are OK accepting the notes in the midi region are not real, then you basically have a great drum sampler controller for your DAW.

The only other tiny downsides are two things:

1, The tribe cuts off (truncates) the a mono sample when a stereo smaple is triggered. This isn;t the downside as such - it's actually really cool and can be used for really getting a good groove going - I've even uploaded silent samples in to that before to use it to "close" the tail on a mono sample. unfortunately, it only exists in the hardware itself so won't happen if you're using this as a controller.

2, It's minute, but there is a slight difference in groove between the tribe playing a loop by itself, and having your computer fire the midi to the tribe.

The only way i can describe it like having a black drummer play your groove, then asking a white guy to play the same thing.

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cit. "Back then people danced to a dj set. Nowdays they are recording it with their smart phones."