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Anyone here use a drum machine pedal for home jamming?
- Thread starter bearhammer
- Start date
Same club but SR-18. I got it thinking I wanted a drum machine. I learned quickly you need the skills of drummer to do it
justice.
Now I just use the loopers with dummers and focus more on looping than quality of the drum line and fills.
i've also been looking around for a programmable beat machine. at a good price I am interested. happy to pm
If you want to go hard, an Ableton Push (plus Ableton obviously unless you get the new standalone version of the Push) can be great. Look up Stro Elliot drumming on his.
No, I mostly use recordings from my last gigs.I’m shopping for a reasonably priced drum machine to just be able to practice at home and groove to, maybe even create loops for song idea etc. So far I’m looking at Mooer and Flamma brands, they seem decent and inexpensive, some have a looping function, some don’t, and I also noticed the beat buddy, but those are nearly $400, which is WAY over what I’m willing to spend for what I want this for.. just looking for suggestions. Thanks
Beat Buddy also has a sobriety setting, so you can go for that “last set of the night feel”. Speeds up, slows down, and just plain sloppy. Just like the last drummer you fired.
I really like the extra switch. I have it set up for start, stop, and half tempo. Great for slowing down to really get subdivisions.
The Beat Buddy also includes quite a bit of software so you can make drum loops to export to your DAW. (Something you already have in GarageBand)
I really like the extra switch. I have it set up for start, stop, and half tempo. Great for slowing down to really get subdivisions.
The Beat Buddy also includes quite a bit of software so you can make drum loops to export to your DAW. (Something you already have in GarageBand)
I use the S-Drum when writing and co-writing - the most programmable, good sound if a little bright. A great feature is it has numerous hat patterns that it will lock over your kick/snare patterns, and can also generate variations and fills, and has memory.
I use the Beat Buddy Mini when jamming with others, easy for that, set patterns and fills, available crashes.
I use the Trio when jamming alone. It will write bass lines for you if a plug in a guitar - I don't use that feature, but the drums sound good, and the patterns are its own, and it has fills and memory.
I'll often alternate the Mooer to the first two when jamming with others for variety - sounds good but no fills, absolutely the most basic and easiest which often makes it the best option to get on with playing, especially for that long ending jam.
I have extension pedals for all of 'em, and they function a little different between start/stop and fill and cymbal crash functions.
They all sound good; I put 'em through a 50 watt Kustom monitor (add a second if more than one vocal).
Also, I have 'em mounted, two to a small board to be easy to swap.
I'll mention I have a Boss something-6(?) and an SR16 drum machine, not used much.
I bought a TR-7 for cheap last year and it's a lotta fun when I wanna do a Daniel Ash or NIN thing.
I use the Beat Buddy Mini when jamming with others, easy for that, set patterns and fills, available crashes.
I use the Trio when jamming alone. It will write bass lines for you if a plug in a guitar - I don't use that feature, but the drums sound good, and the patterns are its own, and it has fills and memory.
I'll often alternate the Mooer to the first two when jamming with others for variety - sounds good but no fills, absolutely the most basic and easiest which often makes it the best option to get on with playing, especially for that long ending jam.
I have extension pedals for all of 'em, and they function a little different between start/stop and fill and cymbal crash functions.
They all sound good; I put 'em through a 50 watt Kustom monitor (add a second if more than one vocal).
Also, I have 'em mounted, two to a small board to be easy to swap.
I'll mention I have a Boss something-6(?) and an SR16 drum machine, not used much.
I bought a TR-7 for cheap last year and it's a lotta fun when I wanna do a Daniel Ash or NIN thing.
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There's a mini Beat Buddy now in the Classifieds asking $150. And there are other brand drum machines there, I saw one there this weekend for under $50.
Personally, I use a beat metronome iOS app. And I've got one that counts off in a human voice too.
I tried the mooer and it was noisy and just not pleasant. It’s sitting somewhere around here gathering dust. It’s cheap, but so are phone apps so if you get a cheap Bluetooth receiver and send to your aux in or mixer you are all set.I’m shopping for a reasonably priced drum machine to just be able to practice at home and groove to, maybe even create loops for song idea etc. So far I’m looking at Mooer and Flamma brands, they seem decent and inexpensive, some have a looping function, some don’t, and I also noticed the beat buddy, but those are nearly $400, which is WAY over what I’m willing to spend for what I want this for.. just looking for suggestions. Thanks
The beat buddy sounds great and is a lot of fun. If I needed a pedal controlled one for live that would be it.
I use the Mooer groove loop X2, I got it for like 60 bucks or so. Works great but you can't edit the drum loops. I use it to practice and just have fun with, it's a great little looper
I sometimes use a DAW with drum loops. I sometimes use an older Novation Circuit which had 2 synth voices and 4 drum/sample voices and a sequencer. Used prices on the old Circuits are decent, though they’re not something I’d highly recommend.
I had two little mooers, one a drum machine plus looper and the other just a drum machine — anyway, they both sucked (though in different ways). Ultimately, although they weren’t expensive (especially as I bought them used), I wasted my time and money (one died and was unsellable; the other I guess I resold, though I’ve bought and sold a lot of pedals over the years and don’t remember that re-sale specifically). One problem with both was definitely not enough enjoyable/usable beats. Then there was the poor sound quality, and with one, poor reliability, and well — a waste of time and money.
I had an SR-16 but hated it — sounded so fake in an early electronic drums way. That said, I was in a band where the band leader was a master of his SR-16 and he used it to good effect when the drummer couldn’t show up to practice… so, in my experience it’s quite usable if it suits you. It wasn’t for me.
Nowadays, I have the Beat Buddy2, Beat Buddy Mini and SDRUM (actually, two SDRUMs, maybe 3, lol, I’d have to check). The Beat Buddy Mini is fine, but it’s arguably a little expensive for what is in the end just a drum machine. Nevertheless, it’s fine. Could use a few more choices in the styles I like, but, it’s fine. The Beat Buddy 2 has been, for me, overkill; there’s probably no need to spend the extra for it. That said, you can work up your own beats on your computer or otherwise acquire additional beats and import them to the Beat Buddy 2 through an SD card, so it solves the Beat Buddy Mini’s problem of only having a limited number of beats in whatever your favorite styles are. But, at least for me, I have no interest in messing with loading beats onto an SD card and accessing them by clicking through a menu on a little LED screen via drum pedal controls, nor with creating beats in the first place on my PC — I find that kind of thing tedious, energy sucking, and distracting from… actually making music. So, for me, the Mini.
But the one I use the most is the SDRUM. It’s a bit wacky (certainly quirky) how it works, and I can see why it wouldn’t be everyone’s choice, but the beauty is that if you understand basic drum patterns, you can just bend down and tap in the kick and snare pattern you want and it’ll make a full beat out of that, after choosing from a bunch of hat and ride possibilities (created specifically to match whatever you just tapped in) that you can dial through, or just leave where it was set on a spectrum from simple to busy. It’ll also create chorus and bridge variants to match your verse beat. Finally, although I find it to work better for me with guitar (but it can also work via a bass), you can "scratch" in a beat on your instrument (no bending down) and have it create a drum pattern from that. Works pretty well with matching a rhythm guitar part. Also, the SDRUM works with the Digitech "jam sync" system that some (but not all) of the Digitech loopers have, such as the old Jammman Solo XT, to create looped tracks synced with instruments. I’ve used that function a lot, but it might be less trouble to just skip it and start your loop on the beat with you foot (if you want to loop something with a drum track).
Both the beat Buddy Mini and the SDRUM get some use though. They’re pretty different experiences, so I go back and forth, a few months with one semi-permanently hooked up to the side of my home pedalboard, then a few months with the other, and so on. I lean more towards the SDRUM overall, but eventually I’ll get tired of trying to make it do what I want, and I’ll want just a simple "select a dumb beat and have it play" pedal like the Beat Buddy Mini for a while. But eventually I’ll get tired of the limited beats, mediocre sound and scrolling through menus of the Beat Buddy Mini, and I’ll go back to the more creative control (and, imo, better sound) of the SDRUM
I had an SR-16 but hated it — sounded so fake in an early electronic drums way. That said, I was in a band where the band leader was a master of his SR-16 and he used it to good effect when the drummer couldn’t show up to practice… so, in my experience it’s quite usable if it suits you. It wasn’t for me.
Nowadays, I have the Beat Buddy2, Beat Buddy Mini and SDRUM (actually, two SDRUMs, maybe 3, lol, I’d have to check). The Beat Buddy Mini is fine, but it’s arguably a little expensive for what is in the end just a drum machine. Nevertheless, it’s fine. Could use a few more choices in the styles I like, but, it’s fine. The Beat Buddy 2 has been, for me, overkill; there’s probably no need to spend the extra for it. That said, you can work up your own beats on your computer or otherwise acquire additional beats and import them to the Beat Buddy 2 through an SD card, so it solves the Beat Buddy Mini’s problem of only having a limited number of beats in whatever your favorite styles are. But, at least for me, I have no interest in messing with loading beats onto an SD card and accessing them by clicking through a menu on a little LED screen via drum pedal controls, nor with creating beats in the first place on my PC — I find that kind of thing tedious, energy sucking, and distracting from… actually making music. So, for me, the Mini.
But the one I use the most is the SDRUM. It’s a bit wacky (certainly quirky) how it works, and I can see why it wouldn’t be everyone’s choice, but the beauty is that if you understand basic drum patterns, you can just bend down and tap in the kick and snare pattern you want and it’ll make a full beat out of that, after choosing from a bunch of hat and ride possibilities (created specifically to match whatever you just tapped in) that you can dial through, or just leave where it was set on a spectrum from simple to busy. It’ll also create chorus and bridge variants to match your verse beat. Finally, although I find it to work better for me with guitar (but it can also work via a bass), you can "scratch" in a beat on your instrument (no bending down) and have it create a drum pattern from that. Works pretty well with matching a rhythm guitar part. Also, the SDRUM works with the Digitech "jam sync" system that some (but not all) of the Digitech loopers have, such as the old Jammman Solo XT, to create looped tracks synced with instruments. I’ve used that function a lot, but it might be less trouble to just skip it and start your loop on the beat with you foot (if you want to loop something with a drum track).
Both the beat Buddy Mini and the SDRUM get some use though. They’re pretty different experiences, so I go back and forth, a few months with one semi-permanently hooked up to the side of my home pedalboard, then a few months with the other, and so on. I lean more towards the SDRUM overall, but eventually I’ll get tired of trying to make it do what I want, and I’ll want just a simple "select a dumb beat and have it play" pedal like the Beat Buddy Mini for a while. But eventually I’ll get tired of the limited beats, mediocre sound and scrolling through menus of the Beat Buddy Mini, and I’ll go back to the more creative control (and, imo, better sound) of the SDRUM
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skycruiser mentioned a used Alesis drum machine. Yes, I agree. For a simple do-it-all machine the Alesis SR-16 gets it done at a decent price. Hard to beat it at that price point.
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SR16--alesis-sr-16-drum-machine
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SR16--alesis-sr-16-drum-machine
The SDrum is the best piece of kit I've gotten in the last 10 years for jamming alone. With it synced up to a JamMan looper I can lose hours just playing around........ particularly with baritone guitar which allows me to lay down bass lines, rhythm guitar and lead lines without switching instruments.
They are quite pricey now since the re-release.
