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best metronome/drum machine for practice?

cosmicevan

cosmicevan

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Inactive
Feb 1, 2003
11,853
22,326
47
The edge of oscillation, New York
www.asteriskband.com
#1
not sure if this would be considered an effect or if it would go into the general instruction forum - mods, please feel free to move if appropriate.

hey guys, i'm looking for a very flexible time practice tool. it could be a metronome, it could be a drum machine. does anyone have any suggestions that i should look into? thus far, i've checked out the tama rhythm watch. anyone have good or bad stories about this metronome?

if i end up going the route of a drum machine (which i might) i'd love to have something that i can store patterns on that include mini grooves (ala band in the box style) so i can practice jamming with odd chord changes in odd times. if i get a drum machine, it would also ideally have good sounds and could be usable for studio demos in my project studio.

any and all advice on drum machines or metronomes is more than appreciated. i currently use the korg in ear metronome and love it's flexibility, just looking for something with more features.

THANKS!
cosmically yours...
 
#4
I'm a bit out of touch with the units currently available on the market, but I would strongly advise getting a drum machine that can play clave or other polyrhythms. The ability to follow (and recover from ;) ) polyrhythms is a huge step up from just locking in a square beat. If you don't want to go that route, then I would say keep it simple! Don't get too caught up in a zillion different sounds and presets.

I think the Tama does play clave IIRC.
 
#6
i think for standard drum machines the alesis sr-16 is a great buy. it's cheap, easy to use, and IMHO it sounds good enough to use for recording. personally i've never been into practicing with a metronome. it seems a lot more natural to be playing with drums instead of a click, but to each his own.

though there are many great cheap or free software drum machines the ability to simply fire up your bass and turn on a hardware drum machine and start playing beats needing to use your computer and start up an application before beginning to play.
 
#7
bongomania said:
I'm a bit out of touch with the units currently available on the market, but I would strongly advise getting a drum machine that can play clave or other polyrhythms. The ability to follow (and recover from ;) ) polyrhythms is a huge step up from just locking in a square beat. If you don't want to go that route, then I would say keep it simple! Don't get too caught up in a zillion different sounds and presets.

I think the Tama does play clave IIRC.
Click to expand...

yeah, i'm definitely looking for something that can handle clave among other rhythms. as for software, i can already program whatever beats i want on my macbook, but i'm looking for less setup and more just push a button and go.
 
#11
the alesis does *not* have a headphone out. but it has about 100 preset beats. easy to scroll thru them. it also has a handy A/B pattern button. so, if you are playing pattern 13A for instance, hitting the "B" button slightly changes the pattern. and when you change the tempo of a pattern it passes this tempo change over to all the patterns. so if you switch to a new pattern the tempo will be the same.

the only downside to the alesis is that the drum fills sound fake. the toms are very electronic sounding.
 

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