Any one have one of these ?
How are the presets ? Are they easy to program?
I know they are a popular machine I just like the opinions of the guys here...
Thanks
Keith
I know a little bit about a lot of things, but not a lot about anything...
Looking for people to jam with in Sydney Oz.......
I got a used one on e-bay a few weeks ago for $65. It's compact and more than suits my needs. More fun than a metronome, that's for sure, and my 2-year old really digs it too. :)
Presets:
Pretty good, leaning a bit too much toward 80s-ish sounds - most have very a "wet" room effect (reverb) but if you configure your own drum kit you can get usable dry sounds too. I've seen many criticisms of the unit for not having dry drums, but that's not true - people need to learn how to read the manual and especially the features cards which explain each drum setting and whether it's effected or dry.
Somewhat rock oriented, not much in the way of blues or jazz. In addition to the reverb, a large number of presets have that 80s/early-90s electronic sound, but again the character of each preset can be changed by assigning different drum kits or creating your own kit.
Programming your own presets:
I've only tried this once so far; it's not too painful to create basic patterns. It's important to go through the setup procedure first though; you do that to create the basic structure (how many measures for the preset, etc.) and then you input the drum settings after. But it's straightforward. RTM. I haven't figured out how to make fills yet though.
Supposedly Alesis has a tutorial CD that you can order; I haven't gotten around to that yet but I will check into it soon.
As far as putting together "songs" goes, that part's easy - just mix and match your patterns until you're done.
For the most part I've been using the presets with the dry drum kit that I pieced together. One tricky part is to set your volume levels right - you have to do that for each piece in the kit. I tried setting each one to the same level, but that was a mistake - the toms overpowered everything else. Fortunately each one has a default level, and that's a very good starting place.
Overall I think it's a good unit, but I think Alesis should come out with a "version 2" that has updated drum kits, patterns and effects. The ones on the unit now are the same as when it originally appeared in 1990, which explains the bias toward the sounds of that era.
"Everybody got to elevate from the norm."
Lots of samples here; the presets and some user-created ones:
"Everybody got to elevate from the norm."
