Drum Machine question... Possible Alesis SR 16

guitarded

guitarded

Experienced
Does the Alesis sr 16, or any other cheap drum machine do this?...
Can you program different beats onto the 12 pads, then play them back live in any order by pressing the different pad... leeme try to explain.

I DON'T want to sequence the parts into a song and then just play the song. I don't want to be locked into playing it that way.

I want to be able to program my own parts and assign them to the pads... then hit pad number 1 for instance and play a straight beat, then hit pad number 2 and when it gets to the end of the last part that was previously playing, pad 2 will play a 1/2 time variation. and so on.

Kinda like I want Verses on pad 1, Chourses on pad 2, Bridge on pad 3 and so on... And then I want to be able to play them in any order as many times as i need to without being locked into a sequenced playback... if that makes ANY sense at all LOL!

Does anyone else do this? If so... how?
Thanks a bunch!!
 
I've been on a session where someone did that with a Native Instruments Maschine triggering one drum loop per pad, where triggering another pad muted the previous loop.

It was a very fun and cool approach.
 
I think it comes close to what you want, if I understand the question correctly.

When you bring up a preset there is a "A" patteren and a "B" patteren and also a fill for each.
If you bring up a photo of the unit you will see the "A" "B" "Fill" buttons on the face of the unit.
It's been a long time, but when you hit the fill it does not necessarily play the entire fill.
If the fill say was on beats 2,3,4 and you hit the fill button on say 4 that's were it will pick up and just play on that remaining beat.
Pretty cool really.
I got my SR-16 in I believe either 89 or 90 and I still have it although I have not touched it in years easily 15 plus.
Seen the title of the thread and thought "Holy S*** !! I forgot I have one of them down in storage".

Always liked the unit and it was a big step up from what I had the Boss DR220, got that I believe in 85, 86 that was pretty dam cool unit also (for the time).

Although talking about these drum machines are bringing back some warm and fuzzy feelings, rather use something software based. In my case Additive Drums but they are all pretty good.

John
 
6L6C said:
I think it comes close to what you want, if I understand the question correctly.

When you bring up a preset there is a "A" patteren and a "B" patteren and also a fill for each.
If you bring up a photo of the unit you will see the "A" "B" "Fill" buttons on the face of the unit.
It's been a long time, but when you hit the fill it does not necessarily play the entire fill.
If the fill say was on beats 2,3,4 and you hit the fill button on say 4 that's were it will pick up and just play on that remaining beat.
Pretty cool really.
I got my SR-16 in I believe either 89 or 90 and I still have it although I have not touched it in years easily 15 plus.
Seen the title of the thread and thought "Holy S*** !! I forgot I have one of them down in storage".

Always liked the unit and it was a big step up from what I had the Boss DR220, got that I believe in 85, 86 that was pretty dam cool unit also (for the time).

Although talking about these drum machines are bringing back some warm and fuzzy feelings, rather use something software based. In my case Additive Drums but they are all pretty good.

John
Click to expand...
I have one around here, too. At least 20 years since it's been used... But I used to use it for writing instrumentals on my Tascam 8-channel (cassette) multi-track recorder.

I think the drum sounds are 12-bit if I remember correctly.
 
If I were incorporating the ax-fx to do this I would trigger drum samples on an SP404 via midi on scene change.
 
6L6C said:
I think it comes close to what you want, if I understand the question correctly.

When you bring up a preset there is a "A" patteren and a "B" patteren and also a fill for each.
If you bring up a photo of the unit you will see the "A" "B" "Fill" buttons on the face of the unit.
It's been a long time, but when you hit the fill it does not necessarily play the entire fill.
If the fill say was on beats 2,3,4 and you hit the fill button on say 4 that's were it will pick up and just play on that remaining beat.
Pretty cool really.
I got my SR-16 in I believe either 89 or 90 and I still have it although I have not touched it in years easily 15 plus.
Seen the title of the thread and thought "Holy S*** !! I forgot I have one of them down in storage".

Always liked the unit and it was a big step up from what I had the Boss DR220, got that I believe in 85, 86 that was pretty dam cool unit also (for the time).

Although talking about these drum machines are bringing back some warm and fuzzy feelings, rather use something software based. In my case Additive Drums but they are all pretty good.

John
Click to expand...
I think it's close, but what i was really hoping was... since it has 12 pads, is to assign a part to each pad so I could have 12 parts to use in a song, just in any order I wanted... for example I could have a heavy straight beat a lighter straight beat, maybe a couple of 1/2 time versions of those 2 beats and maybe a pad with just a kick or just a click... just something with a lot of options at your fingertips to trigger as I need in a gong... so as not to be lock into a sequenced playback as in Ch, Ch, Vs, Brg, Ch end... I want the option to be pretty free flowing... as in I may decide to start with the Vs and do the Ch 5 time in a row then Brg, Ch, Ch, Vs, Brg... and so on not being locked into a structured progression... :)
 
Thanks for all the replies. I was using the SR 16 as an example as I like the layout and that it is a hardware solution and not a software, PC based one. I am prolly the only person in the world who thinks this way but for me it's way more important how it works than how it sounds LOL!!
I have a ZOOM drum machine that will do this except for one crucial flaw... you can't just press the pad, you must HOLD the pad down... So Close!!! Grrrr!!!!
 
guitarded said:
I am prolly the only person in the world who thinks this way but for me it's way more important how it works than how it sounds LOL!!
Click to expand...

You are not. Many people have had great ideas in music technology that failed due to a lack of understanding of the importance of the user interface and experience.
 
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