909 vs ?

[moogz]

looking to get a new drum machine...

objective: hard techno bass drums, i'd really like to be able to reverse the occasional kick too. Can the 909 do that?

what are alternatives to the 909?
all my hardware cost under £60, so it'd be cool to maintain that.

i'm currently running a TR626 bass drum through finely tweaked reverse 'verb for the sound i want, but i want more flexibility and power.

suggestions please!

[alsynthe]

a drum machine for under £60??? ull be lucky teh last 909 went for £800 on ebay,

i quite like the look of those machinedrum but they are quite pricey aswell.

look into a novation drumstation, u can get one for around £100 2nd hand, they are a replica of the tr 808/909 all u need to do is hook it up to a sequencer

im just gona stick to my software for now.

[moogz]

hrmm... drumstation could be a goodie. I mean, the idea of having 808/909 replication is lovely, do you know if the sounds are editable?
I was just looking at an RX5.. but i'm not sure just how bass-heavy it'd be.

the 626 became my primary sequencer last night, so i'd be more than happy driving a drumstation with it. £100 would be very desirable too.
definitely wasn't expecting a decently bassed up dm for under £60, and i've been pondering getting a 909 from the states, what with favourable exchange rates and all.

any idea of whether the drumstation can reverse its sounds?

[alsynthe]

not sure tbh on the editing. look on the novation website for a full spec.

[auditory hallucinations]

I've had a drumstation and sold it to get a tr-909. neither of them can reverse their sounds, you'll need a sampler to do that

The drumstation sounds are excellent, except I found it sounded nothing like a 808/909 when sequenced from a computer. It should sound pretty good when sequenced from your drum machine, but I'd check first how many midi notes it can output as the drumstation requires a good few octaves to access all the sounds on it

[moogz]

there's one on ebay at the moment, but i reckon i'd be looking at £150+ - seller thinks they're rare on ebay, and has set a reserve.
then there's postage.

maybe the drumstation's the easy option. i reckon there's got to be something out there, not necessarily with analogue bass (or from the last 15 years?), which can put out a fat bass drum. i've already got the rest of the drums covered, so i'm not fussed about anything but bass.

thinking about it, i could probably FM synth a sick bass hit.
but i want something rounder, a better solution, something original too.

any vintage ideas?

[alsynthe]

the 909 kick drum on the drumstation is pretty fat and has a distortion effect built in if i remember rightly. ive seen em go from £75 to £125 on ebay, there on there all the time not rare at all

[moogz]

I've had a drumstation and sold it to get a tr-909. neither of them can reverse their sounds, you'll need a sampler to do that

damn. that's something that means quite a lot to me.
i guess that's why i'm thinking RX5, because of it's powerful editing capability... but i just don't know if It Can Do Bass.
There is a 909 cart for it, but it's too rare to even bother thinking about. Even so, the RX5 doesn't specify it can reverse either.

i do have a su10 sampler that would be perfect to use as a drum machine, in fact i was doing that last night, but it's too god damn useful to use just for drums. it certainly didn't do a good enough job with the drums to warrant using it exclusively for 'em anyway.

drumstation's looking like £200 on sos... sod that.

anyone tried using fm for nice round drums?

[alsynthe]

thinkin abotu it i even knwo someone whos selling a drumstation for £100

[Jay Pace]

If you are interested I have every drum sound from every analog drum machine EVER sample in beautiful 24bit clarity.

So you can edit them all in the sequencer of your choice.

Its not hardware, but its the next best thing.

PM for details, I'm happy to put whatever kits you want up on my server for a week or so.

Happy Xmas

[moogz]

o rly? sounds good absynthe - is he in ireland too? i'm definitely interested, so i'll take it off him.

[alsynthe]

hes in england mate u want his contact details?

[moogz]

wicked. hit me :)

two bits of strikingly good luck in the same day, glad i asked. nice one als.

i did pub lunch with a mate earlier, and it transpires he's got an rx7. so i'm gonna have a bash on that tonight, and make sure it's not up to what i want - then blam, vive la drumstation!

[loopdon]

you might want to check out the jomox xbase 09, too. it has it's own sequencer and the kickdrum can be reversed and is hard a s f**k. they aren't exactly cheap, though.

[moogz]

haha, loop, i'd just signed back in to say "I'm surprised nobody's recommended a Jomox, i've just been looking at them and the *base looks perfect".

so: snap.
i'm looking at $330 from the US. Plus about, what, $50 postage? That's quite a bit.
But it'd do the trick... wouldn't it.

[Basil Rush]

I used to have, don't laugh, and Akai S2000, which was wicked as a drum machine, anytime anyone popped round with a drum machine I liked a sound on I sampled it and set myself up some banks, it had 8 outputs so one drum from each output, it was built like a brick shit house and the entire drum library fitted on a single floppy disk which i left in the front of the machine. Was fabulously practical.

I've got drums all on the computer now but if I wanted something to take on the road to play MIDI I wouldn't hesitiate to get one of these again, I reckon you could probably blag one for free as well they are so difficult to sell these days!

[moogz]

Basil - those Akais are bad bwoi. You mustn't use that tone :devilish: :blush:

An S900 would get about £80-100, an S2000 would definitely have a receptive audience if you were gonna sell it!

Drum sampling is a banging way to work. I'd be doing it myself if I didn't have the urge for a full on drums module.

--

I'm at my friends house, using an RX, and it is the complete opposite of what i'm looking for!
Cool FM retro-sonics, but nowhere near the 40-80hz madness i want.

Bring on the drumstation, i'm thinking. But a Jomox is what's worth lusting after.

[loopdon]

haha, loop, i'd just signed back in to say "I'm surprised nobody's recommended a Jomox, i've just been looking at them and the *base looks perfect".

so: snap.
i'm looking at $330 from the US. Plus about, what, $50 postage? That's quite a bit.
But it'd do the trick... wouldn't it.

i can see an mbase (which is without the sequencer + only the kick) on ebay from the us for 333. where did you find the xbase 09?

[xfive]

Save your cash up and get a Machinedrum :newstyle:

[moogz]

ah i was referring to the mbase (hence "*base") - an xbase would definitely cost a damn sight more.
as does the machinedrum.

saving up's not gonna be an option, i don't think, as i'm gonna stick to my lo-cost theme.
the only sad thing is that i can't reverse the sounds, which is something i love doing and means a lot to me. i don't suppose anyone knows of other dms that can reverse/edit?

[danielmarshall]

I'm of the persuation that drum machines are too expensive for what you get. You can resynthesize the drum sounds in other synths with a bit of work, and that route provides you with more flexibility for sound design. Stuff like rides are very hard to model, and you're better off just sampling them.

No offence, but I have no idea why people tend to use 909 sounds exclusively. It seems so limiting. That's just me though.

[tekara]

jomox xbase-999 being released later this year

[rounser]

No offence, but I have no idea why people tend to use 909 sounds exclusively. It seems so limiting. That's just me though.
Purist ideas about synthesis being more legitimate than sampling? Newbies to dance music production seem to be particularly prone to dismiss sampling entirely based on such assumptions before they even work out what synthesis and sampling can and cannot do.

It reminds me a bit of the stock market, where newbies there buy equity exclusively and totally ignore bonds, because all they've heard about is shares in companies.

[alsynthe]

moogz ive pm'd u that guys email for the drumstation

[moogz]

nice one alsy - cheers!

daniel - my thoughts are similar. i'm going to try round up a bass drum with fm.
the 909's only partially analogue anyway, like you say dom - there's no point modelling something when you can just use pcm.

agreed rounser, it's best to be informed and balanced.

[loopdon]

jomox xbase-999 being released later this year
i know - and it looks interesting. but i don`t feel tempted. i own the xbase 09 but i have not really used it tha much. i am so much more pc based. if i were doing liveacts that would be a different topic alltogether, though. the kix are really really punchy on the xbase :paranoid:

[moogz]

do you have any stuff online, loopd?

[auditory hallucinations]

the 909 b/d is fully analog and it packs a mighty punch
the drumstation, deffo try before you buy as it's modelled and doesn't quite have the same thud

[moogz]

aha... i'd quite like to try one, anyone seen one in turnkey?

i've had a 10 minute crack at FM drums, here's the result:
www.subliminaudio.org.uk/fmdrum.mp3
www.subliminaudio.org.uk/fmdrum2.mp3

i quite like it, this is a first go - so with more work and much tweaking it could be a lot better.
opinions?

[fresh_an_funky_design]

if you want a hardware drum machine either get an electron machine drum.. very pricey but ****ing amazing, they'll come round to your house and demo it for u as well!

the jamox drum machines are really good and a bit cheaper.

other than that use a sampler and get drum samples as all thecheap drum machines are shit, unless your looking to pay over £300 for a drum machine second hand i wouldnt bother.

[tekara]

why not just use the drumstation sounds and use the reverse function in your sequencer?
I would also recommend the Jomox Xbase-09, but be warned that it is REALLY buggy. Try programming patterns into a machine that decides to not save your patterns in the banks, and recalling the patterns may result in completely different settings to the ones you had programmed in. The Jomox has an amazing sound engine, but i cant believe Jomox simply ignored the bugs.

If you want the real thing, just suck it up and take the hit; ie: go for the real deal: The 909.
Yes, the sounds are dated and overused to death, but if that is the sound you want, then the 909 will give you everything you need and possibly more. Samples wont cut it. Ask yourself this question: do you want vitamins from a pill or do you want vitamins from a fresh orange? haha ....good luck :)

[loopdon]

make sure you get the most recent bios chips for the jomox ;)

[tekara]

hehe yah i installed the latest chips but it still likes to act weird on its own from time to time. The customer service from Jomox was very helpful though. I ended up selling it off on ebay, but i plan on diving in again to get the Jomox Triple 9 when it comes out in March. Maybe i should hold off for a few months to see what kind of user feedbaclk it gets.

I love my 909. But lately ive been wanting to get a compliment with it. Its a toss up between a Machinedrum and the Xbase-999......hmmmmm!

[stjohn]

the machinedrum has always cxaught my eye. i recently got a korg esx1, which samples, so u can reverse any of the sounds. but i think if i round up a bit of cash ill be straight for the elektron md

[tekara]

i've heard conflicting reviews about the MD. Many say it sounds cold as hell, but others swear by the sound engine in it.

I think i may suck it up and go for the MD, seeing that i DONT want another 808/909 emulator. I think MD will serve this purpose. Let me know if you do get a chance to get your hands on that, i'll be interested in what u think

[Komplex]

You might want to check out the korg ES-1... Its a drum machine that you can load samples into and it has 909 style programming so you can jam on it. All you need is a good sample library and you're set.

http://www.sonicstate.com/synth/korg_es1.cfm

a step up is the korg esx but it'll cost you more...

[xfive]

i've heard conflicting reviews about the MD. Many say it sounds cold as hell, but others swear by the sound engine in it.

I think i may suck it up and go for the MD, seeing that i DONT want another 808/909 emulator. I think MD will serve this purpose. Let me know if you do get a chance to get your hands on that, i'll be interested in what u think

It takes some time to really figure out how to get things sounding nice.
I've had mine since 2002, and I can say it really comes down to your knowledge of production in general.
The better I got at production, the better I could make it sit in the mix, and sound good.
Not saying you have to be some crazy pro to get good results. All I'm saying is the more time you put into it, the more you get out of it. (I guess that's the same as anything eh haha)

So its really as creative as you can make it.

There's a set by two guys that call themselves Valve.. I will have to dig it up out of my archives. It's just the two of them and two machinedrums. Crazy, crazy shit.

[xfive]

Ah ha here we go:

http://iterativemusic.com/~chris/valve.mp3

Two machinedrums linked by a midi cable.
No other gear. :techno:

http://www.elektron.se/superparty/img/14-valve.jpg

[Ritzi Lee]

Actually you can have any drum machine. In addition for hard techno to let the drums sound ruff, you need some good hardware compressors.

[loopdon]

hehe yah i installed the latest chips but it still likes to act weird on its own from time to time. The customer service from Jomox was very helpful though. I ended up selling it off on ebay, but i plan on diving in again to get the Jomox Triple 9 when it comes out in March. Maybe i should hold off for a few months to see what kind of user feedbaclk it gets.

I love my 909. But lately ive been wanting to get a compliment with it. Its a toss up between a Machinedrum and the Xbase-999......hmmmmm!


tbh, i have the latest chips as well and it does seem to do some freaky stuff from time to time, hehe. sorry, was in a kinda lecture-mode ;)