Alesis SR-18 Standalone Drum Machine

I've been looking at this for a while considering purchasing it but just now pulled the trigger (received it yesterday) and I wish I had done it sooner. I do have drums in my studio but I'm not a great drummer, I am a guitarist and it's quite tedious when writing to have to play and record the drums and guitars for a scratch track. I've had a Boss DR5 drum machine since the early 90's that I've used as a writing tool but that thing and its sounds are extremely outdated. I actually did purchase the Alesis SR16 circa 1991 but at the time I was young and didn't take the time to learn it (and didn't even know what Quantize meant) and so I just returned it. So, now that I've had many years experience programming drum machines, the SR18 was a breeze to get right to programming in no time. My first impression was that the drum sounds are amazing. They really do have a "real drummer" sound and I haven't even built my own kit from scratch yet. It has tons of advanced features that I will have to get familiar with the more I use it but it already has a place in my studio during my writing sessions. I know that by many tech standards, this is pretty old but the drum sounds are kind of timeless from what little time I've had to go through them. It has a drum sound for most music genres that are on the radio today and I've not scratched the surface of listening to them all, let alone doing a deep edit. Another thing I like, is that I can midi my Alesis Strike Pro drums through the SR18 using it as the drum brain or sample the SR18 sounds into my Strike module. I've always told other guitarists that they should keep a drum machine close by even for practicing at home because it makes playing so much more enjoyable than just the guitar alone and this machine also has bass that is as easy to program as the drums so even looping a beat with a simple bass line draws out more creativity. I highly recommend this to anyone who is wanting a drum machine, regardless of skill level in programming. Oh yeah, lastly, Thank you Alesis for including an actual physical manual (and an extensive one at that) in a time that most companies have stopped including them. They also included a very handy reference list that shows all of the instruments, categories, their names and locations within the machine. Also, stuck right to the bottom of the machine itself is another reference list of the Names and Locations of the Preser/User Patterns.

Ok, I JUST received this yesterday. BUT, I have been using the SR16 for over 15 years and used the HR16 before it since the 80s. As some have said, right away you can hear the improvement in the sound, not that the SR16 sounded bad... but this sounds great. I have yet to build my own patterns with this but I see all the familiar buttons to do that, so I suspect it will be very similar to the SR16, which was easy to use, though certainly time consuming to build the patterns, but thats ok. I have gone through about 10 of the patterns so far only because I plugged in my guitar and jammed on each one. Here are the early thoughts: Number 1, if you are a guitarist who has to jam alone a lot, you are going to absolutely love this thing because of the fact that you can get some really nice drum and bass going on at the same time. The pads that give you the drums also give you the notes for the bass for you to program that. Each of the patterns I whipped through took me into different guitar ideas and such, same as jamming with a live drummer and bassist would do. It was fun... and, you know, if you ever have to spontaneously just play SOMETHING for someone it kinda sucks when there is only guitar unless you are a world class guitarist. With this, you get the drums and bass along with you and it makes what you do sound more interesting. Number 2, I think the existing patterns are pretty cool for jamming, but they seem a bit busy for recording... so look at this drum machine as a tool in that its greatest use out of the box is jamming... and then you get the bonus of having the ability to program it for song demos. I have a real drumset and mics and processors and let me tell you trying to record good sounding acoustic drums is a nightmare. In the end the better sounds of a good drum machine, while not always as organic as you'd like still lead to a better sounding demo most of the time compared to live drums in a home demo situation. Number 3, reiterating Number 1, if you are a guitarist or keyboardist... really... the ability to have bass involved as well as drums is AWESOME. I thought the bass would just be a nice little bonus.. its done better than that to make it more than a little thing. I read many reviews on here of people downplaying the bass feature saying they would record their own bass. I agree with them... when recording, you would. But... for simple fun and jamming... this rocks. My SR16 is still going strong. The only reason I really got this one is because I thought it might be fun to keep one drum machine by my recording unit and one by my keyboard amp for quick live jamming (its no fun always having to unplug and reconnect in different spots) and then I searched Amazon for drum machines and saw Alesis had put out this newer model that I was never aware of. I would say, for any guitarist, its hard to spend $200 and get a tool/toy better than this! Now the trouble is I will want the SR18 in both locations. If you are not sure whether the SR18 is worth the extra cost from the SR16, TRUST ME... it IS!!! I will update the review in the future if I have anything significant to add... but in an hour or so of jamming, I already think this has proven to be a fantastic purchase!

If you need a drum machine with acoustic drum sounds this is a solid choice. The sounds are decent and familiar. I have had one of these since they came out and this is my 2nd one. The first one didn't break I loaned it to someone that made off with it. I'm sure it's still working after 35 plus years. These things are ultra durable. You can route the outputs so you get a discrete kick and snare from the left and right main output and the toms and cymbals in stereo from the aux out which gives you more options when mixing. Programming in real time or step is easy to understand as is stitching patterns together into songs. It would be five stars but the pads are awful, tiny, and don't trigger consistently so tapping in parts in real time is inconsistent. The best solution I have found is to start with the pads set to fixed velocity, record your pattern in real time and the use step mode to adjust the velocity of the performance and parts that are too fast and close together for the pads to trigger in real time. The process isn't hard it's just a little more time consuming than it would be on a machine that has better pads. The only other options that provide similar functionality are three times the price. If you are looking for a drum machine that you can play finger drums on the sr16 is not for you. It's great for recording or using live for simple A/B fill functionality. If you have a MIDI controller you could use the MIDI IN to get around the issue with the pads by triggering it from a keyboard. This little guy is part of my "song writing setup" which is an old Zoom R24. I like to limit my options when writing so I don't wind up doom scrolling through all of the sounds and options that working in a DAW provides. Once it's time for production I can move to my DAW by transferring the audio files. This machine has physical midi ins and outs so I can transfer the MIDI performance as if I want to replace the drum sounds with something different. If you like to work in an old school "a thing does a thing" workflow this is a very useful little machine.

The Alesis SR18 Drum Machine is amazing. I have had many problems with every computer based drum machine program. It's not that they didn't work right, but the fact that they just weren't for me. I am very good with computers, do photography editing, and music editing, etc, all on the few computers I own. As far as doing drums on my computer, It just wasn't clicking. Everyone has to find their path of least resistance, and THEIR best method for doing things, since everybody is different and everyone has their own path of least resistance. Hence, to each, their own. What works best and is the easiest for one person, may be the most complicated for the other. What is most complicated for you, may be the easiest for the other person. Basically what I am saying is this drum machine, once in my hands, really clicked. This was MY path of least resistance. It's good to know I can sit down with this machine, and only this machine, and make full drum tracks. As far as some people saying this is so hard to use, or takes a couple months, for me it took two days. Hence, 6 one way, half dozen the other. The first day I just messed with it, without directions. It was confusing. The second day, I read the directions, and by the end of the second day, I had already made three full length drum tracks, doing everything from customizing my entire drum set and sounds, making a bunch of patterns, and then piecing all those patterns together to make tracks. Ok, so now for what it can do: * I saw one review where they said you cannot change the length of the patterns. This is not true. You CAN indeed change the length of the patterns. You can use whatever tempo you want, 120, 140, whatever, and you can make the patterns 4 beats long, or 8, or 16, etc. * You can customize your own drum setup, so you have have a couple bass, etc. Rule of thumb if you are trying to re-create double bass, is to make two sounds, almost identical, BUT make the second sound a little different tonewise. Because in real life, you can tell the difference between both bass drums. This makes it sound more realistic. * There are a TON of different sound variations for every kind of drum sound you want. * You can tweak each individual sound. For instance, if I find a crash I like, but think to myself that I want it to sound softer, offset it to the right a little, change the pitch to a slightly lower pitch, and also make it ring on longer, ALL of this is possible. * Learning this machine really is not that hard. Can be done within a good weekend. All in all, this machine is amazing. I am a heavy metal guitarist, and I record my own tracks on a Tascam DP-02, and this works great in conjunction with that. This machine works very well with the metal genre, or rock, or any genre at all. It lets me put together full length tracks (from all of my combined patterns I made), does very very well using it in a double bass aspect (you can program the bass to sound like double bass, and as fast as you want), and you end up with very realistic sounding drum tracks! Since I play metal, this is VERY important, since it's hard to find a good drum machine that can go with the metal genre. Last, all I have to do is plug it into my Tascam recorder, and record! Love it! This sounds amazing! The one and ONLY downside to this is the fact that there is NO connection to connect it to your computer. I want to make this clear. There is a way to hook up through your instrument cable connections, but then I'm not sure how this hooks to your computer through a 1/4" cable connection. But all I have to do is record them into my Tascam, then send them to my computer, where I can save them for later. Hope this helps, and sorry about rambling. Any questions, feel free to comment and I will surely answer them for you the best I can, to help out.

I am teaching myself to play bass and wanted something more interesting to practice with than my metronome. I am also following Ed Friedland's Bass Groove book, which recommends using a drum machine. I vacillated between this and a software/computer/drum pad/dac setup. I'm really glad I chose this. It is a great one-box set up for practice and it has a ton of flexibility that makes it useful (and fun) in a variety ways I hadn't thought of initially. For practice, I plug the bass into the instrument input, my headphones into the output and away I go. I keep it powered up with rechargeable AA's that keep me going for several multi-hour sessions before I need to swap them out. Very portable, very compact. The drum sounds, as others have commented, are great - clear, crisp, realistic, and stereo! Over the headphones, it is great. The deeper bass and kick drum parts kick serious butt when amplified. The library has a nice balance of sounds that covers a large enough spectrum to keep me busy for a while. Programming is not hard if you actually read the manual and play with it a bit. For my purposes at this point, it has way more capability than I need. Bonus: - The multiple outputs are really cool. You can, for example, map the bass or percussion track to go out through the auxiliary channel, you can then run that part through a bass-synth or reverb pedal for example, and just have fun twiddling the dials. Very fun and sounds cool - and can make the bass samples come alive. - Although the bass sounds are pretty lame as many have pointed out, they give you something of a bass line sketch to work from. At my beginner level I find it is actually great to be able to slow the machine down to hear the note selection and timing of the bass parts. No, it's not Tony Levin, but for learning I am finding it gives me a great starting point. I can run it for awhile trying to follow it with the bass line turned on, then I can mute the bass part to see if I can keep up without the "teacher" or come up with variations that fit. Nice tool. Since you can make it almost arbitrarily slow, it really helps for being able to pick up the patterns. - Instrument input/headphone out. Nice touch. Volume knob works just on the drum going to headphones, you control instrument outboard so the volume is a really like a mix control. - Battery operation is great, and using rechargeables really sets you free. - The build is nice and solid. I've paid way more for way less. Features one could want this decade: - It's weird for a device sold in 2015 to not have USB or SD card support. No doubt that would raise the cost, but the midi Sysex dump process outlined in the manual for backing up user patterns and songs seems antediluvian. Heck, maybe they should have put an rs-232 serial console on it too while they were at it (smirk). - The ability to import sounds to extend the ROM package would be a nice feature in this day and age where a few gigs of flash ram costs a few dollars. To sum up, this is a great self-contained drum machine that gives you a lot of power, flexibility, and good sound for a not-ridiculous price. The world seems to have mostly moved on to software, and if you have already made the investments in time educating yourself and getting all the pieces to work together plus the money to get all those pieces (Midi pads, DAW, computer, DAC in/out), then the SR18 is probably redundant. But, if you just want to make some beats that sound really nice, keep them in your bag, and not get all complicated, then this thing is great.

A couple of years ago, I tried sequencing some of my hardware synths using my Novation Circuit. I used two of the four MIDI channels for synth sequencing, and the other two to sequence the Circuit's internal drums. Fast forward to late last year, I got a Novation Launchpad MK3 to use as a sequencer. Since the Launchpad has no internal sounds, I needed a drum machine. I bought an IK Multimedia UNO Drum, which worked fine for a couple of months and suddenly started frying power supplies (batteries and USB wall chargers). I got this SR-16 to replace the UNO Drum. I've had it for a few weeks and am happy with it thus far. The SR-16 comes with it's own power supply, which I am grateful for. The portability of batteries is nice but for equipment like this, I feel constant power from a "wall wart" is much more reliable. The unit itself is a good size; it, along with the Launchpad and hardware synths are piled up on a computer desk in a "DAWless" setup, so space is at a premium. The SR-16 is small enough to very comfortably fit on the desk, yet the onboard controls don't feel excessively small or difficult to access. In this setup, the Launchpad is my master MIDI clock in addition to sending note data, so my SR-16 is just playing drum hits as a slave unit. So, I can't comment about this unit's internal sequencer or other features regarding it's sequencer since I'm not utilizing them. I may do just that later on, if I ever get around to dusting my guitars off and getting back into playing guitar. As for drum sounds, I'm pleasantly surprised. I figured the SR-16 would just have a bunch of copies of the same drum hits with subtle changes (i.e. "Snare 01, Snare 02, Tom 01, Tom 02", etc.). To an extent, that statement is true. But the SR-16 shows it's age here by coming with a couple of cheat sheets. One sheet is a table of all the drum hits, specifically their names. The names of the hits also give a very brief description of what the hit will sound like. Reading the names alone, you'll see that there's a good variety of drum tones to be had in this unit, from more natural hits, to heavily edited hits, to full on electronic hits. Some of the hit names describe effects assigned to them, whereas some describe the intended genre of music the hit was designed for. This leads into my favorite feature of the SR-16: Creating custom drum kits. You can save your custom setups as well, which is very handy and helpful for me, since I'm very spontaneous about my DAWless jamming. I prefer to turn the equipment on and just start punching in note data on the Launchpad to hear what happens to the synths I send the data to. Being able to have a drum set that I know well since I'm the one that compiled it eliminates unwanted setup time, and eliminates guesswork about the set. I do see that you can create your own sequences but again, I'm not utilizing this feature in my current setup. All in all, I'm again quite happy with the SR-16. While I'm only using a fraction of it's potential, I'm happy it's such a flexible and feature packed unit; I have room to grow with this unit, but even if I always just sequence it off my Launchpad, it does so very well.

This is a great and very flexible drum machine with top quality sound. Highly adjustable with or without bass line. Great little recording machine too!

There is a reason Alesis has been one of the top drum machine manufacturers for all these years, and basically still unchanged, only improved. That is why I was somewhat disappointed by the way Alesis has designed the human/machine/software interface. To put it lucently, it's damn hard to program... It's bad enough that the process is anything but natural for a musician, but making the different segments into a song is most tedious. Alesis could do much better by far than what they have produced in this unit. That said, I know my hearing is not what it use to be, but I have yet to be able to hear the cymbals or high hats. I don't know for sure, but the high end on all the drum kits sound like they are at too low in volume... I need to investigate further. I admit that I have only used this unit on one song as I write, but trying to use the poorly written manual is a chore and pain in unmentionable places... I do recommend this unit for its sampled sounds, but be prepared to fight, claw, and wrestle this beast to the ground. You are going to have a real struggle on your hands, but it could be worth it...

Very useful for composing song. I got it for special price at Amazon .

Excelente auxiliar para acompañar al guitarrista; los ritmos se escuchan muy reales y sobre todo sencillo de utilizar; tiene varias ventajas: entradas para conectar en estéreo; control de paro y remates con pedales; con los audífonos te permite revisar los ritmos y la velocidad sin necesidad de conectarlo a un amplificador.

Cette drum machine est très bien! Les sons sont très bons. Il y a pas mal de bon rythmes. La programmation est différente des drums machines actuelles, mais elle fait son travail. Pour moi, c'est un bon achat.

Good price. Quick delivery. Excellent product. Recommended.

O produto veio em total segurança, com uma qualidade incrível.