What about Syntakt?
TR-8S, cheap as chips, sounds huge, does what it says on the tin.
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A used 522 for under $500 is a steal. Super analog sound that can power all types of genres. I prefer it for minimal house but it’s similar to an 808 so it can do so much.
Mfb are my best machines followed by jomox. I have owned way too many drum machines and these are my best.
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for HipHop, TripHop - MPC
for House, Glitch, Noise: DN2
for Experimental: MD or Edge
for Synthwave: LM Drum
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For me it’s the Machinedrum uw mk2.
I love it’s sound. I use it with my cirklon, so i have much more sequencing possibilyties… in my setup it takes the role of the percussionist, while the rytm mk2 is the main “drummer”
I love using cirklons aux events for changes, automation and randomness combined with real time tweaking, mostly ctrl al machine of the md.
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EMX-1: Really more a groove box than a drum machine, IMHO, but I end up using it for the drums a lot because they’re inexplicably huge.
A4: I’m just so comfortable with it, often it’s the easiest way to get to a sound in my head.
TR-1000: Really, really deep box for when I want X0X sounds (which is often).
Tempest: Really, really deep box for when I want something different than X0X sounds.
TR-8: Sounds ridiculously good and is just so dang simple. There’s just zero friction with this box.
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Do you know which Drum Machines they were using? I’ll investigate in that first.
Not producing a lot of electronic music right now so Addictive Drums 2 which smokes everything.
When I am producing electronic music then I’ve probably had the most fun and the most success with AR.
I find that for some reason I find it much hard to dial in the sounds I want with drum synthesisers - dub techno especially I can spend hours and lose my mind trying to craft the perfect bass drum.
If I’m producing soul music then I’ve nailed my whole AD kit in 10 minutes.
ARmkii would be great for this imo. Plus you get 3 synths. You could totally ignore the built in kick/snare/etc machines and use the synth voices to do basic filter pings or pitch envelope on an osc, plus noise bursts and quickly make some primitive early drum machine type sounds and then resample them onto other tracks if you want. Plus load in some samples of early drum machines. Use your samples on the upper 5 tracks and save the bottom 3 for extra synth voices if you want.
It’s not “immediate” in the sense that there’s a limited sonic palette and knob per function but it’s not a super deep synthesis machine either so if you have a decent amount of synth experience it’s not difficult to quickly dial in what you’re thinking of imo.
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DT2 + Samples From Mars library
Pluses are an Elektron box that plays very nicely with other Elektron boxes, an entire arsenal of drum sounds from the classics to much more obscure that are immediately ready to go, plenty of sound shaping possibilities, the ability to be more than just a drum machine when needed
Negatives are it isn’t synthesis if that’s what you really want, price but could get a used one and save some coin, not for finger drummers but it doesn’t sound like you care about that
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Behringer CR78 might fit that type of music. It is associated with techno but the Arturia Drumbrute Impact can do lighter styles too. I recently got one again and I’m loving it. It’s sequencer has superpowers! I’m finding with the decay down on the voices it can do a variety of styles. Both are cheap too.
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I want to cast another vote for the TR-8s. The ACB drums have soft stuff from 606, 809, cr78.
I bought and sold it after getting frustrated trying to use the menu and being overwhelmed with button combinations, but I gave it another chance after enjoying the TR-8
What sold me was firmware 3.0 + blank template (to erase factory patterns and kits) + TR Editor software. It’s a blank canvas to create whatever drum machine you want it to be.
I like that it was such a great seller that there are a million used TR-8s, so you can safely learn the machine and not worry about it being precious. They are about $550 used right now and I have trouble thinking there is any better deal out there.
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Jomox Alphabase MK2 nails house and techno
Erica Synths Hexdrums- no menus pure immediate hands on plus tow bass drum voices what is not to like?
Perkons- do bass, guitar, strings besides drums and fun to jam on
LXR02 Sonic Potions- favorite compact desktop for hard techno industrial
Elektron Rytm MK2- all around great drum synth
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I’d be keen on a more mature Volca Drum as well. I think the Drumlogue missed the mark because it didn’t really pull from any of the successes of the Volca series (alongside not committing hard enough to logue sdk integration lol). Hopefully they build on the Volca Drum’s ideas in an electribe 3 someday.
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I know this is vapid but - I’m having trouble getting over how it looks lol. Like with the rainbow lights and stuff, it looks kind of like a toy?
I will do my research though.
The lighting is configurable - you can set the color for each track or turn it off.
Another vote for the Drumbrute Impact. Works well for softer sounds, super simple to program but still enough to get a nice variety of patterns from it, no kits so very little fiddling around with it, meaning you get right down the making of the music. It’s sort of the opposite of the TR8S, which I think is a great machine but easy to get lost in. Lot of menus, lot more sound design options, more sequencing depth, but a much more complicated machine in general. I think it depends how deep you want to go. I’ve had the Drumbrute Impact a few times and used it on a bunch of releases. I ultimately grew tired of the sound palette, as it is fairly limited, but if you like what it sounds like, that can be a good thing, as it can help you develop a distinctive sound, which I think is better than having access to every drum sound under the sun anyway.
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There are so many effects in the TV that breathe life into drum samples. Dirtshaper, Degrader, Filter Folder…
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funny you mention the volca as it was my drum machine and I still have it and it surprises me at how versatile it can be. I get some nice crunchy lo fi beats when it feed it into analog heat.