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< All Alesis SR-16 reviews
MGR/Mike MGR/Mike

« Alesis SR-16 »

Published on 12/02/01 at 15:00
I bought the SR-16 through American Musical Supply for $200 for a few reasons. Most importantly, its price was within my budget and I found the 'representative' sound bytes offered by online retailers to be more realistic sounding than other competing brands'. It also received high 'ease of use' remarks from people on online forums, which was important to me as I'm a bit new to recording.

It is SIMPLE to use, even for a complete novice like myself. The machine contains a lot of flexibility in the sounds it offers. I don't use it for live performance, and so do not have memory concerns, but it seems to offer more than enough storage space for percussion compositions - and can backup in a variety of ways if this becomes an issue. Its MIDI capability is very helpful. The 'pattern' and 'song' editing features are incredibly easy to use which allows me to record in real time and edit later, or to compose beat by beat to get "perfect" timing. I happy with the cymbals for the most part, as this was my biggest concern for a realistic drum set sound. And it's relatively CHEAP!!

There really is nothing I don't like about the SR-16, although I think that some of its sounds are a little useless for my purposes (such as the backwards open high-hat, and some of the percussive instruments). I also do not think you can change tempo within a song, but if you're using the machine as a MIDI slave, this shouldn't be an issue as the tempo can be defined by the master.

It's very small and compact which is nice. It seems to be a little frail, however, and I would be concerned if using it in a live setting. Overall, it seems well constructed.

For a very simple, easy to use drum machine with pretty good sound quality and a low price tag, I don't think you could do better than the SR-16.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com