Best Drum Machines
Maschine Mikro gives you the entire Maschine software environment, including ALL of the included content that comes with the full version of Maschine, plus a compact hardware controller that's perfect for smaller setups and on-the-go music creation. The software is downloaded and managed via Native Access, which also maintains all NI softwares and plugins with serial numbers in one location. An Internet connection and a graphics card which supports OpenGL 2.1 or higher are required to download and activate MASCHINE software.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Boyfriend bought this to make beats for personal music projects."
"my son luvs his pre birthday gift."
"Excellent buying experience, from beggining through end, brand new, latest model, and manufacturer direct access, with added bonus, 110% satisfied!!!"
"Awesome tool, especially if making beats is more of a hobby for you."
"Then you have to refresh the thing for the actual software to come up (otherwise, it only shows the free sample players)."
"Very easy to learn how to use once you get the hang of it."
"Software supposed to be included but wasn’t."
Drenched in 8-bit glitchy goodness, Teenage Engineering's Pocket Operator PO-20 Arcade mini sequencing synthesizer delivers 16 nostalgia-inducing sounds mixed with simple yet powerful songwriting tools. Loaded with 16 nostalgia-inducing synthesized arcade-style sounds.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The controls can be a little funny at first and it takes a bit of getting used to, but once you have that down it's super easy to program sequences and even chain them together and it's a remarkably powerful little synth."
"While it looks like a circuit board, it’s incredibly well built and sounds amazing through headphones."
"My only grip is that syncing to others is a little tedious and worked better with newer ones, the older ones bass unit I have had to be the main unit it wouldn't work the other way around."
"Amazon piece of technology."
"My son absolutely loves this thing."
"Great little synth to create neat classic 80s video game tracks."
"I think this is the best of the PO line for all around fun."
"I'm amazed by how much flexibility is built into this tiny platform."
Who needs fancy frills like an outer case, when you've got the solid drum sounds, killer effects, and intuitive sequencing Teenage Engineering's Pocket Operator PO-12 rhythm machine has to offer? Loaded with 16 sampled and synthesized drum sounds, each with 2 real-time parameters.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The controls can be a little funny at first and it takes a bit of getting used to, but once you have that down it's super easy to program sequences and even chain them together and it's a remarkably powerful little synth."
"While it looks like a circuit board, it’s incredibly well built and sounds amazing through headphones."
"My only grip is that syncing to others is a little tedious and worked better with newer ones, the older ones bass unit I have had to be the main unit it wouldn't work the other way around."
"Amazon piece of technology."
"My son absolutely loves this thing."
"Great little synth to create neat classic 80s video game tracks."
"I think this is the best of the PO line for all around fun."
"I'm amazed by how much flexibility is built into this tiny platform."
Best Recording Virtual Instruments Software
Maschine Mikro gives you the entire Maschine software environment, including ALL of the included content that comes with the full version of Maschine, plus a compact hardware controller that's perfect for smaller setups and on-the-go music creation. The software is downloaded and managed via Native Access, which also maintains all NI softwares and plugins with serial numbers in one location. An Internet connection and a graphics card which supports OpenGL 2.1 or higher are required to download and activate MASCHINE software.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Boyfriend bought this to make beats for personal music projects."
"my son luvs his pre birthday gift."
"Excellent buying experience, from beggining through end, brand new, latest model, and manufacturer direct access, with added bonus, 110% satisfied!!!"
"An incredible instrument that is as extremely deep or as shallow as you'd like to explore Very well made."
"Awesome tool, especially if making beats is more of a hobby for you."
"Perfect gift for my teenager son!!"
"Software supposed to be included but wasn’t."
Best Electronic Drum Sets
8" high quality rubber drum pads (dual-zone snare, three single-zone toms).
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"But after 30 yrs of longing to drum again the Alesis Nitro kit has me back at my former level and able to practice anytime day or night without bothering my family or the neighbors. Finally, I went to Guitar Center to check out some of the more professional versions of electronic drums only to see a higher price also meant, heavier, less compact and very little improvement in sound-for-the-money. And best of all, the buid quality, setup feel, real pedals and overall experience put the user in the ananlog drum set world!"
"After 3 months both the hi hat and ride cymbal have lost significant sensitivity, resulting in dropped hits; I'd imagine they're just poorly made sensors built in. Going against what Alesis says, (to avoid using non-alesis triggers), I switched the 2 cymbals out for some pintechs I had for my previous kit the nitro was replacing. While i did like the feel of the Alesis cymbals more than my pintechs, I can't sacrifice that for dropped hits. I did find a site for Alesis cymbal replacements for relatively cheap (less than $30 a cymbal), but at that rate you would probably need to replace the cymbals 3-4 times a year."
"Crash and snare have multi-zone sensors which is something you dont find on many sets in this price range. Snare can get good rim shot sounds and you can choke the crash. You even have the option to expand and add an additional tom and crash which is not normal for kits in this price range. Bang for the buck - This kit comes with everything you need to start jamming including sticks a real (and good quality) kick pedal. This is a bit nit picky for a kit at this price point but I would have preferred a multi zone ride."
"Yes, you can spend more money and get better pads, but these work just fine."
"I got this for Rock Band 4 on PS4 and, aside from the significant amount of time it takes to put together, it was really easy to get working and it works great!"
Best Electronic Drum Pads
Drum pads provide realistic expression; similar sounds to a non-electric drum kit.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The drum pads are very sensitive to touch so not much pressure is needed to beat them, He enjoyed it for a solid two hours and had no aches and pains afterwards. He was able to adjust his drum volume separately from the TV channel music and get the effect he wanted in just a few hook ups."
"Your child can practice on his/her own with the headphones on and let everyone listen when a song is ready."
"My naive parents bought me a full drum set when I was a kid and endured many hours of hearing me "practice" until one day I came home from school and found that my drum set had mysteriously disappeared ... stolen by pirates they think, or perhaps abducted by space aliens. Now as an adult my house doesn't have room for a full drum set and I think the neighbors would look upon hearing me "practice" about as dimly as my parents did, so when I discovered this ROLL UP drum set I was all in, if not skeptical that it was anything more than a toy. Sometime I hook it in to my surround sound home entertainment system (I plug a little Bluetooth transmitter into the headphone jack of the drum kit) and the effect would knock your socks off."
"He has a real drum kit, but I thought this would be fun for him to get some drum time in while in his room and in a way that doesn't rock the whole house. He was not at all impressed by the RockJam kit. The drum pad itself is quite a bit smaller than I expected. I would not at all recommend this as an alternative to any kind of actual electronic drum pad set up and certainly not as an alternative to a drum kit."
"After plugging the headphones in two times, the headphone port no longer works when the headphones are plugged in completely. After wiggling the headphone plug around I got sound, but they are completely useless unless I hold the headphone plug halfway into the port during each use which defeats the purpose of headphones."
Best Electronic Drum Triggers
The pad responds accurately to subtle differences in dynamics during performance and can faithfully reproduce delicate cymbal playing, powerful hits, and choking. Accurately responds to subtle differences in dynamics.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"There were several reasons that made me decide picking up a Yamaha PCY cymbal pad would be a good choice. Should the pad stop working and need repair or replacement, a new one is still cheaper than most good, new cymbals, and of course the pad can sound like any cymbal out there (or the sound of anything that is programmed to each zone). The other complaint, more minor, is that the manual doesn't make it abundantly clear that you MUST plug the right angle jack of the included cable (the other end is a straight jack) into the bottom of the pad, or the pad will act like a single zone no matter where you hit it, or how you program the zones. The feel of the pad won't replace what a real cymbal feels like under a stick, but it's more than adequate for my needs, and fairly detailed in response to dynamic playing."
"The three response zones are highly effective, and with some kits, you get a bizarre mix of sounds that don't even show up with the regular cymbal."
"The only obviouse downside is you can't (or I can't) do a cymbal scrape on the rings."
"Of course I only get single zone due to the module, but I only use them for open crashes anyway."
"Great addition to my Yamaha DTX 450K E-Drum Set!"
"The DTX Touch app for iPhone doesn't recognize some of the pads with this hooked up though."
"Awesome, nothing but good to say about these top-quality Yamaha e-cymbals."
"it feels like this pad has 2 level of volume instead of proportional feedback to your hand power."
Best Electronic Drum Controllers
Groove like never before with the Roland HandSonic HPD-20 electronic percussion instrument! 850 percussion sounds including drums, modern electronica beats, and moreRoland's acclaimed SuperNATURAL sound engineImport up to 500 WAV sounds via USB flash memory and assign them to padsEditing capability allows you to tweak and layer instruments and process tones with three independent multi-effects engines, ambience, and EQ13 silicone rubber pads provide ultra-sensitive velocity response and a comfortable feelDynamic pad assignments let you dampen, mute, and tune sounds for authentic perfor.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Generally better than the Korg Wavedrum, but honestly they have different enough sounds that you could have one of each and get a lot more options."
"I love this thing."
"Amazing Instrument and service by amazon!"
"I love Roland products and this is a nice item that I got for Christmas."
"(Yes, I have a sample pad machine with the square buttons but this is way better) When I ran across this item mentioned in a magazine article I investigated immediately and purchased one."
"Just what I expected."