Alesis SR-18 Portable Drum Machine

Comments about Alesis SR-18 Portable Drum Machine:

I'm a musician with 2 bands as well as a composer and performer of my original music. I you use the Alesis SR 18 to create original drum tracks for my compositions. It has been great-sounding & easy to use right out of the box. The MIDI out is a great help when using other rhythmic software, as is the AUX in for other instruments. The price was unbeatable, and with the adjustable swing & quantize functions, it's as close to a real drummer as a machine can get.
I haven't found anything to complain about except the bass patterns, but I don't use them - I create my own. As a drum machine, this is an excellent choice

Comments about Alesis SR-18 Portable Drum Machine:

I own an old HR-16 which still work after 15 year, my cousin still.
has an SR-16 still works after 10 years The SR-18 is a step above both!!!! love it!!!!!

Comments about Alesis SR-18 Portable Drum Machine:

I always been a person who likes better the real sound on my percussion section but was difficult for me to be traveling to get the sounds and the intensity I was looking for my arrangement thanks to the SR-18 I been getting the work done more faster and with better results.

Comments about Alesis SR-18 Portable Drum Machine:

Great drum machine-good looking and great professional sound. Great in you Home studio, practice and at the gigs!

Comments about Alesis SR-18 Portable Drum Machine:

I have been using the Alesis drum products for about 15 years now and am quite impressed with the SR-18. The sounds and flexibility of the unit are phenomenal and the ease of operation should be emulated by other manufacturer's units. I use it for both live and studio applications and it has performed flawlessly in both environments. For the money, this is the best unit on the market in my opinion.

Comments about Alesis SR-18 Portable Drum Machine:

I has surprised at the capability of this unit. It may be small, but don't let that fool you. Plenty of VST sounds and assorted demo beats. Great for a DJ or loop station artist.

Comments about Alesis SR-18 Portable Drum Machine:

The alesis sr-18 is a great drum macine with high quality drum and percussion sound and bass sounds that vary from so so to good. the macine is full featured and easy to use, however, potential buyers should be aware that some reatailers advertising this as a '24 bit drum machine' is a bit misleading. the actual samples are 16 bit while the coverters are 24 bit. otherwise a great drum macine.

Comments about Alesis SR-18 Portable Drum Machine:

I use this drum machine for my solo live performances, I've recreated the drums from various cover songs that I play, saved them in patterns and used them live with two footswitches. I found it very easy to use, I have had it for two weeks now and I can say that I know how to use it at least at its 90%.
One thing I specially liked is that each pattern has an A or B, and you can use them like the A for the verse and B for chorus etc.

The only thing I do not like is the way the software stores the songs, besides using the song storage, which is a 100 different songs, it uses the pattern spaces, for example, in one song space you use the pattern 78, 79, and 80 as parts of it, it will not only occupy the song space, but also these 3 patterns, and if you change the patterns it will change the song. I perform tons of songs and it will be very hard to create an specific pattern for each song.

Comments about Alesis SR-18 Portable Drum Machine:

This product is very difficult to operate. Although it has many features and options, the instructions are minimal and of very little help. I find myself having to search on Youtube to find someone who has posted directions for its use.

Comments about Alesis SR-18 Portable Drum Machine:

Background drum line

Comments about Alesis SR-18 Portable Drum Machine:

I've owned and programmed SR16 since they were new. This is a great improvement and maintains most of the same architecture as the SR16 so is easy to use. Sounds great and the added bass part will make it more versatile.

Comments about Alesis SR-18 Portable Drum Machine:

I loop this through a Zoom G9.2tt through its instrument IN jack....Zoom's pedal allows its SEND/RETURN module to be inserted at different places in a ten module chain and MIDI in/out allows total patch switching and drum kit setups between the Alesis SR-18 and the Zoom pedal!
Plus there's bass.
And DC for outside.
In the perfect world, it should have USP 2.0.

Comments about Alesis SR-18 Portable Drum Machine:

A great little drum machine with 100 preset drum tracks as well as a powerful editor to make your own. Great sounding and easy to use. It is my first stand alone drum machine (having just used the drums tracks from a keyboard up until now) and being able to plug my electric guitar directly into it and listen through the headphones is great when you need to be quiet. It does have a drum fill feature but not an intro and outro feature like my keyboard drums do. Still very happy with it though.

Comments about Alesis SR-18 Portable Drum Machine:

I did find a lot of good sounds.But the rubber feel f pads were not nice.I actually played on Xr-20 akai. and they really feel nice and the lights to go with that, really helps know what sound is placed where..thats an amazing feature alesis dont have.

Comments about Alesis SR-18 Portable Drum Machine:

A good machine. Very convenient for a one-man band, you can change different patterns with your foot. The sound quality is acceptable, could be better.
I use it to Latin rhythms, unfortunately the preset patterns of these rhythms are disastrous, but I could create my own beats.
For What I need comparing with other machines this is the best.
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Comments about Alesis SR-18 Portable Drum Machine:

I recently decided to replace my Alesis SR16 after 15 years of use. I play along with the SR18 with an electric guitar + POD 2.0 into a Yamaha mixer for recording. I also use 2 foot switches so I can use the SR18 hands free. So far I am very satisfied with my purchase

Comments about Alesis SR-18 Portable Drum Machine:

I have been using the SR-16 ever since it came out and still do to this very day. However, the SR-18 is a big step up from its predecessor. Some of the features I love about the SR-18 are 1) The ability to record bass lines 2) Percussion bank, which now makes the unit capable of using up to 24 different drum sounds 3) portability, being able to run on batteries if need be 4) better sounding sampled drum and percussion sounds 5)illuminated display 6) bigger pads; etc. The list goes on and on. The only thing I am still trying to figure out is step editing bass lines. If you record in real time and then go to step edit, the parts that have notes were the sustain is longer will not be recreated the same way in step edit mode. Overall this unit is a steal from B&H!

Comments about Alesis SR-18 Portable Drum Machine:

I use this for live playing as a keyboardist/vocalist. I like to have drum grooves in a wide variety of styles and the feature which links 2 versions of each pattern with transitional fills makes this very satisfying to work with.

Comments about Alesis SR-18 Portable Drum Machine:

I use it to jam and practice my guitar techniques. I also plant to record with it in my home studio as soon as I fully perfect programming it. Sounds awesome through my PA and running through the 16 track digital recorder I own.

Comments about Alesis SR-18 Portable Drum Machine:

I use this in my home studio for recording. Has a lot of bells and whistles if you need them. Mostly, I just use it to manually tap out the drums and percussion while recording but it is certainly capable of much, much more. I love the variety of sampled drum kits and the recorded sound is indeed authentic. I doubt most people would guess it's not performed by a "real" drummer.