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Average of 16 User Ratings
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Customer Reviews
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doesn't save
Posted by Anonymous Musician on Nov 10, 2009
Experience w/product: I have heard about it
Reviewer's Background: professional musician
Reviewer's Play Style: classic rock
I just got the Alesis SR18 and figured out how to work pretty much everything on it. Wonderful. I just recorded my first pattern that I would like to save so that I can store my own songs and use this live. I start jammin with it. Turn the thing off. The next time I turn it on it's not there! Tried it again. Loose everything I just made when I turn it off! I know how to use the record feature and save, but it's just not working. Maybe mine was defective.
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basic,but well thought out
Posted by aliengtr from bloomington, in on Apr 27, 2009
Experience w/product: I own it
Reviewer's Background: semi pro
Reviewer's Play Style: rock guitar
I owned the sr-16 and then ordered the sr-18. ,I found that the sr-18 does sound much, much better. It has all the features of the sr-16 but with better sounds, a percussion layer and a bass layer. Also, it has a ton of different drum kits and even bass emulations. That being said, the bass sounds are kind of a toy and thank goodness it has a mute button to remove the bass from the presets. The a/b/fill patterns controllable with footswitch are done correctly. Overall, a really solid well thought out drum machine that sounds really good. 3 cons are: you can't load your own midi patterns, you cant load your own samples and no pc connectivity at all. Other than that, this has tap tempo, a really nice bright backlit lcd screen, midi. It is a blast to play along with and great for recording/live use and it is really simple.I recommend it for a solid drum machine with pretty realistic sounds. The added effects make it sound really good as well.
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Good Machine
Posted by Old Rocker from Buffalo. NY on Apr 3, 2009
Experience w/product: I own it
Reviewer's Background: Semi-Pro
Reviewer's Play Style: Light Stuff
I do a single. The promise of having drums AND bass was what attracted me to the SR-18. The machine does everything it promises but I have a few complaints. First of all, capacity. Songs are made by making patterns and them stringing them together. If the machine only holds 100 patterns and it takes 4 or 5 to make a song, then the actual song capacity is only 20-25 NOT 100.
Secondly, this is NOT a user friendly machine. The manual takes you through every detail of every feature from square one. Simpler instructions could be written to get started and the tweaking could be expanded on later.
Thirdly, some of the preset beats are pretty lame. It would be nice to have a bit more variety, especially with the latin beats. You can create them yourself but again, your're using up capacity.
If you can live with those limitations, then I highly recommend this machine. If not, find something simpler!
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Even better than I thought it would be!!
Posted by MusicByDesign from Lone Star State on Mar 3, 2009
Experience w/product: I own it
Reviewer's Background: Producer/Engineer/Artist (Home Studio)
Reviewer's Play Style: Lounge, TripHop, and ROCK!!
I own this and also the Akai XR20. It really seems they were made in the same factory because there are so many parallels its amazing. Same blue display, same size body, same back panel with its connectors and volume knob etc. Same wall-wart power adapter and both have the same battery door on the bottom where you can power by battery if you wish. Even the boxes they come in are the same size and both units come with manuals that even look almost the same. There are differences though. The buttons and pads are different as are the sounds are way different. Also the Alesis doesn't have the cool blue pads that glow when you play them or when the unit plays the sounds back. The Akai is very cool to have but the Alesis (in my opinion) is alot more useful to more styles of music (I'm sure you already knew that) but having both I find im using the Alesis more often. I guess if you only do rap/HipHop/R&B the Akai might be your ticket but the Alesis can do that stuff along with Rock, Country, Pop, Techno, Jazz, and even the Mambo, & Latin percussion type beats. Like the Akai XR20, the Alesis has lots of great sounds and while I am keeping both units I would have to say if you can only get one, the Alesis in my opion is the winner unless you gotta have the flashy blue lighted Pads. Like one guy's review said, the "user" patterns are way better than the "factory" side. As a bonus it even costs less than the akai XR20.
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NOT EASY
Posted by Wicktana from Taylor, MI on Jan 13, 2009
Experience w/product: I have heard about it
Reviewer's Background: Active musician, Recording counsultantm Hobbyist
Reviewer's Play Style: Rock, Motown, Blues, Oldies, some country
If you have owned drum machines in the past, I'm sure you will have no problem with this one. However, if your like me, never touched a drum machine in your life, this thing will drive you nets trying to figure it out. I'm looking for a DVD tutorial but can't seem to find one. I bought this machine to use with other projects. So far all I can do, is hit the pads and make the sounds. However, it is a solid, good working machine from what I have beenn able to do. It is priced high, but everything is these days.
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