Alesis HR-16

i bought the grey one for 50 ? two years ago. i played with it as long as the
pattern store was filled. it was just decorating my room since then ? still i switched
it on again last month (may just for substitution becuz i gave away my mpc to be repaired) ? and i was really impressed. it's realy easy to use, well
not much possebilities but that's should not be a problem for creative
people.

as said not much features compared with modern toys, but be creative!

together with the very tight sequencer this mashine is decorated with, is this the thing about to write, it's sounds are great and cheesy in one time it's up to you. i use it together with boss km-60 mixer to modify the sounds. so the 2 Stereo/4 Mono out give you really enough space to work with it and i just own the grey one! i think it's useful for electro-clash because you can sqeeze some really punky sounds out of this little flat cake!
i although bought the black one yesterday for 71? and i'm waiting now ? impatiently! do not compare downloaded sounds with the real sounds, there are much better from origin!

let's wait for the black! i think it's useable for live performances ? even if you just play the pads! great claps!

i love it!

With basic instructions inside the lid, I give the HR-16 a good mark for ease of use. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to get it working.

For the class of drum machine it is, I think it's loaded with USABLE features. Despite the "drawback" (as some claim) of rubberized buttons and pads, I rather think it's a very nice piece of gear.

I thik the sound sets in the HR-16 are more than adequate. Perhaps in critical listening tests it does not compare to more expensive or more recent product, but once you get some processing on the output and stick it in the mix, it starts showing it's worthiness.

I acquired my HR-16 when a pawn shop brought it in for repair and never came back to pick it up. All it needed, besides a thorough cleaning, was a memory backup battery.

WHile inside, I inspected the solder work and construction, and I'm satisfied that it will do what it was designed to for a long time unless someone has abusive habits. (NO, they do not make satisfactory ashtrays.)

The HR-16 gets a NINE from me. If it were stolen, I would replace it with another, or another Alesis product (such as the SR-16).

v1.0, mine would be- bought it new in 1988. I tended even then to detune everything to get a bit more oomph out of it. the sounds are a reasonable selection of ordinary drumkit noises, but they are untreated & some users forget this, expect bonzon out of the box. needs careful use of outboard, eq & so forth.
manual excellent. editing is easy on this thing. the instructions you need are actually welded to it's lid anyway.

polyphony? it's more polyphonic than two real drummers, is all you need to know. no effects built in, no expansion, it's own pads are just about velocity sensitive but I usually turn that off & edit the loudnesses afterwards. the sequencer is easy to use once you get used to a) remembering where you left the quantize setting & b) you can't go backwards in step-edit mode. this latter is the biggest bummer of the thing.

see note above about the quality of the sounds. when it came out (late 1988) there was nothing to touch it for the price. nowadays, everyone's got piles of loops & hits for their samplers & the dedicated drumbox is looking a bit shabby or maybe retro at best. but it's still a good way to go if you want to get away from those tired old cliche loops & knock your own patterns together, & with some treatment the sounds aren't too bad. remember, they're untreated (mostly) recordings of real drums, so use them accordingly.

solid. gigged it, beten the crap out of it. changed the litium battery in 1992 (when it was 4 years old), never had a problem since. it's been used on two actual vinyl 45's, mine has.

alesis? support? no, I'm not saying it's non-existent, I'm saying I've never had call to summon it. apart from the lithium batteries in the hr-16 & my mmt-8, & a duff display in one of my many quadrasynths, I would have to say their kit is pretty solid.

if it were lost or stolen... hmmm.... I'd be sorry, but not heartbroken. I would hope it had gone to a good home. tbh, I don't think mine is attractive enough to warrant theft. it's gone the way of all thermoplastics & looks like it's been underwater. when I bought it, other musos turned green with envy. now people want to hear my old korg ddm110/ddm220 combo for it's retro appeal, & can't understand why the alesis is still there. yes, I'd still use it, but augmented with samples & "booooms" from a moog.
I once asked a dealer about upgrading it to the "B" version- this was possible, but they advised against it. the noises in the "B" were already treated, & so less flexible.

The basic operating instructions are printed on the unit. Should only be a problem if you had to place a call to tech support to figure out falling of a log:)

Not too mutch to write home about here. Pads are arranged into patterns and patterns into songs. You can change patterns on the fly in "Pattern Mode". Also contains basic MIDI clock sync. The action on the pads leaves LOTS to be desired.

Basic clean 16-bit samples of dry drum tones. Didn't really love the "Gated" sounds (insert "Mutt Lang called" joke here).

Mine's been a good little soldier for about a decade (bought used in 1995), though I haven't broken it out too much. A friend has one that died on him last year, though.

N/A

US $125 was paid in 1995. The new sr16 retails for around $150 us, so I wouldn't pay more than $75 us for one, mint.
Otherwise, its a workhorse if you don't want anything sonicly fancy. Probably best used for rehearsal or for pre-production. I still use some of the sounds with some effects as percussion parts.

The sounds were really good for about 1990 sampling comparisons, when 16bits was hip. Now analyzing the loops, it has few good samples.

The key pad was always a bit stiff, and not the most sensitive. No FXs unless you count reverbed samples. The sequencer is only OK if you like mouse cinemas (german expression for weeny LCDs). I would only use the sequencer if I was couldn't afford a real one.

The beef with this is so few samples. Generally throw away any with reverb, then that left me with one good snare and a few good cymbals.
No deep satisfying kicks. I think this is good for Devo bands, and punk rock where a creative kit is not so crucial.

Never had a problem with it, except for the connection to the power plug.

I think Alesis generally hides from customers. They are probably trained to duck under their desks when tech support phone rings. No real issues with this box though.

If you are a beginner and don't wan't to drop too much cash on a drum machine, until you are sure you like drum machines - then this machine is for you, among cheapo's this represents very high value. This is also good if you are really pinched for cash, and have some mixer inputs and FXs units sitting around unused.

Serious drummers suggest you move on and start looking at a roland TD-7 lets say.

Really easy to use, not very complicated compared with other drummachines. The sounds of my (old) HR16 sound good enough for my Breakbeat/Jungle-Stuff and Grooverock-Projects (Metal meets Beats). It's real fun to edit the sounds and patches while playing a pattern.

The Sequencing-Part of the Hr16 is very easy to use and very practical even in live-acts. The Hr16 has not very many features, no fx and filters but hey, it's a drum machine, nothing else.

Well, some people say that you can't use the old HR16-Versions for Dance Music. Forget this nonsense, with a little bit of pitching, external fx and a little bit of creative programming you can produce a lot of diverse sounds. Not the virtual-analog techno-hardcore-stylee but real rockin and groovin drums.

The buttons suck! But thats the problem of my Alesis MMT8 Sequencer as well. Perhaps I'll try to replace the rubber buttons with other buttons which are more reliable. But the hardware itself looks indestructable and is almost...

Brutally cheap (I paid 39 Euros (about 30 Dollars) on EBay ;)) and a good extension (especially the sequencer) to my Roland DDR 30 module. First I wanted to buy a Yamaha RXx-Machine but after I got an Alesis MMT8 (40 Euros on EBay, harhar) I thought "hey, let's keep it in the family".

Very easy to use with practice. There are many creative things you can do to create sounds if you get clever. The sliders can be a pain because you need to "re-orient" the slider every time you switch menus and the arrow keys can be a bit slow and sloppy. I find editing easy with the machine, however, I agree that song editing is a bit cumbersome. The manual is fine and all the information to get started is on the flip lid. It really is user friendly.

I think the pad editing features are fantastic and perhaps the best feature. You can get an enormous range from each pad by tuning and mixing them individually. I often combine pads by coping them to each other and blending the sounds by altering voice/tune and mix parameters. (I'll often have two bass drums, two snares etc. for one song) The keyboard action is okay but feels a bit cheap. The soft keys are sloppy and sometimes unresponsive. Four outputs is nice and easy to mix. The swing fuction does not do much but if you get good you can get a better swing by turning the quantize off. I have used this machine to its limit and still feel satisfied with its range and flexibility and would buy one again. I have not used the midi functions.

I think it sounds great. Like I said, it is very flexible with its sound and takes a bit of creativity to stretch it's true nature past a simple beat machine. You can get some very orchestrated sounds by being clever with the editing functions. I have tuned the hand clap down to get a "foot soldier march" sound and a properly tuned finger snap can sound like a gunshot. I do not like the hi-hat sounds for some reason, they sound a bit flat to me. Nice crash and rides though. The percussion voices (congas) are fine but are limited in their dynamics. There is a great selection of snares, bass drums and toms. The utility menu is useful. I use the pad dynamics which allow for touch sensitive control. This a great feature for getting a more realistic sound. The playing overall sounds very fluid and smooth without being too distracting.

I would depend on it but it needs good care. Keep it clean and out of moisture. Don't Bang on it too much! My pads have lost their sensitiviy and have become hard to work with. The soft pads have become unresposive at times and can be fustrating. I think the machine, depending on when you got it, was made fairly cheap as some of the frame feels flimsy. I have had to open her up and clean the contacts just to get the pads to respond the same. I think over time the machine will begin to show it's age, but treat it well.

N/A

Great tool and alot of fun playing with. I find it very flexible as a drum machine and will perform as well as you able to think it to. I find the keyboard cheap and unresponsive at times. It can be aggravating. But this is my biggest complaint. Overall, a very well designed drum machine. I am buying a new drum machine (a used Boss DR-5) but intend to keep using my HR-16!

Software version 1.09
My previous experience is only with older Roland drum machines, and by comparison, the HR-16 is somewhat more difficult to learn. Editing patterns is rather tricky, but the manual is excellent and very detailed.

While not very expandable (there is an apparent ROM upgrade to the HR-16B), the 49 instruments, and far more memory than my TR-707 more than make up for it. The pitch slider is also an interesting feature.

Overall the sounds are excellent. You can pretty much enter any random sequence and it will sound good. The pitch slider is fun, so this would be useful for techno and EBM.

I haven't had it long enough to rate it in this category

I like this alot. Compared to the Roland TR-x0x line, the HR-16 is much more versatile, and sounds better, despite being harder to learn (programming is less intuitive)

It is very easy to use, the instructions are right on the top of it under a little hood. The presets are a little dated, but usable. The manual is fine, it pretty much covers everything. In step mode, you cannot back up, if you need to, which is often the case, due to the intermittent nature of the buttons. The real pain in the (you know where) is that the buttons for everything but the drum hits are extremely intermittent. You hit one once, and nothing happens. You hit it two more times, and nothing happens. You hit it a fourth time and it registers multiple hits, anywhere from two to six hits. In step mode, this is the ultimate drag. I end up stepping through the whole pattern several times, hoping that by chance I will land upon the step that I am attempting to place a drum hit. This is probably the most frustrating thing that I can imagine doing. It turns my rating here from a 8.5 down to a 1.

It has a decent variety of samples, drums to percussion. No built in effects nor expansion capabilities. You can trigger the sounds from an external controller, which I have not done. It has four outputs, which is cool for mixing the snare and kick higher in the mix. It also has a foot pedal trigger for starting and stopping it. It has everything I expect a drum machine to have.

The samples sound reasonable for 80's technology. They are pretty realistic, if somewhat limited. The samples are a little dated, no techno spoken here. It's probably best suited for rock music. It is just a basic drum machine--there are not a lot of unusual sounds here at all. There are only 8 different volume levels for drum hits, which is definitely limited. I'm not sure if other manufacturers offer more, though. A nice feature is that you can tune each individual drum sound to your liking. That is a big plus!

It is pretty reliable, once it is programmed. I would not use it without a backup, just because you never know what could happen to anything. In terms of programming it, the buttons make it the most unreliable thing you have ever used in your life. I am planning to replace this one ASAP! Ignoring the buttons, I would give it a 9.

The company was friendly and supportive. The backup battery, which saves all of your patterns and songs, died on mine and they offered to sell me one for an excruciatingly high price. I bought another battery from an electronics supplier at less than 1/4 the cost and replaced it myself.

I would never buy this model again. I love it when it works, but the buttons kill me when I am programming it. It is a little dated soundwise compared to what is out there now. I bought it because it was cheap and got good reviews when it was released. I wish it had better buttons on it, then I would keep it. It gets in the way of making music when you are programming it in step mode. Be sure and back up your patterns/songs onto cassette regularly, because when the backup battery goes, everything in the machine except for the sounds goes away. I ended up with a drum machine with a blank slate, no patterns, no songs, nothing. That was very frustrating.

Would be a 10, except that in step-edit mode I can only step forward, meaning that if I make a mistake I must step all the way through the pattern until I get back to where I left off. At first I thought this was a malfunction, but since all of the buttons are in perfect condition (none of the problems I have heard these machines tend to have) and the decrement/step back button works for everything else, I guess that this si just a design flaw.

At any rate, the fact that EVERYTHTING you need to know to program the machine fits on a little flip-up panel on the top pretty much sums up the ease of use. Not the deepest drum machine I have seen (though it was good for its time, certainly) but definitely the easiest.

Has more or less everything you need in a basic drum machine and then some. 4 outputs is nice, although I kind of wish it were easier to assign a single drum to a single outpu like you can with the Boss DR-660s 3rd and 4th outputs. Still, the ability to output 2 different stereo mixes also has its advantages. The only drum machines I have owned (unless you count ReBirth) are this and the DR 660 adn while the 660 certainly has more features (big screen, effects that can be assigned to any pad or combination of pads, auto flam and roll setting, more and "better" sounds, crossfading between sounds with velocity, etc.) I have been using the hr-16 a lot more than the Boss these days. IT is extremely easy o program and has nice cheesy sounds.

Oh, and my dr-660 was not working for about a year (until this morning in fact).

The sounds are great if you want something cheesy/dated. IT is very easy to program, which is a form of "expressiveness" certainly. On the down side, the velocity and pan are not that responsive (only 3 values on each side of center when panning; only 7 or so velocity levels). And the above mentioned inability to step backward in step-edit mode, if it is really a standard flaw and not just something wrong with my machine, is a BIG problem for me. Stepping all the way through the pattern every time I want to correct a mistake can ruin the flow of pattern programming.

Never had a problem with it. When I first got it I did not have the original cord, and tried using a universal adapter. The actual voltage the machine uses is NOT what is stamped on the back (it says 9v, but it actually uses 10v) so I was running it on the wrong voltage. It made strange reversed/downsampled kind of noises, but suffered no damage and has worked beautifully since I got the original cord.

Never used it.

I would not use this as a general purpose drum machine, but if you want something that is reliable, fun to program, sounds enjoyably dated, and functions in a way that seems to encourage one to program simple, cheesy rock and rap beats then you should get one of these. Really, for the average price they go for these days, anyone who uses drum macines that often should probably pick one up.

VERY EASY. Anyone can operate one of these. No problems.

Has a lot of cool features. Tuneable drum sounds, four outs, and of course EASE of USE!! This unit works great with an ALESIS MMT-8. Wow a marriage made in heaven!! Very nice together!! I have the Black model --the HR-16B. Thats the ONE to get cuz it has twice the sounds of the original HR-16, better OS version, better all the way. The black on is the latest of the HR drum machines. Well worth the extra search.

The black HR-16B has better sounds than the regular grey HR-16. More sounds, and better suited to techno as well. Nice cymbals!! Hi-hats and Rides are really fine!! I wish it had even more sounds, but the 90 or so that are in there are killer.

If you get the HR-16B (black-faced) you wont have any trouble with the buttons or anything else. These are well-built. Mine is made in 89 and still cranking at full force.

Alesis is a very cool company. I like their style. They will talk to you even about their older machines and will not laugh at you either.
:-))

I gotta give this a 9 overall since most of them out there are GREY HR-16 units. But if you get a black one--the HR-16B--you will know its really a 10!! These drum boxes are very cool creative tools used by many many pros on stage --Moby, 808 State, Leftfield, Sunscreen, Konsume Human, etc, just to name but a few. Theres a reason. Its sound is GREAT and its EASY to use. Just like the MMT-8 these are classics!! Some of the best values in the history of MIDI.

After reading reviews of DR-XX0s and the SR-16, I can't believe the HR-16 has no reviews. This is STILL the easiest and most versatile drum machine out there. The sounds are out dated, but the thing is just awesome in its features and programmability.

Here's where other drum machines fail. The HR-16 had FOUR outputs, not two, not one. It also gives you the drum sounds UNADULTERATED. No reverb has been added, no crappy ass effects. YOU decide how much reverb to add to your stuff. THAT is where they screwed up the SR-16. I would have upgraded years ago, but I can't stand the reverb that's been forced on me. So, instead, I continue to use the HR-16, where *I* am the producer, not some 80's bastard.

Expressiveness = 10, sounds = 5. That's the case with this machine that came out over 10 years ago. I'm still happy with the sounds but they're definitely dated. WHY OH WHY didn't Alesis put out another HR-16, where the sounds weren't soaked in reverb? I HATE that.

nonetheless, back to THIS box. The pressure sensitive pads can also be configured to any of 16 volume levels... WAAAAAAY more than BOSS's crappy ass 'expression' or 'accent' volume control. What a JOKE. I've owned both... I ended up using the HR16 to master the DR-550, since the DR-550's pattern programming was USELESS.

Which brings up another critical difference. ALESIS allows pattern programming BEAUTIFULLY. That's why I've kept this one around. BOSS drum machines have this hideous slot-based programming - it's the same ever since their FIRST dr rhythm (I bought one way back then) and it's unflexible, limited, hideous. ALESIS, on the other hand, doesn't limit the number of beats in a pattern, doesn't limit the quantizaion, the SWING - I could go on and on forever about this. I've convinced dozens of people to go back and get one of these units - they go up on EBAY for $75 ALL the time.

I've owned THREE. NONE ever had a problem.

I have YET to find a replacement for this unit. NO other drum machine gives me FOUR outputs. No other unit gives the sounds WITHOUT the effects. Combine that with the ease of use, and incredible ease of song programming, especially for ODD time signatures, this baby gets a TEN.