Alesis SR-16 Drum Machine

This is my third rhythm machine, I've also owned a Yamaha, ZOOM and one of the lower-end BOSS models... I was hesitant with the SR-16 because it's so old (first hit the market in 1991, you can count on one hand the number of synth products released early 90's that are still on the market today without major upgrades, half of those would be re-issues)

A large part of the SR-16's long term success is because of its ease of use. No one wants to say it makes creating drum patterns easy for unschooled musicians because that's kind of harsh, but that's exactly what's going on here (NOTE: Hedrix, Clapton and all the Beatles in their prime were unschooled musicians who couldn't tell you 3/4 from 4/4 time, they did everything on feel as many professional guitarist today continue to do... So take no offense ot the unschooled musician comment) You don't need to know how to set the thing up for 4/4, 3/4 time etc, you just go in and set the number of beats per pattern. You do have the option to quantize to: whole note, quarter note, etc... but it's all made very easy.

Presets sound very dated. If you want an 80's power ballad or hair band rock pattern, you'll find an endless supply here, but if you want something more modern you'll have to program it yourself, the good news is that it's very capable providing you're willing to devote the time.

I love the manual for this thing, it does a lot of hand holding and assumes the reader knows nothing about rhythm programming or even the basics of drumming. This is exactly what a lot of people will want, but you will have to read the thing a few times, it could have been better edited. TIP: It's available in PDF from Alesis should you stumble across a good deal on a pre-owned SR-16.

16-bit samples (18-bit on newer models), 100-preset, 100-user editable patterns (200/200 on newer models) of the 50 kits you'll probably find 10 or so worth while... The kits that are worth while are very good, even being old, Alesis was a leader back in the day and the SR-16 has been used in many a professional recording going back to the early 90's. While used in a recording scenario to a much lesser degree today, it's still 'good enough' to be used for demos and one-man bands today.

All general effects, delay, panning, etc... Delay and kit configurations reflect production techniques common to late 80's

MIDI in/out/through

12 Velocity sensitive pads (sensitivity level adjustable)

2 L/R 1/4" outputs (main/aux) on older models
1 L/R 1/4" outputs and 1 stereo 1/4" headphone output on newer models

This area is a mixed bag... The sounds are mostly good, but need to be tweaked as the production qualities desired in 1991 (when this thing was produced) have become dated. The same is true of the patterns.

The sensitivity on the pads is very good.

Quantizing also works well for the most part.

The SR-16 has been around a long time... No plans to pull it from production now.

NA

There are more modern rhythm machines, but the Alesis SR-16 has stood the test of time because it's provides everything many musicians would want in a portable rhythm machine. It's easy enough to use, sounds good enough for a live gig (with careful programming :) and it's not too expensive.

When will Alesis finally dump the SR-16 for a newer model? Well they have made a few slight upgrades over the years. Not to the sound quality so much, but the newer models have twice as much memory and have 1/4" stereo headphone jack not found on the original models.

Alesis will probably keep the SR-16 in production, because it was one of the first rhythm machines to cross a threshold of creating professional studio sound... Point is even almost 20 years after its original release, the SR-16 still has its place.

I worked on a review for over a half hour and then all of a sudden it went away and I could not get it back. I'll say this to whoever reads this I love the SR-16 but it needs to be back lit for live use. I have to use a flashlight to read the screen. Not good.

I'm gonna keep my review very straight forward.. The others all have the features etc. etc.

Easy to use for the most part.. I love the presets and contrary to other opinions the reverbs sound great once you record the entire band on top of it.. Just the right amount of effects that blend perfectly.. By itself they may seem a little much but they got it right as far as the levels. I haven't tried to tackle programming an entire song yet.. But I have used the patterns/fills for songs and it's sounds like a real drummer.. I've also recorded a click track and played live drums over it. This thing is GREAT! The manual is okay if you take an afternoon to read it.. Which most people don't want to do when they get a new toy.

The sounds are amazing! Lots of snares, kicks etc. etc. to choose from. The pads are pretty touch sensitive once you use the "Full Velocity" setting.

The sounds are as good as it gets. Real sampled drum sets and the ability to create your own.

I only use this unit for recording and so far it's been perfect.

N/A

It's great for recording!!!!! Wish I would have invested in this unit years ago. I'm gonna throw my Roland TR-626 in the trash can

This is my second drum machine, my first being a dumpstered (yes in the garbage) Dr. Rythym that worked flawlessly despite its age and aailing ac adapter. I gave it away and bought an SR-16. I'm a bare bones, cheap import guitar and loads of effects boxes type of guy, I'll vulture whatever type of amp I can find and go for broke. I don't really have a lot of set gear preferences and love to experiment, this thing is awesome. The manual is helpful to a novice like me, but experimentation is the true key. I actually like the presets and find the 50 different kits interesting and quite usable for the junky industrial noise project I am trying. I also have an Alesis microverb which is reliable and a crazy compliment to run the drum machine through to add delay, reverb or just plain noisiness. With a little time and a few beers, even an untrained monkey could figure out the basics of the SR16! I am digitally fairly inept and it's still easy for me to use and I am still finding new ways to mess with it, like running it trough flangers and distortions to see what I can find. Easy to pick up hard to put down, especially if it's your first drum machine experience, plus it's affordable.

It has 16 voice polyphony which I don't really care about, I just want beats. The velocity sensitive keys are cool and you could bang the pads all day and not damage the unit. It's a bare bones drum machine perfect for beginners and minimalists alike. They added a headphone jack to the newer ones and it came with an AC power supply but doesn't accept batteries like some other inexpensive machines do. The few features it does have, work great and do their jobs well. I am just dipping my feet into electronic music with the help of an expert friend who has sequencers, vocoders, synths keys, dj equipment and the like. I am experiment ing with really raw guitar sounds and needed something slightly more complex than a metronome for my beats, the SR-16 is perfect for my basic, experimental style.

The touch sensitive keys are cool, but as some have said, they can be slightly unreliable, I hit them really hard for maximum effect regardless of the sound, forget subtlety! Most of the kits sound a little reverby and unrealistic as stated in previous reviews, I don't really care, it's a digital machine, it's never gonna sound like a live drummer for under $200, you get what you pay for. And for the price it's a good little package, machine, AC power and a thick manual. I can see myself using this live for experimantal punk ala Babyland etc. Some sounds are a litte 1980's and drenched in reverb, but good enough reverb, as Alesis are kings of digital reverb modeling, as evidenced by their rackmount stuff like the Micrverb IV. Features are slim, but it does the bascs all very well, especialy for the prcetag.

I trust Alesis gear wholeheartedly. My Microverb IV has never had a case or bag and never sat in a proper rack. I have traveled with it unprotected and it still works like new. It's been dropped, stepped on and fallen from the top of a tall bass rig many times. The SR-16, I imagine is built as well, granted it's almost all plastic and rubber, rather than the Micro's metal chassis. Even for being plastic, it doesn't feel cheap, it has the look and feel of a quality built piece of equipment and I will and do carry it around with other effects in a padded plastic pistol case, this type of case is dirt cheap, includes thick foam and offers maximum drop protection for small pedals and expensive stuff like Line6's big stompbxes. I would gig with this without a backup, based on my previous experience with Alesis products.

I have dealt with an Alesis rep over the phone once and he was way cool and professional. I had a question about software and settings on my Microverb shortly after I bought it. He answered all of my questions patiently and we chatted about gear for a good 20 minutes before he decided he'd better get back to work. Chances are if you have an ssue at soe point you'll talk to a real live English speaking employee who will do their best to help you out. I have never needed repair service for any Alesis product but I feel confident that they stck by their reputable rand name and do good work in a reasonable time frame. By the way, I spilled a glass of cold water over most of the top of the SR-16 two days after I got it, thinking the worst and kicking myself fr being clumsy. I quickly picked it up to drain of the excess liquid, grabbed a roll of paper towels and dried it off, I let it air dry for a good couple of hours and plugged it in, it works like new, no sign of failure or wear. I would not recommend taking it swimming, but this goes to show that small accidents with clean liquids will not phase this machine, if taken care of promptly!

It's totally worth the retail price and just in case I bought the chain store's extended 2 year warranty for an extra $20, which I feel will be worth it for peace of mind. I have been playing bass and guitar for around 15 years and this is my first real drum machine. I bought it because the salesguy said it'd been around since the late 80's in some form or another and that it was the gold standard of basic, plain old drum machines. Ease of use sold me on it, and the brand name helped also, as I like Alesis stuff. There are no extras, add ons or special features. If you want bass and effects and bells and whistles, buy a pricey Roland/Boss machine or use software. The SR-16 is like the plain, white, windowless work van of digital drum machines. It does exactly what it promises on the box, nothing more, very generic, in a good way. The key to having fun and getting the most out of this machine is experimentation. Hook it though guitar and bass effects. Add ridiculous digital reverbs. It's opened up a whole world for me as far as 4 track recording goes and helping me realize half baked guitar ideas and tempos, hell, use it as a metronome if you aren't creatve! I do wish it accepted alkaline batteries for a backup power source, but you can't have it all, right? The SR-16 is one small step towards electronic music for me and one giant leap for my new musical endeavors. I really dig this thing.

This is my first drum machine. It is very easy to use.

Seems to provide many usable drum sounds. It is programmable.

Realistic. Can control sound and velocity.

I've had no problems.

this machine is not terribly hard to use. i'm pretty sure alesis originally created this thing to market to non-electronic musician types. if you're used to electronic music, you'll find this easy to use... but maybe sometimes too easy. if you're not used to electronic music, you'll probably find programming a chore until you really get the hang of it.

i usually dive into things first without touching the manual, and then come back to it when i've #$%^&* everything up. that's what i did with this machine as well. the manual doesn't offer much coherent help, so i just continued to $%^& things up until they were #$%^&* up in a good way (?).

once again, this machine was not created with electronic musicians in mind. to someone used to dealing with boxes, this thing has no features at all. no effects. no expansion. to someone who simply wants a drummer who actually does what you tell them to and doesn't argue (often a valuable thing!), this has just about everything you really want/need.

step mode is straightforward enough. the cute little velocity-sensitive keys are fun to play with, but i find them unreliable. i'm not a big MIDIjunkie so i don't have much to say about MIDI implementation.

this is where things get sort of interesting. i'm amazed that as many people are satisfied with these sounds as we see in other reviews.

the bottom line is that you can only get cheesy, echo-ridden 80s-ish drum sounds out of this. they do NOT sound realistic at all, on their own. everything is awash in a really tasteless reverb. there is no tightness to any of the drum sounds whatsoever. if you want the clean, tight sound that is fashionable in most contemporary music, run far away from this machine.

that being said, the sounds are actually fun. if you want to have drum patterns for, say, cheesy 80s type synthpop, look no further! you can also get those huge, eery, echoey bass drums like on early swans records. run it through a distortion and you can get great industrial samples. it's also good if you're looking for drum parts to various subgenres of metal, especially death and black. i'm currently using this machine to record some $%^&*@ up industrial-ish black metal tracks.

also, back to what i said about unrealistic sounds, that's not strictly true. IF you can program patterns intelligently, using the stereo features and dynamics settings, then complete patterns can sound reasonably realistic, at a distance. if you pay no attention to these aspects, it will just sound like a cheesy drum machine.

i don't entirely trust this machine to stand up to true gigging abuse. if you try to stack sounds on it then the overall sound will become extremely confused. a lot of the time when i use the rubber keys, they start playing different sounds from what i programmed! this would make one sound really silly in a live situation. the physical integrity of the box is good enough for sitting around at home, but i prefer to have boxes that are built like tanks. maybe that's just me.

never dealt with them

altogether, i'm still not really sure how i feel about this thing after owning it for a year. it's only good for certain types of applications. it is NOT versatile. you can have a lot of fun with it, and in certain mixes it can sound really good... but only in certain mixes. i still use it more or less regularly, but if it were lost or stolen i'm not sure how hard i would look for it, and i'm reasonably sure i wouldn't get a new one, or if i would, then i would get it used at the lowest price possible.

all in all, i think i would be happier with it if i had paid about $50 less for it.

the first 2 days it may seem a little tricky if you are not used to drum machines, but after that its nothing. its actually layed out very well and all the controls are very simple.

there are a few things i would have done differently if i were designing it but im not so ill not bitch

it has everything you need to lay down some groovin' trax. very cool if you dont have a drummer around - and who wants to pay a smartass drummer anyway???? JK guys, you rock


there are MIDI capabilities but ive not explored them as of yet, i will know soon.

i like the sounds - and the drums that have reverb have it applied just right, and there are different levels - so if you want that stock 80s ballad sound with verb on the drums you can select different levels of verb, very cool.

if you save your own songs or simply add the fills while recording it direct into a PC recorder this thing is great. you can even set the sensitivity of the pads

it was made what, in 89?

i got mine used a month ago and its still kickin strong, so id say thats very dependable

sounds great, very portable, very handy in recording or jamming situations - and man its really got some grooves and alot of times that is inspiration enough to come up with things that you would not think of without a beat, and not just any beat....a good beat makes you wanna play better.


its a valuable practice tool as well. i hate the click click of metronomes, so this thing is for me. you can practice your ass off to get your chops going down and pretty much any sane tempo.


so yeah, id say its a very good machine. you want some drums for PC recording? a drummer for live jams with your friend? a practice partner that can really keep the tempo/beat?

like Prego - it's in there

This machine is surprisingly easy to use. The manual is questionable at best, but if you've tinkered with a drum machine before it's quite easy. I've consulted the manual for the sound table only. Everything else I've just winged it on, and so far so good. The MIDI implimentation may take some reading to work out, but making patterns, songs, and drum kits are way too easy.

It's got a 16 note polyphony, I think. There are several touch pads that are velocity sensitive, so you can add some cool dynamics to your playing. It has MIDI-in and MIDI-out, so it's compliant with the industry standard. There's a reasonable amount of room for all your patterns and kits, so this thing should have you playing for a while.

And while I'm at it, I might as well get it over with and say it again: there are no built-in effects, except for the annoying reverb on half of the sounds. There, I've said it.

The sounds are pretty darned good, especially considering they're samples from 15 years ago. I've been quite pleased with the punchiness of the snares, toms and hand drums. The cymbals are good, but some of the kicks are kind of weak. Nothing a little EQ can't fix, though. Most of the sounds are very realistic.

However, the reverb on half the samples sucks. No need to beat a dead horse. Get over it or find a better drum machine for $150 (good luck and happy hunting).

I'm quite pleased with this machine. The touch-sensitivity is very handy and lends dynamics to your sound. It reacts well to your playing, and it feels quite like an instrument rather than a programmable computer. That makes it quite fun, and an invaluable studio tool.

I've owned two of these units, both of which are still alive and kicking.

I've had good experiences with Alesis customer support.

This device is the definition of "drum machine". If you looked up "drum machine" in the dicitonary, you should see a picture of Alesis SR-16. Anyway, this thing is the king of its price range. Nothing Boss makes can touch it. It's been around for 15 years, becoming a prime musical example of the old adage "If it aint broke, don't fix it." If you don't have one of these and you have a home studio, your studio is incomplete, plain and simple. It's a fine sound source, easy to program, fun and useable, and indespensable for the studio musician.

Software ver 1.4
The preset rhytms are almost useless but for a few jazz and ballad.
The preset drum sounds are bit cheese - each preset has claps or cowbell which is not in my standard rock drum sound.
Editing on this machine is a breeze - you can easily build your own kit, send it to different panning outputs. I usually do the kit stereo and send the kick Aux 1 and snare in Aux 2 so that way I can provide them extra treatment since that is the bread and butter of rock music.
Programming songs and/or patterns is also a breeze - you can do it in real-time or in step mode.
My only complaint is that it can't do tempo changes from pattern to pattern, so if you need to speed up a song you have to do it by decreasing or increasing the measure sizes.

Polyphony is I believe at 16 notes at a time. Sometimes when you do a track at 180 tempo it can get clogged up a bit and you need to make some adjustments. A definite plus is the sound stacking option - you can layer 2 snares for a more realistic performance.
There are no built in effects - the sounds come in with already recorded reverb and delays which I find sometimes cumbersome to work with.
There are no expansion capabilities.
There are 12 pads, pressure sensitive which is really nice when you want to do a real drum roll or cymbal chokes.
There are no expansion capabilities that I know of.
MIDI capabilities I can't speak much about - I've used it so far to trigger drumbeats off of a keyboard and have synced it with keyboard and another drum module - very easy to do and the results were excellent.
I miss some of the expansion features - it could be nice if more memory could be added.
The big bummer again - the inability to change tempos when creating a song. Odd rhytms are also akward to work with when the grid is laid out for standard rock/pop 4/4 beats. Odd rhytms could be done, just that it takes some getting used to.

My biggest complaint is the lack of realistic cymbal and crash sounds. From what I heard on other machines this one is not behind, actually compared to Boss DR-5 the drum sounds on this one seem better. What I would've liked to get is more non effected drum kits. There are lots of reverb on some of the drum sounds which make them dated and even useless in some application. There are enough sounds co construct a decent kit with so that should not be a problem.
This unit has great aftertouch and key sensitivity.

Very dependable. I had it crash on me only once when I was really pushing it hard with a 11/7 or some other weird rhytm.
This unit has been rock hard and has never let me down live or in studio situation.

In the years I've had this (over 10) I had dealt with them only once - when needed to replace the power supply (fried due to user error-plugged in wrong unit into it). Very friendly and courteous user support team,

I am so used to this machine that I can operate it in my sleep. If it were gone I'd definitely miss it but will probably break down and get one of the newer units that can do tempo changes within a song - now when my sound got more proggy I definitely miss that feature.
New PC software for drum replacement and drum modules have popped up that can do more realistic sounds and use sampled kits so I am not sure if I will get this machine but I might use it to program the beats through MIDI since it is very easy and intuitive to operate.

This machine is a breeze to program. If you're having trouble with it, you're a retarded moron and you need to sell it to someone with half a brain, because that's all it takes to operate this machine. The manual is very easy to understand.

Tons of features if you take the time to learn how to use them. Some of them take time to get use to, but the end result is worth it.

You can get some really great sounds out of this machine. I've found the tuning mode to be quite useful in getting the sounds I want. To get killer tom sounds I take the low floor tom sounds and tune them up higher for my mid and high toms. I do this with almost all the sounds. It works really well.
If you take your time programing / using the step mode, tuning mode, quantize, swing and offset modes and layering, you can't tell this machine from a pro drummer. The perfect rock drum machine. Listen to the built in demo. Alesis did a great job of showing what the SR16 is capable of doing.

It's built like a tank. I bought mine in 1996 and have used it constantly for the last 8 years without one single problem. It's been dropped to many times to count. Had beer spilled in it. Cigarette ashes dumped all over it, and it still works perfect.

Never needed them!

Hands down, this is the easiest machine on the market to program. I've tried them all. I would buy another SR16 in a second if it were ever stolen of broke. Now days they only cost $149 new. $100 used. Great value!

Intuitive, easy to play, edit etc. No complaints with the presets (although the "rock" ones are a bit naff) but the joy is in the programming.

Haven't run out of polyphony yet. Love the way you can hop from pattern A to B via a fill and back again all on the fly, select patterns by keying the number in or using the up/down arrows (a much better way to get from pattern 3 to 48 than using a wheel like on the Roland/Zoom. Also like the way you can sort the drum volume by playing or step editing (eat your heart out Roland)

Sounds are showing their age now but the quality of the samples are still good. Good for rock, less so for modern pop/dance.

Had mine for 7 years and used live every week. The buttons are just starting to wear out (esp the tap tempo button) now, but it does survive falling off the keyboard quite regularly. Power supply far more robust than any of my Roland gear

Never broken down and could figure out the manual so I've never called them

I wish Alesis would upgrade this - double the memory and give us some new drum sounds, but that's all I would change. I fancied a new machine as this one is starting to wear out and have tried the Zoom and Boss DR670 and DR3 (previous drum machines in the last 20 years came from the Roland stable) but they're not a patch on this if you want to use it live, hop around patterns, enjoy midi in/out and have more than a stereo pair for outputs. As they're now selling for under #100 I'll probably buy another one until I see something better come around (but that could be a long wait).

I am running Version 1.04 of this which after a few e-mail exchanges with Alesis customer support I learned was the latest production version. The drum samples are 16 bit which is more than adequate for performance purposes as well as recording. My machine was built in '94 which means that it is 10 years old. They are still available for sale from most online music sites and command a discount price around $150 so contrary to other reviews on this page I find the samples among other box functionality of very high quality. Regarding editing patches, you have two choices in this area: creating and editing your own patterns, and creating and editing your own drum set. Not only did Alesis take a lot of time in the "obvious" (to the end user) subject of usability, there are subtle nuances that they considered that affect the overall performance. For example you can decide if a particular drum is allowed its full decay or if a subsequent event stops the previous one short. The most obvious example of this is going from an open to closed hi-hat which is prevalent throughout most genres of music. There are settings to govern this behavior in the interest of making the synthesis sound as natural as possible. I will use the term "drum" as convenience in this review, but that term represents ANY percussion instrument that is in the SR-16's memory and that you have access to. Because pattern composition occurs as a loop where you can add successive drums to the loop you have a lot of flexibility. If you make a mistake, you can either erase that drum "track" entirely or just the area of the mistake >>in real time<<. The user interface is very natural and it is designed so that either with a set of headphones (the outputs are just hot enough at full volume to drive headphones), or plugged into an amp you can compose a new pattern group (A, B, A-fill, B-fill) if the 50 built in pattern groups aren't enough. I spent about 10-15 minutes creating my own pattern group and not only does it sound quite natural going through all four patterns in the group, but I can jam on my keyboard along with it and when the two are put together it's as good as live performance with a real drummer.

The manual(s) are as good as it gets! Although I purchased mine second hand, it came with the Quick Start Guide, Reference Manual, and Voice inventory card. The Quick Start Guide is good enough to get you going with the basics, including making sounds, and editing patterns and drum sets. For most stuff you can probably just use a pattern and its A/B/A-fill/B-fill variations, but if you want to spice things up a bit you can create "songs" which are playlists of patterns that you can create in steps. For example, if a pattern is 8 beats, and you want 8 measures in 4/4 time you can create 4 steps to get the 8 measures. Songs are lists of pointers to patterns you specify and since a song doesn't carry the actual beat information, only a sequence of patterns which already occupy either ROM or non-volatile RAM memory, a song takes very little storage. The SR-16 holds 100 songs of 254 steps each where a step holds a pattern. At 120 BPM with 8 beat patterns, this roughly translates into 17 minutes per song. For a box circa 1990 that's not too bad - 1700 minutes of song storage. Like Alesis did with their MMT-8 they excelled in this machine also. The Reference Manual goes into much more detail, and includes a brief tutorial on MIDI if you are new to it. This is one of the best AND SIMULTANEOUSLY the easiest drum machine to use of the ones that I've played with before buying.

Polyphony is adequate as long as you don't go crazy with "drum stacking". If you are looking at creating natural sounding drum parts, even ones with percussion, you should have no problem in this department. The unit has reverb effects (ambient, room, hall), and the "out of the box" drum set presets seem to have them in the right places (I've performed for about 30 years on and off with real drummers in the quest for "that sound", in order to make that comparison). Each drum has a dry, ambient, room, and hall version and if you don't like the drum sets that are preset in the units ROM, you can create your own. The unit is a hardware drummer and so it is not expandable, but I have not found limitations at this point in time. The unit has MIDI in and out/thru which is another example of good planning. The thru function is programmable to merge the internally generated MIDI with the MIDI-in data stream. While most won't use this, it becomes necessary when you want the SR-16 to be the timing master (in case of an external sequencer for recording). For example my Yamaha keyboard's MIDI out goes to the SR-16 in which generates the clock for all MIDI devices on the loop. The SR-16 has its thru enabled so that both the SR-16's timing and my keyboard's performance data drives my MMT-8 (Alesis hardware sequencer). The MMT-8's MIDI out then drives the MIDI-in of my Yamaha. I now have a fully polyphonic recording studio properly timed and hardware based (I own Cakewalk Home Studio 2003, but find computer based sequencing for the creative process cumbersome.) I use my Cakewalk more for post-production. The SR-16 itself is both a drum synthesizer AND a sequencer in its own right and can work as a sound module if you want to feed it a stream with drum pads.

I purchased an Alesis MMT-8 hardware sequencer about a year ago, second hand and this drum machine completes my complement of MIDI recording gear. Hardware sequencers are hard to come by in this age of soft-everything. I find the hardware a little more conducive to the creative process since I don't have to interact with mouse and keyboard and be near my PC. That's just my opinion, though.

I find all the sounds realistic, without all the fuss of proper mike positioning and equalization/effects processing that comes with a real drummer. The sounds are as good as those recorded professionally because they are samples, and the programmed patterns were a result of using real studio drummer performance data to generate the stored pattern data. The reverbs are versatile and I find them of a musically desireable quality. The 50 programmed pattern groups cover nearly all genres of music so it is very usable for most types of modern music. Generating your own patterns can be done by the 12 velocity sensitive buttons, although it's difficult to be consistent tapping rubber pads. You can enter step-editing (as opposed to real-time editing)mode to clean up the sequences and re-adjust the volume of drum hits that aren't consistent, for example from an A to a B pattern or to the corresponding fills. I forgot to mention above that the samples are what Alesis refers to as "Dynamic Articulation". That is, their timbre is modified the harder you strike the pad which lends realism to the sounds. I'll give this category an 8 only because it is difficult to be consistent tapping the drum pads on the device, but for a circa 1990 design this thing was years ahead of its time.

I have replaced the 3v lithium battery used to retain memory in a power-off condition. Although it appeared to retain its memory, typical life of these batteries is about 10 years and this thing just passed its 10th birthday. I also use the SYSEX dump and restore to a computer to back it up. Other than that I haven't had a crash yet. I did start out (and recommend to all who buy one of these second hand) to erase the memory before you begin relying on it. There are instructions for this in the manual and if yours doesn't come with a manual you can download the manuals in PDF format directly from Alesis for no charge. I play twice a week and would use it in a minute if our drummer doesn't show up for a practice or performance. It is invaluable in the studio. I'll give it a 10 for the fact that I've not had any problems with it and that it has withstood the test of time and is still on the market 14 years later.

Prompt response to e-mails, very helpful and friendly.

If it were lost or stolen, I would replace it again with another. I find it worth every penny I paid for it. I've been a musician for about 30 years, and have played in various bands in all genres of music. I've owned some fairly modern synthesis equipment including a Yamaha PSR-GX 76 and Kurzweil PC1X, keyboard amps (Behringer and Roland), home built Leslie 145 (with modern drivers and solid-state MOSFET power amp). I also use (as previously discussed)an Alesis MMT-8 hardware sequencer and Cakewalk Home Studio 2003. I'll probably use the Cakewalk software as post-production edit and final cut of analog tracks before creating a CD, but I prefer the hardware sequencing as I find it more conducive to the creative process.

I got this thing about 4 days ago and i'm already creating complicated, super speedy drum beats. I play death metal with this, and it works great for the very technical very fast drum parts associated with the new frenzied style of death metal. I havent really tried to change the drum sounds or (sound stacking) with it, but the manual seems pretty easy to fallow so it should'nt be hard. at first this machine may seem complicated, just read the manual and play around with the machine and it will come to you rather quickly like a few days or so.

it has enough. I just wanted a machine that could create some crazy drum parts and create them easily. it sounds good it does enough, people may complain that it cant do this or that, there gay. it has everything it needs to create any drum parts you want, sounds good and is pretty easy. what else do you need!

sounds good. but if it does'nt sound good enough for you just go into the sound stacking mode. if you can't get good enough sounds then, your gay! its a drum machine, its sounds good for a machine

only had it for a few days, works so far

don't know

death heads buy this machine! for 150 bucks you can't go wrong! I was'nt really expecting it to be as good as it is for 150 bucks. its professional quality. people that complain about it must be dumb.

Have used the SR-16 4 yrs in home-studio. Alesis has all the user/programmer functions easily identified and in user-friendly locations. Multiple outputs (4) are helpful for studio mixing and effects sends. By building patterns in layers using different pad levels and quantisizations realistic performances can be programmed. Each pad can be panned, tuned and stacked to create a multitude of sound variations. Ease of SONG mode in programming compared to other machines makes it a musicians friend. Used as a live instrument it is also very reliable and easy to use.

Pads are sensitive and expressive. Mount on a solid non-movable surface and check quantisization to avoid miss-hits. Stereo reverb on various patches is good and although may seem to be "overdone" help create the feel needed on certain sounds at the out-set of a session without involving external devices or all the other patches. I liked having the different ambiance selections. Never used the tape back-up. SET-UP features are easily accessed by paging menus. No back-light on the LCD display could be a problem in low-light situations. I sometimes forgot to erase all the patterns on a given #, (A, B, A fill, B fill each are done separately.) Copying patterns is easy and helps in creating pattern variations while still keeping basic pattern. Large inset VOLUME dial is easy to use and doesn't get accidently bumped during performance. A similar TEMPO dial might also be useful for faster changes.

Dynamic response makes the SR-16 a versatile drum machine. Especially useful in the percussive sounds and in fill patterns. No global on-board effects which may or may not be effective for all patches/drumsets simultaneously anyway. An ability to insert an effect into a patch may be what is really needed. Sounds fit most Pop/Rock/Easy Listening/ styles well. Special effects are not included.

Very dependable. Power source is 9VAC not DC. The transformer is not the typical universal multiple DC out one found in any Radio Shack etc. So if your hard on cables or lose things easily I'd have back-ups, or know where to find one. No battery back-up. Keep the manual for trouble-shooting, I thought I wrecked my SR-16 once because the LCD went dim but all it needed was a reboot at start-up (ERASE/PLAY simultaneously.) Hard, well-constructed case.

Never needed customer support. Alesis web-page has many features and down-loadable products. Search there first.

Had a Roland, Yamaha, previously for drum machines. This is better. Don't know much about other "newer" brands/models that include basslines, sequencing lines, riffs, sampling, effects etc. Maybe that's coming in their next generation model. Love the ease of playing/programming and its reliability. Wish it had headphone output, a few more up-to-date sounds, backlit LCD, different storage/back-up medium. If this fails I'll look for another or the next Alesis drum machine available.

The presets on the Alesis are pretty cool, editing the samples is pretty simple, and depending on how you use it can have rally good effects on the sounds. I liked the manual, it wasn't hard to get your questions answer (I'd be surprised if the thing was 40 pages), and that in turn makes it really easy to learn the unit.

For a dru machine that's 10 years old, the polyphony is ok...I've only run into problems when going overboard trying to stack drum samples. It's doesn't have any way to expand it, but it does have MIDI outs, so you can drive another module if you like (I use mine to sequence my dmPro). Using the onboard sequencer of any device is work, but I don't find that it gets in my way, step editing can be a chore though.

The range of sounds on the SR-16 can go from very useable to funny and almost comedic, but then again it's a drum machine, and one made in 1990 at that. I recorded a gothic/doom metal with the machine, as well as several demos so for Rock I can't complain. I can't really vouch for other styles though. Seems like the 'traditional' styles would be ok (rock, jazz, country) someone into the newest rave-type stuff may want to look elsewhere. The onboard effects would be alot better if they weren't tied to the samples. This is actual one of my biggest gripes about the machine, you could have the same sample (kick drum for instance...) repeated in three different places, with three different levels of ambience, untying them would have allowed for more samples. Just my 2 cents. The SR does have velocity, I've never used it (just programmed in dynamics directly) so I can't say.

My first SR-16 I bought from a friend in '92. I'm on my third now. Neer had a problem with them failing, just have a problem with them getting stolen. We usual backup with a dat, so no I've never carried a backup.

Never needed them, so I can't say. For the price though, if one did fail, I'd probably just buy antoher one...y'know depending on the circumstances.

These are three wishes if Alesis were to ever upgrade the SR-16

1. Untie the effects from the samples, so you can actually use the sample space for samples.

2. Tempos adjustable on a per pattern and per song basis, with a global tempo adjust. For programming and live purposes, this would be a godsend.

3. Less tedious step editing.

I have a feeling that their dm series addresses this already (minus the sequencing) so we'll probably never see it, but here's to hoping.

I had owned an older Boss Dr. Rhythm before this machine and it was much easier to get going on that one. But this is not necessarily a bad thing, because it seems to me that the Alesis offers a lot more options than does the Boss. I don't recall the Dr. Rhythm ever having the capabilities that this machine does. So I'll give it an 8, because once you do get acquianted with it it's a pretty logical machine to use. It just has a bit of a learning curve.

Very good drum sounds overall. Like another reviewer, I wish you could cancel out the ambient effects on the sounds, but having them doesn't really render them completely unusable. I love the velocity sensitive keypads, which the Dr. Rhythm lacked. It really adds a much more natural feel to the drums as a whole (though nothing can ever replace the real thing). Combining some of the drier, natural sounding snares with the velocity pads and the ability to step edit down to the millisecond, I'm able to get some really amazing, natural sounding complex lines with lots of little rolls and flams (think military/march style snare lines and you've got it). Was NEVER able to get the old Dr. Rhythm to nail those at all!

I also love the swing and offset options, which adds an even more human touch. You can also switch off the quantization....excellent!!! Once again, much more than the old Dr. Rhythm I had offered (I don't know about the new ones, but I have a little experience with them).

I did wish it had a few more cymbal options, particularly hi-hats. The step mode is a little more tedious than the Dr. Rhythm was, and you don't really have a visual readout of your pattern...you kind of have to make a mental note what sounds are where (though if you scroll through the steps it will play the sounds so you don't REALLY have to remember).

I would say a fair majority of the sounds are realistic, and probably about 90% of the sounds are usuable. Drum machines tend to sound much more synthetic when used on their own in my experience. Once you begin to add other instruments to the mix, things to tend to sound a little less stiff. The swing, quantize-off, and offset features are big pluses for the SR-16 in these areas, because it helps it "naturalize" even more.

The snare and bass drum sounds are very good, and there's a good variety. The cymbals, as is the case with every drum machine I've ever used, are not too convincing, but dousing them in a little reverb to help the decay alwasy helps. There's no good trashy open hat sound like I had on the Dr. Rhythm, but the open hat sounds on the SR-16 are more than adequate and sound much better in a mix than stand-alone. I use the toms sparingly, but that's just my style. There are a few sets of really nice toms that I always go back to.

Even the big hair drum sounds have their uses, and sound great in Chemical Brothers/house style mixes. The percussion sounds are also a lot of fun to play with.

This will be a studio-only tool for me. I intend to take very good care of it. In that sense, I would expect it to be very dependable

For a drum machine programmed in 1990, it sure holds up. I tend to be somewhat picky about how drums sound on my recordings and this machine more than meets my standard. Once again, the velocity pads, swing option, offset option, and quantize options are utterly fantastic, and the fact that this unit is around $100-$200 less than the newer Boss units doesn't really make me care what those guys can do, I've got what I need in this module (and I own a lot of Boss stuff). I have some limited experience with the newer ones and they are very good machines, though. Above all, this machine has what I consider to be extremely important - the ability to "humanize" the rhythm and tones.

I think this machine is an excellent alternative to the aforementioned machines, especially if you're on a budget. I would love to see some software updates for it, but I'm very happy with it as is. The ability to create very realistic and dynamic drum lines has very much inspired me to reach beyond the same old rhythm lines and time signatures. Just about anything I can conceive rhythmically can be done on this machine it seems (odd time signatures, easily lengthened/shortened patterns, etc). I'm very very happy and satisfied with this product.

my machine has the copyright for 1990 on the first "fire up" screen so i asssume naturally that it has the older software (i dunno if there's a newer version).but this does not affect the machine however since this thing completely kills for complicated death/math/hardcore.

sometimes the machine gets a little muddy during fast complicated fills but thats also because my guitars are 110% distorted..so the fact that you can hear the fills and whatnot is amazing.

Ive mainly used mine for fast drum work that is very hard/impssible for drummers to play...here and there i've fiddled with some tripped out garbage and it worked well for that but...the reverbs for the toms lack a bit of life but hey...i record drums dry any way and add reverb if i need it on my tascam 8track

i bought the machine in may 1998 and it took me about three hours to fully understand everything in it...very easy and its never even crashed despite lightning storms (im in florida) or power surges or any thing else for that matter..its even survived a few beer spills but i highly DO NOT recommend spilling beer on anything but your stomach.

bought used so..

if my drum machine was stolen i would hunt the sumsabieotches down and make them feel rather unfortunate that i caought them...this machine is so easy and able to do anything that it has become my other primary instument other than guitar..

Pretty easy to use. I got a little hung up on the manual
when it was new, because some features are described
in the main manual, while others are only in the "quick
start" manual -- the two aren't cross-referenced. The
information is, however, all there.
I'd also like to have seen a larger snare trigger pad (to
make real-time snare rolls a little easier.)

It has a pretty good set of features. Once you learn to use
them, it's fairly flexible for a stand-alone device.
I still find myself pining for a global "defeat" button for
shutting off the Bon Jovi/Springsteen ambience effects --
some otherwise-fine-sounding drums are awash in reverb
which won't mesh with the other sounds in a mix.
I'd really like to have seen a headphone jack, too. This
is the only drum machine I've seen which doesn't have one.

After auditioning the sounds, I made a blown-up photocopy
of the sound chart, then highlighted the sounds that were
pretty decent (in yellow) potentially useful under limited
circumstances (pink) and useless in all instances (green.)
Sadly, there's a lot of green.
The main problem, as noted by myself and others, is that the
drum sounds are too "treated" with reverb, etc, which can't
be unstuck from the basic sample -- they're part of it.
The dry samples (and the drier-sounding wet ones, like the
"room" snare) are decent, but the majority are definitely
slanted towards the "big hair" era. That is, after all,
when the machine was developed (the "copyright, Alesis,
1990" scrolls across the screen every time you power-up.)
An updated version, with a new batch of sounds, and a global
ambience-defeat button (like the Boss 770) would have given
what is really still a pretty good design some extra legs.
Sadly, it's sounding rather dated by today's standards.
The good sounds are ok; there just aren't too many of
them.
Not useless by any means -- just showing its age.

I had to re-boot once (an easy task, well-described in the
manual.) That was soon after I bought it, and I don't
think I lost anything.
Other than that, it's been very good for about 5 years now.

No idea.

I still use it -- what's good about it remains good.
If I were Alesis, then I'd revise it with a new set of
samples, an on-board ambience capability, and a more
"linear" (non-skipping-around) manual. I think it would
be a winner. Even so, it still has some degree of utility.
I replaced it with a Boss 770, but ended up returning the
Boss and keeping the SR16. Navigating the Alesis step-edit
mode made more sense to me, and the Alesis allows one to string
together multiple "songs" into a full arrangement (the 770
needs to be programmed one measure at a time.)
The SR16's strengths still outweigh its shortcomings, though
I continue to search for a significantly better sounding unit
with decent programming functions.

Very easy, a few buttons, patterns, songs, a basic machine. Anyone can do the job. No manual needed.

It has 4 outputs which is quite handy when you can send them to a mixing console where you can eq and ad the effects, because they are needed! Nice hitpads.

Only for rock. I hate the reverbs on almost any drumsample. Thats a shame! Drums are not suitable for D&B, breakbeats or anything. If your an oldschool rocker, buy it!

Volume nobs dies. No problem, set it open and dont touch it again.
Strong unit; everlasting.

Dont know

Had it for a week. Didnt like the rock samples. Sold it to a metalhead. Dont change pattern length: it wil crash and you will have to reset!

This machine takes some getting used to, but once you've learned a feature, it is easy to repeat. The manual is good and gives detailed instuctions on how to use/program the machines. The presets are OK to get started, but some programming is definately needed if you want to make realistic drum tracks with this machine.

Excellent features. 4 separate outputs gives great recording flexibility. You can route snare and base to 2 outputs, then toms and overheads to others. This gives great mixdown options. I have yet to see other drum machines with this many outputs. A couple other nice items: Foot pedal activating of start/stop, fills, pattern switching and tempo. This is great if your play another instument and want drum backing at the same time.

Sounds are pretty good, particulary at analog drum sounds. Symbols are probably the weak point with the sample seeming to cut off a bit to soon. I have used this primarily as drum track for recording rock/blues and it has served well.

I've had this for ten years and the only problem has been with "scratchiness" when adjusting the volume level. Besides that, not a problem,

One of the better investments in gear that I have made. This unit has been on the market for over 12 years and is still selling at or near it's original price. It's easy to use, sounds good and sits pretty well in a mix. You can pick one up used for <$100 and it really can't be beat. If you don't like it, you'll sell it without losing much if any money. It's a pipe dream, buy I'd love to see Alesis put some updates into this machine. No real upgrades have been done since this machine was released.

i'm not sure why most of the reviews here are rather unappreciative. this machine, which is made in the early 90s, has a lot more going on than what people give it credit for. i think the sequcner is awesome because it lets you switch between step and real-time recording by the pressing of a button. if you don't like the 233 sounds the way they are, hook it up to a sampler and edit them. i agree the presets are crap, but what composer uses PRESETS??? that's what sequencers are for, they are for sequencing your OWN patterns! it pays off to read the manual, which is perfectly readable.

MIDI Capability: MIDI in, out/thru. Velocity-sensitive (or what they call Dynamic Articulation) keypads.

The unit is fairly easy to use. There are no 3/4 time pre-sets, although they can be programmed. Overall, the pre-sets are not all that useful given the overuse of reverb. The manual is better than average, and yes, you do need it to perform many of the functions correctly, unless you're fond of the trial and error method. My biggest complaint is that the unit "froze" when I was trying to change the length of a pattern. This was after about ten days after purchase. I returned the unit to Mars Music and received a new one.
Would you believe? -- a week after that the same thing happened! The unit deep-sixed while I was trying to perform the same function. This time I'm gettin a refund. Anyway, while it was working, it was fairly easy to use so I give it an eight in this category.

The feature that attracted me to the SR-16 in the first place is that it is the ideal drum machine for live performance. It enables you to change from A to B patterns and insert fills on the fly; and all of these variations are programmable. Importantly, it always starts and restarts on the downbeat, unlike most other drum machines on the market today. The absence of this feature makes life very difficult for the live performer. Actually, and I'll get on my soapbox here, the marketplace needs an up-to-date drum machine specifically designed for live performance. Not all of us want to program entire songs/sequences nor do we want to be locked in to a sequence. Just give us some usable patterns, the ablilty to create new patterns, and the capability to interject variations -- all on the fly. Are any of the manufacturers listening out there? Anyway, the SR-16, introduced over ten years ago, was probably the most recent (lets hope not the last)user-friendly machine for the live performer. I'm giving the SR-16 a ten for design here. If only it was more reliable.

I found the pre-sets to be practically useless. Fortunately, some of the drum sounds are not drenched in reverb and so some interesting drum kits can be created.

As explained above, I wouldn't use an SR-16 on a gig even with a backup. Two units going down within three weeks time? Maybe that's why they've stopped making them. If my experience is typical, however, it makes me wonder how the unit survived for over ten years.
I have other Alesis gear and have not had these kinds of problems with it.

Since it was a recent purchase, Mars exchanged the first unit and they were very accommodating. I'm taking the second unit (which just conked out last night) back later today. Haven't dealt directly with Alesis.

The SR-16 would be my drum machine of choice if it was reliable. There is nothing else out there that I am aware of (maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong) that offers the features that it does for a live performer. Anyway, I invested many many hours of programming time during the three weeks I owned one and it was all for naught. Maybe I understand better why there are so many of these machines for sale on the 'net and in classified ads. A good concept -- lousy execution.

Had this thing for awhile. It's really easy. Manual is good. Step function takes some getting used to. Once you get the math, you're home free. Easy copying, pasting.

Features are good for the price. Velocity senitive and can alter volume of each note...that's big. Wish it had a roll button. The quantizer while recording is okay, but just to get the notes in their place. You'll have to go back and adjust volume of each hit (hihat for example) to get a more human feel. And it's a drum machine, that's all...which is cool. It also has two sets of inputs, so you can track drum sounds individually to your recorder.

This is where it starts to lose me. As expressed before, it's got sounds circa 1988. A lot of reverb on the patches - too bad you can't add it after to taste (or use outboard effects). This means that out of the 50 some odd snares, only a few are usable..same with bass drum. I've had success using the "Wood" bass drum and the piccolo snares. Also the "rim2cntr" snare is cool. When hit soft, it sounds like a half rim shot, and hard sound like a regular hit. Vis-a-vis for "cntr2rim". You can get some good effects with altering the volumes and using two of the same patch with different volumes.

The Cymbals aren't that great. I would have liked to see more variations on tight to loose hi-hats. Very few crashes. No splashes. Toms are very reverby...only a few can be used. I don't use percussion all that much, but agree with an earlier post: use a real shaker or tamborine, and it fools the ears.

Mine is old...but works like charm. Cracklin' volume knob...but no prob with the outputs.

n/a

Well, I thinking on upgrading to a Boss DR-770. I'm hoping it is as easy to program as this was. The SR-16 is a great machine. Just make the drum kit with the patches that sound good, and it works. I really like it, but I'm looking to upgrade the sounds a bit. Otherwise, this is a great piece of gear. It's a serious drum machine, and it's not a dance composer...that's what I like.

Fairly easy to use. As for the person below who couldn't figure out the half steps appearing in the pattern, I would guess that is because you are recording with quantized beats. If you want your patterns to succintly begin and end on the first beat, you will need to record that beat quantized. As for the rest of the beats, you are better suited to record those unquantized to get a less "electronic" feel to it.

This is a bit of a process, but in the end you will be happier with the result. As with anything, you are going to have to work a bit to get the most out of the unit. If you want to just plug and play, well, you can do that to but at the cost of expression.

Features are good: complex rhythm composition, plenty of samples, extensive ability to compose. There is no headphone jack, sure. For me, that's no issue since I just run the stereo outs to my mixer anyway. I simply run my headphones from the mixer instead.

And yes, there should have been an on board reverb rather than recorded reverb. Not only does the recorded reverb detract from live playing, but it alters the reverb symmetry when adding effects to your final mixes in recording.

Dynamic articulation is the best thing to ever happen to drum machines. It certainly adds to the "realism". However, the decay is too quick. While not as much of an issue on the drums when mixed down with your recordings, the cymbals are startingly dead. You could probably fool some unknowing listeners with the drums alone, but the cymbals will give away your secret use of a drum machine in a second.

With that said, it still sounds far better (when fully utilized) than most any other machine you will find out there on the market.

Also, there is a "caveman's" trick to making it sound better. Enhance the machine with live percussion. Add a shaker or a tambourine through a mike and it will add a touch of "realism" to your rhythm tracks.

No problems. Ever. Of course, it sits mounted on a table in a clean studio with no smoke or food or drinks around. How could it go bad?

N/A

I certainly would consider buying another one if something were to happen to it. Especially given the current prices of these units, they are hard to beat in terms of cost.

However, I would also consider trying a new unit just to add new sounds after all these years. That's personal, not practical.

I've had my Alesis SR-16 drum machine a little over two years. Unlike the Yamaha it replaced, I've used it very little. I've never been able to figure out why, after programming a number of individual parts, and then editing them together into a song, the parts are always a split-second off beat each time it comes 'round to the next programmed piece.

In other words, it's like - (Part 1) 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and-UH (Part 2) 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and-UH, etc. instead of seamlessly bringing the two parts together without the "UH" extra half-beat added. It does this every single time. I've read and re-read the manual many times trying to figure out what causes this (quantization?), have turned the quantize function off, have turned it on full, tried every possible setting on the device, but it always has the little "and-uh" connector to the next programmed part. Consequently, the songs never sound natural and flowing, but always have that little herky-jerky quality to them each 4 or 8 bar transition.

I've thought it over many times, trying to figure out how to make do with this drum machine, since it's practically new and barely used other than the hours I've whiled away trying to get some usable drum song-patterns down to demo songs (which I've had very little success at). I can only guess that this drum machine has become so popular with many others because: 1) These are people who've never owned another drum machine, and don't realize how programmed parts are supposed to fit together seamlessly when edited into a song, with no extra split-second beats or half-beats added by the device. 2) These are people who have such a poor sense of meter that they don't notice the extra split-second beat that is added when they edit programmed parts into a song; or 3) The device I bought was messed-up from the beginning and has never worked correctly out of the box. I can't believe they all work this way and have become as popular as they are.

Nevertheless, I wanted to see if anyone out in cyberspace ever heard of this happening with your SR-16 drum machine, and if you have any input as to what could be the matter. I'm currently trying to sell mine and get another Yamaha, as I know those work perfectly - at least the one I owned previously did. I would have a complete song programmed from start to finish within 30 minutes and be laying down other tracks around it shortly after. With the SR-16, I'm lucky to get 16 bars programmed in 30 minutes, because if you're a nanosecond off the click when tapping in the beat, it won't correct it for you like the Yamaha, but instead records it that nanosecond off-beat.

The samples of the drums are excellent, but the writing capabilities are pretty bad - at least on the one I bought.

Up and down buttons aren't my favorite user interface for complex tasks, but Alesis didn't have much of a choice here, and they did a remarkable job with it. I suppose if they designed the thing today, they'd include some kind of PC interface, which would be nice. Still, the only thing I didn't understand at first, this being my first drum machine, was that a fill plays into the first beat of the next pattern. Duh! But they should have mentioned it prominently in the manual. I hadn't touched the thing in years, but last night I picked it right back up. I don't even know where the manual is, and I don't need it.

I agree with others that lack of expandability is the SR-16's major shortcoming. There's tons of space for user patterns and songs, synch with position pointer, 16-voice polyphony, footswitch jacks for start/stop and count-A/B-fill, two sets of big 1/4" audio outs, and more. I wish it had a headphone jack. It wouldn't rate an 8 against really full-featured machines, but for my purposes, and for the price, it's nearly perfect, so...

The other reviewers nailed it when they complained about the big, ugly, useless reverb on most of the kicks and snares. It is a horrible monster stomping all over the mix. But the kicks and snares mentioned below are useful, and also the "Pure Snare" and most of the percussion sounds. Maybe I'm the only one who gets excited over congas and cowbells, but they are great. The crash cymbals, on the other hand... well, it is a drum machine. You can get pretty convincing sounds out of the rides and hat if you do it right-- use the ride bell and the interplay between open and closed hats. Most important for all the samples is to program your own patterns and USE THE DYNAMIC ARTICULATION, i.e., vary the velocities of the notes. If you're not using all 16 voices, you can get more dynamics by assigning the same sample to two different pads slightly detuned from each other. I've made tom fills and conga solos that, well, took my breath away at least. But if you just leave every note on 8 it'll sound like what it is, a cheap drum machine. Points off for the tubby 80s sounds.

Last night I realized, with great queasiness, that I've had this thing for 10 years. It's been tossed around in trucks, steeped in cig smoke, left out to collect enough dust to grow potatoes in, and its only problem is a crackly volume knob, which is my fault.

Never had to deal with them.

If it got lost or stolen, I'd be sad, but I'd probably move to an all-PC solution since portability is no longer an issue for me. I could not ask this thing to do more for so many years for the price I paid.

When the SR-16 came out originally, I balked at getting one, primarily
because I had owned a HR-16, which had given me nothing but fits.....
long-time ROLAND TR-series advocate here. Anyway, mid-1993 rolls
around, my TR-707 had long since bit the proverbial dust, and I had
STUPIDLY GIVEN AWAY an absolutely pristine, mint TR-909 to a friend (yes, I've kicked myself
long and HARD over that...) I plunked down the doe, and scuttled home
with my new toy. I think the manual is pretty straight-forward; it was
very easy to "cross the train-tracks" from ROLAND to ALESIS, though I
still prefer the ROLAND programming scheme.

Does it have effects? ARRRRRRGH! Yes, if you enjoy sounding like
Poison or Motley Crue. The majority of the sampled sounds are
drenched with reverb, which has WAY TOO MUCH decay. Renders most of
the sounds absolutely useless for today's music. I'm not particularly
taken by using the keys to program, either....I tend to use a ROLAND
PAD-8 to trigger the sounds via sticks. It has all the necessary MIDI
implementation/commands/ports; it's pretty much up-to-date in that
respect.

The OVERUSE of reverbs on most of the samples seems to be the main
complaint for this unit; I totally agree most are useless becuase of
the ambience. The dry samples, however, are quite good. Several of
the snares (especially the CHROME, LOW CHROME, and various PICCOLO
samples) are totally valid for current styles. The kicks, however,
suffer from the typical mid '80's "clicky kick" sound, a'la the YAMAHA
RX7, RX11, ad naseum. Not very realistic at all. However, the OLD WOOD, LOW
WOOD, and GARAGE KICK are useable, the latter being a wide-open,
buzzy, flappy dry kick sound.
My single biggest beef with this machine is this: fifteen years ago,
when you heard a drum machine, it pretty much sounded like a drum
machine, and everyone was happy. With this mongrel, though, if you're
the least bit "off" in your programming, you just come off sounding
like a really lousy drummer with no sense of dynamics at all.
It's all, or nothing.

Reliability wise, it's a workhorse. I've left it on for days at a time,
I haven't dropped, kicked, spit, whizzed or poo'ed on it, but I ASSUME
it would take said stupid abuse, and continue right on. ALESIS does
make quality stuff....I still have an original MIDIVERB (1985) that I
use for the gated, "Phil Collinesque" sounds.
I haven't put myself in front of a bunch of raging drunks (bar
audience) for money for over ten years...but I don't think I would
mind using it on a gig, if I did.

I had to call ALESIS once about the MIDIVERB, and they were VERY
helpful. Haven't had any problems with the SR-16. As to the price I
paid, this was mid-1993.....I haven't a clue, but I can assure you
it was more than most of the internet dealers are chugging them out
for these days.

When I first got the unit, I was soooo impressed with it. But the
honeymoon was over pretty quickly. What's designed to sound impressive
and overwhelming in the showroom (e.g., the reverbs), get very very
annoying very quickly. Sort of the same way a lot of inexpensive loudspeakers
are designed with an over-blown top-end that sounds good when you
demo them, but grates on your nerves like a razor on glass soon after.
Would I buy another.....unlikely.
I recently auditioned the BOSS DR-770, and didn't think much of it,
either....way too many things that go "BOING"...and I don't need on-
board slap bass samples.
If ALESIS had planned a way to upgrade the sound sets via card or
download (keep in mind, this WAS 1990 :), this would have been THE
END-ALL drum machine. As it is, it's still an interesting, useable,
"mature" drum machine thats unfortunately sounding more and more
"dated" with each passing year.

The SR-16 is one of the dead simplest pieces of digital music gear ever invented. The manual is excellent, written by Craig Anderton of all people...but the unit itself is so simple there's not really any need for a manual at all! All I can say is, if you can't figure this out, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE never buy a piece of gear with the name Roland or Yamaha on it!

One of the really nice features is the ability to do odd time signatures easily. It's still a great, easy to use sequencer, even 10 years old. The 10 year old sounds don't hold up as well, there is too much 'verb on a lot of sounds (It's not an onboard reverb processor, people...the verb is RECORDED with the samples) But still there's enough variety to get good rhythms going for any kind of demo or songwriting application.

See above. Best for Rock, but can work for anything. No onboard effects. Excellent velocity sensitive pads.

Built like a brick shit house. These babies last forever. Never heard of one breaking.

I'd say a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10

For the $125 or so you'll pay on eBay (where there are always 10 or so of these up for sale) it's still an awesome value.

I can only assume that those rating this at 10 work for Alesis. After two years of experimenting and attempting to understand the manual I am at last getting somewhere....,

I have never used another drum machine so I have nothing to compare it to but the tracks I have recorded sound good enough. The editing is a nightmare, selected drum sets revert of their own accord and there is no sequencer as far as I can make out.

Some drum sets sound very realistic, others rather trite. One board panning useful, pre-loaded drum patterns are rather "last year".

So far so good. Hasn't broken down yet.

Called to ask for help and a rather mystified customer services person couldn't understand why I was having such problems. It's so easy to use......,

It's small, transportable, stero, ideal for a small studio where no drummer would fit. Yet it's such a bitch to programme. Which means I am probably not getting as much out of it as I could.

This is an insanely complicated machine to use. The other reviewers who claimed that the manual is easy to use must either be much more experienced with drum machines than I am, or they have a different model SR-16 than I do. The manual with my SR-16 is clear as mud, and programming the thing is like doing calculus. At this point I've given up programming it and I'm just banging on the pads. The manual is incomprehensible, and so editing patches is impossible. The presets sound OK - somewhat late 80s/early 90s rock drum oriented, not much subtlety. Why in the world they put REVERB on every single kit is beyond me.

Built in effects include reverb, which is all over the presets and pretty much impossible to get rid of. It does have MIDI capability, but no expansion capabilities. I don't know what it can do with MIDI, because the manual is utterly incomprehensible. It does have some sort of sequencer, I imagine, but as before, the manual's utter incomprehensibility makes it impossible for me to say anything. I'm giving it a 5, because it seems to have a good number of features; too bad the damn manual is so poorly written it's impossible to figure out how to use them. And what is up with the REVERB?

It sounds like a drum machine. A good drum machine, but a drum machine. Most of the presets seem oriented toward various kinds of rock music, and some of the kits sound very schmaltzy and cliche'd. The onboard effects consist of reverb, and the reverbs are terrible; they need to just stop doing that. It is possible that there is some way to turn off the reverb, but again, the incomprehensible, utterly arcane manual insures that you will have to be a programmer with a degree in higher mathematics to figure out how to do it. The pads are touch sensitive, which means you have to bang the hell out of them to get it to make any kind of noise. Turning up the volume, of course, increases the hiss.

I can't even program this thing, so depending on it or using it on a gig is completely out of the question.

I haven't tried to deal with the company. They can't be contacted via their website the last time I tried. Upgrade it? Hell, I can't even understand the manual!

If this thing were lost or stolen, I would be entirely happy. If I had to do it all over again, I'd pay the extra bucks and buy one of the Roland units. I guess that's what I get for trying to get something for nothing. You get what you pay for, I suppose. At this point I think I would be better off with a Mattel Synsonics. I had friends who used this machine with some success and read a few good reviews, but my experience with it has been entirely negative. I have used other Alesis products in the past and had similar problems (i.e., the instruction manuals were utterly incomprehensible) but in this case, the impossibility of understanding the manual makes this machine totally worthless to me. I wish I had never bought it, and I would never recommend it to anyone.

the presets are great,it's one of the easiest drum machines to use,but still super quality.The manual is also very easy to use,you can order a video too if you want to really get into it.

i think the buttons are just the right size,you can do realistic rolls and fills,it has built in reverb,panning ,presence,much more.We use this in a live duo application,we midi it through a couple of other drum modules to get even more of a live feel.The bass player was originally a drummer so he does all the programming,he does all the fills,starts and stops with his feet while playing the bass.

The drum sounds are extremely realistic,the beats provided are great plus you can add 50 more of your own,with a basic rock beat you can do thousands of songs.I think anything electric has to be maintained properly,if there's static it's probably the users fault.

we use this machine three to four nights a week and have never had a problem(knock on wood)We own 2 of them,one for the studio and another for the live application,we only take one on the job,that's how much confidence we have in this machine.

we have never had to call the company for support.

We will always have this machine as long as it's available.We use JBL SR series subs,JBL SR series 15 8 horn,All JBL SR series speakers and crest and mackie power amps,behringer boards,fender guitars.We went through a bunch of other drum machines before ending up with the SR-16.we have it mounted on the sound board so it's out of crazy drunk peoples way.We do a serious duo with top notch equipment,we stay busy and the SR-16 is a huge part of our overall sound,we stand by it 100 percent.

Very easy to use...

Factory presets cover just about any possible cover tune. 4 outputs, the only improvement I could imagine would be a backlit screen.

These are true sampled kits and percussion, even claps!

I have been using this alot for the past 5 years doing 1 niters and it is attached to a mic stand tray with all the cables attached, every few months I'll have to unplug and replug the the audio cables to clean the contacts or the sound will get fuzzy. The volume knob should be pulled and the pot sprayed with contact cleaner that starts to sound gritty.

The price has come down a bit $199 and I am hoping Alesis comes out with an updated model with a backlit screen.

I think this drum machine is incredibly easy to use. I read some of the other reviews that said the manual was difficult to understand. I'm a guitarist and an overall-MIDI-idiot and I think it's the easiest manual for any kind of synth gear I've ever read. I also read that a guy said it couldn't erase sounds in Step Mode. It does, just put it on the sound you want to erase, hold erase down and press play. The manual gives real world examples to put it in useful terms to make it easy to understand.

The feature are good considering I've had this for 8 or 9 years. Each sound only has an 8 level volume from loud to silent which is a bit limiting. All the MIDI functions work fine. I slave it to a Roland 1680 and it works fine. Sometimes if I press play on the 1680 and the SR-16 starts playing, I'll hit stop on the SR-16 to stop the drums and it will go crazy and I can't get it to quit. I have to hit the power button and fire it back up. No big deal. Kind of annoying though.

I think the kicks, snares and some cymbals sound good. The HH's are okay, the toms I don't like at all, the other percussion instruments I really don't use too much. I wish it had better toms. My friend's D4 has very good sounding toms compared to this.

The effects to me are useless. I'd much rather have dry sounds or the ability to make them dry and add my effects at the board. The pads are useful, but you have to program the patterns in layers which is easy enough. The effects are my biggest gripe.

Never had a problem with it. Had it for 8-9 years and it works great everytime.

Never dealt with them.

I've used this machine to death and it works for all my demos. I had a friend just the other day say how amazed he was at the sounds and he owns the Roland V-Drums. I am ready to move up a step though. I'm looking at some computer based programs or even a used D4 or DM-Pro.

The drum machine worked well while it worked. I've had it for 2 years and now it plays only fuzz for samples. Alesis has offered no support for this product other than the 75$ standard repair rate.

Pretty easy to use, the manual is good if you need to look up stuff, kind of confusing in some spots though

I guess it has standard drum machine features, the velocity pads are nice. I wish the display was backlit.

the sounds sound real. There are too many sounds that are drenched in reverb, which is stupid. There are lots of good cymbal and snare sounds. I wish that the hats sounded thicker

I would gig it without a backup, that is if I ever feel the need to bring it to a show.

never dealt with them

its a solid drum machine, I wouldn't want it as my only drum machine.
I wouldn't have paid more than $80 bucks for it. Actually that was the only reason that I bought it was cause I negotiated to $80

Presets are easy to sort through, and you can change them in real time. Editing patches along with creating patterns is a breeze once you get used to the quantization features. I really didn't bother to look at the manual, but it seemed pretty user freindly... i.e. pictures of the led readout. I found the manual scanned online.

I love the velocity sensitive rubber keys! Some people complain about them being too small, but unless you are a chimpanzee with parkinsons disease, it shouldn't be too difficult. I wish this peice of equipment had a full 8 output board. It makes recording much fuller.

I have to say that some of the drum sounds are exceedingly realistic. Don't be fooled by the number of sounds because half of them sound the same anyways. This would be exellent to create 80's hair metal with the endless cache of DRUM SOUNDS WITH SO MUCH REVERB IT SOUNDS LIKE THEY WERE RECORDED IN A FACTORY! THE BASS DRUMS..... SUCK!!!! However, the hi end shakers hi hats cymbals, snares etc. are what I bought this machine for. They sound great even though the shakers can end up sounding a bit fuzzy.

It's plastic, and waighs about as much as my own hand. I've seen toy trucks with better construction. On mine, the volume know is TERRIBLY scratchy and even if bumped just a bit depletes the sound quality very much. I wouldn't gig with this just because it is so fragile looking. Other than that, the machine always works when I turn it on. and for the price i paid, I'm pretty happy with it.

I inquired to the alesis company to find out about how many milliampres i needed in the power supply, and they got back to me in like 20 minutes. VIA E-MAIL!!! OUTSTANDING!!!

If it were lost or stolen, I'd look for it, or beat the crap out of whover took it, but only because they stole it. The ease of use really is a plus, and it always works when i turn it on. But for what I need this machine to do, it falls a little short. Go with a Roland R8. I just got one and it rocks!

I have just finished reading the numerous user reviews of this unit. Not one I read mentioned that there is no headphone output. I still recommend this unit as a useful metronome to students for practice but they have to purchase another headphone preamp or have their hifi or boom box sitting on the piano. When you consider the price of a Boss DB55 going as high as $150 used for the SR16 is still a better choice. One other unfathomable ommision was: NO PEDAL CLOSING OF THE HIHAT. The predecessor (HR16)had one. Strange? What an oversight. If you need a subtle foot closing for subtle time keeping in a light swing style you will miss that sound.

I sold the unit to a school where I instruct and it is being used at a headphone drum station being triggered by a midiKITI and is quite useful. For my live playing I purchased a Boss DR770 and needed two foot switches for stopping and then resetting to the beginning of the pattern. The SR16 automatically reset to the beginning ofthe pattern when stopped. Fixed velocity option should be useful for novice users and for initial experimentation. I took the manual to a copy center and enlarged each page to the max. Text comprehension would be very challenging for all but experienced electronic musicians.

Missing a foot closing hihat so subtle jazzers beware.

Gigged with it for years with no trouble. Always carried a back up power supply. Radio Shack has a 9vAC power supply that is useful for most Alesis stuff.

Seeing many of these units on the used market today and it is still being sold in stores and catalogues for about $190. Alesis certainly got their money from this unit since it is very long in the tooth but still worth owning. Reminds me of the Kurzweil MicroPiano which is still around and very very long in the tooth. I expected a SR16Mk11 just like a MicroPiano Mk11 (more polyphony) and am surprised the SR16 is still in retail play.

this drum machine is a breeze to use, edit, and midify!

the sounds on this thing are like no other in its class! much better than the boss, (and i used to work at a retail music store). the sr16 is great for messing around, practicing licks and riffs, and producing electronic or hip-hop music.

the sr16 has never, ever crashed on me in 2 years of heavy, smoke-filled-studio use!

a great overall drum machine with great sounds. the sr16 is so much easier to use than a sampler, and the sounds are much better than anything in its class. if you want to hear how the sr16 sounds in a musical environment, listen to my songs at: http://www.mp3.com/hypnotik
i use the sr16 exclusively!

This is probably the best Drum machine for the price on the market. The only problem is the manual. The manual is typical of manuals that are writting for someone that already knows how the unit works. For someone trying to figure it out, it's very poor. The manual knocks it down from a 10 to a 5

The features are very good. The external footswitch capabilites for start/stop and for the beat are great.

The preprogrammed drum tracks are almost all that's needed. Unfortunately Alesis forgot about a 3/4 Waltz beat and there isn't any preprogrammed.

N/A. I haven't had the unit long enough to comment

Poor E-Mail support (no answer to E-Mails). Their support web page indicates there are FAQ's for this unit but none can be accessed.

The support and poor manual knock down the overall rating. If it had a better manual and better web support it would be a 10.

Straightforward if you are use to using drum machines, MIDI equipment, etc.

Everything you need to lay down good drum tracks.

You really need to use a MIDI controller/keyboard to get the full sound out of this unit. The touch pads should only be a last resort.

Never had a problem.

When it comes down to it you don't really need very much equipment to
make great recordings/performances, all you need is the right stuff.

Very user friendly which makes it wonderful to sit around & try out song ideas on. All settings are automatically saved, so you can just unplug it & throw it in the closet when you get sick of playing with it.

You can assign any drum to any pad, & tweak the pitch of each individually (very useful for me). Once I did that I found the pads to be very easy to play. You can't alter the decay or effects on the sounds, but with enough tweaking I created a pretty heavy sounding drumset.

I am doing Gothic Rock, so I have no problem with how 80's many of the sounds are. The samples seem to be about 20% Rock, 30% Rap & Dance, & the rest are just the same samples with weird reverbs (usually too much). If you've mastered Finger-Foo like me, you'll have no problems with the pads size or velocity (actually, I just set the touch respose to zero most of the time). If I could alter the FX & decay on the sounds I'd give this thing a 10 in every category. If you have a good drum module, this would be a great sequencer to drive it with (midi in, out/thru).

So far I've dropped it, tripped on the cord & unplugged it, & or left it on by accident...no problem. I have five entire songs in it, some with up to 30 different parts, & I've yet to see a memory failure. From what experience I've had I would gig with it (you could save half a set into it), but not before backing up the data on an audio tape.

N/A

If it were stolen I'd surely buy it again (especially at the peanuts price they go for). I've had it for about a year. In fact, I got it based on what I had read on this page. Right now I use it to drive the sounds in my Yamaha PSR-530, which gives me the ability to edit & add FX. If you are into Gothic Rock or Rap, I think you'll be very happy with this baby. Now, if ALESIS would just come out with a sequel, one with on-board FX, in-depth editing, bigger memory, & a headphone jack, I'd run out & buy 2 the day it came out! I hope you're listening ALESIS...

Very user friendly which makes it wonderful to sit around & try out song ideas on. All settings are automatically saved, so you can just unplug it & throw it in the closet when you get sick of playing with it.

You can assign any drum to any pad, & tweak the pitch of each individually (very useful for me). Once I did that I found the pads to be very easy to play. You can't alter the decay or effects on the sounds, but with enough tweaking I created a pretty heavy sounding drumset.

I am doing Gothic Rock, so I have no problem with how 80's many of the sounds are. The samples seem to be about 20% Rock, 30% Rap & Dance, & the rest are just the same samples with weird reverbs (usually too much). If you've mastered Finger-Foo like me, you'll have no problems with the pads size or velocity (actually, I just set the touch respose to zero most of the time). If I could alter the FX & decay on the sounds I'd give this thing a 10 in every category. If you have a good drum module, this would be a great sequencer to drive it with (midi in, out/thru).

So far I've dropped it, tripped on the cord & unplugged it, & or left it on by accident...no problem. I have five entire songs in it, some with up to 30 different parts, & I've yet to see a memory failure. From what experience I've had I would gig with it (you could save half a set into it), but not before backing up the data on an audio tape.

N/A

If it were stolen I'd surely buy it again (especially at the peanuts price they go for). I've had it for about a year. In fact, I got it based on what I had read on this page. Right now I use it to drive the sounds in my Yamaha PSR-530, which gives me the ability to edit & add FX. If you are into Gothic Rock or Rap, I think you'll be very happy with this baby. Now, if ALESIS would just come out with a sequel, one with on-board FX, in-depth editing, bigger memory, & a headphone jack, I'd run out & buy 2 the day it came out! I hope you're listening ALESIS...

once you get the hang of it, programming in is very easy... i program via the step editor, 'cuz i have no idea how anyone can play a decent rythm on such small pads... the big problem is that you can't erase in step mode, which i feel is stupid. i mean, if nothing else, i'm sure everyone is going to accidently hit the wrong drum some where while programming 4 measures worth of 16th notes, y'know? And what if you do something and play it back and don't like it?

The pressure sensitive pads are nice, the swing works once you figure out how to use it, i've never had trouble with too many voices, to the polyphony is good, but the midi has this annoying habit of setting itself to song zero... also, it should just have a small built-in reverb thing instead of wasting samples by taking a sample and applying room reverb and then hall reverb...

256 drum sounds it says, but i swear a lot of them sound EXACTLY alike... and i'm not referring to the ones where there's a drum sound, then the same one w/ room reverb, then the same one w/ hall reverb... (i have a friend with the Alesis SQ-8 "synth" and it seems to me that Alesis has this technology to include a s**tload of sounds/samples on their things, but they're not creative enough to give you as many *useful* sounds to work with...) there is an astonishing lack of "techno" style drums for a drum machine, it's like it's marketed towards rock bands, which is s**tty 'cuz rock bands avoid using drum machines!!!

i'm really nervous about using this for a gig, 'cuz it always resets to song zero, and that's just lame... even with the "Midi Program Change OFF" i have this problem... however, a good thing is that you never have to save anything. Once it's programmed, it's there until you erase it, which is pretty rad... if you lose power, you don't lose anything you've done...

never dealt w/ 'em myself, but my friend w/ the SQ8 spent a few months calling and e-mailing them and never got a response...

this is a rock and roll drum machine. maybe a jazz musician would find it useful, but i don't know, i'm not a jazz musician. As for the rest of us, doing ELECTRONIC music this DRUM MACHINE is next to useless... i'm kicking myself in the ass for buying it, and if it was stolen or something, i'd kick myself in the ass for not selling it before hand... right now i'm keeping it, but i think in the end i'm going to end up selling it... my advice to ppl looking to buy it, DON'T GET SUCKERED IN BY THE REALLY LOW PRICE. Unless your doing rock music and you want a 200 dollar metronome, this is a piece of crap for a drum machine.

Software Version 1.04: Presets patterns/songs are by in large rather appauling, following up on a cliche sense of the sound of many genres (The "techno" and "new-age" patterns were rather amusing). While the sounds are fixed memory samples, editing beats and patterns is rather straightforward. The step-record feature is well laid-out, and most features are easy to recall without a manual once you go through it once or twice.

Effects are fixed in the samples (booo!), and the polyphony (at sixteen voices) is generally enough (considering the length of the samples) for almost any composition. It is non-expandable beyond sysex dumps of the operating system, patterns, and songs. It has an annoying habit of setting syncing to its own clock-tick (even if internal is off, and external is on) which means that you should be sure your master clock device is operating or the SR-16 does its own thing. Keys are semi-velocity sensitive (eight possible velocities? fine, but bizaare), and sequencer is adequate since it controls the internal drum machine only. The pedal "fill" feature is very cool, and justifies my buying this unit over most other models despite its drawbacks.

Instruments are more or less conventional, non-editable, and work for music that doesn't deviate from the "norm". Sounds aimed more at rock and jazz styles, although perhaps still cliche-ish in that realm. Expressiveness is adequate, considering its price. The pedal "fill" is decent, and syncs well without sounding "out of place".

It has not given me any problems as of yet. Although if you run low on memory, it becomes difficult to carry out even normal menu operations, but I have only once run into this when loading it up with patterns and songs found online. It seems rather hard to fill the memory unless you do an awful lot of programming.

Have yet to deal with Alesis to this day.

I compose primarily new-age electronica, so this machine was probably not the best choice for me considering I like to develop new sounds and rhythms from scratch. Considering my budget at the time, and the fact that I was in absolute need of a rhythm machine, it was an appropriate purchase. In the future I would be more inclined to purchase a sampling rhythm machine when my budget allows (ie. The Akai models MPC-60 and MPC-3000).

The machine comes with 233 preset sounds, a lot of which are the same instruments but with an effect(reverb, delay). The preset sounds that are usable are dope, however I have no use for alot of the sounds, since I do mostly hip hop. THE PRESET BEATS ARE CRAP!!! I bought my box used so it didn't come with a manual, but Alesis hooked me up. I downloaded a manual online and printed it at work. After reading the manual and getting use to the way the SR-16 edits, I found the machine a breeze to operate, cut and paste, loop patters, add fills, double patters, and drop beats real time. I've "phucked around" with some other drum machines, which retail for alot more $$$ and have found the Alesis SR-16 THE EASIEST to make/edit beats with!
Overall I give it an 8 here because THE PRESET PATTERNS SUCK and the instruments are rather limited, but I'D EASILY GIVE IT A 10 as far as creating/editing beats.

No built in effects, thats a rip, but what do you expect for $100? You can however create your own drumset (by selecting certain drums from a preset) then tweak them, by ajusting panning, volume, and tone. The metronome is nice for keeping beat, when composing a song. It has swing and quantize options, but I haven gotten around to those yet. I don't really care for the velocity sensitive pads since you have to beat the hell out of them to hear em. Luckily Alesis was on their game and allowed you to set any pad at a fixed volume, or a range of volumes (velocity sensative). There is plenty of memory in this bad boy! 50 patterns to save to, with both A & B patterns and A & B fills for each pattern. 100 songs to save to. Overall kinda light on the options, but everything you need is there. FUNDAMENTALY SOUND!

The sound of the instruments I actually use are great, however out of 233 presets I only use about 150. The one thing really lacking on this machine, is the ability to add effects. All the sounds are "pre-effected", and sometimes that can be a real pain in the......butt, again for $100 what should I expect? It does have velocity sensative pads, but I only use them on ocassion. The pads could be a little bigger since I have bigs hands and sometimes, wind up mashing more than one pad at a time. For the most part the sounds are good, and keeping me playing for hours on end.

Hmmm I bought mine used, everything still works, and it looks kinda beat up. So I'm impressed!

Never called em, but they have the manual on-line and thats a plus!

Overall I give this machine an 8.5 just because I don't use everything this machine has to offer. Espically since I DON'T WASTE MY TIME ON THAT GARBAGE SOUNDING MIDI CRAP. This machine is a remarkable value, has phat drums, and THE BEST song editing I've seen on any machine under 1K. If it were ruined I'd definately buy another, unless I had 2K to spend on a real machine. You definately get your moneys' worth out of the machine. I've been mess'N around for 7 years. I currently run a Mackie 1202 w/ 4 Mic's hooked up, Techniques Tables, Gemini 24 second sampler, and whatever gear my homies decide to bring over. My SR-16 is running neck and neck with my Mackie 1202 and my Mic, as the best bang for my buck!
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/3554

I am using the newest software version. The preset drum kits and drum patterns are AWSOME. You could sit down and record with this puppy right away. It took me a while to figur out how to record, but once you do, you won't want to stop. You cannot edit the presets, but you can copy them to the user bank then do what you want with them. It is EXTREMELY easy to use, although reading the manual is necessary is yu want to get everthing out of this machine.

The velocity sensitive pads are a nice touch; althogh sometimes you can get "double taps" when they are not wanted. The only built in effect is reverb, which you cannot control :(. You can store drum patterns on a cassette and the drum machine will recogize the patters. THere's MIDI, but I'm not into that stuff...

The sounds are VERY, VERY realistic. The open high hat(there's about 25) is unbelievable...you can hear different rattles, etc. All in all, there are about 230 drums(and other things). Every one sounds GREAT. It is very easy to program your own kits(which contain up to 12 percussion's of your choice). Works well for all music since you can easilsy record your own patterns. I was amazed the day I got it, and still am every time I plug it in. It reacts well to velocity...

Everything is fine, except for the volume wheel. It gets scratchy and jumpy on the low end, but it doesn't bother me. It may just be my SR-16...or maybe not...that's why it gets an 8...

Gonna call em about the wheel...

Love it, love it. I've recorded basic patterns on a real drum then on my SR-16. People thought the SR-16 was the real drums! They are so realistic it's awe inspiring...GO GET ONE!

(Software version 1.02). The SR16 is a great sounding drum machine. Patches are easy to edit, and most of the presets sound pretty decent. The manual is helpful, but confusing about some points (it is also downloadable from the Alesis web page, a BIG PLUS!) However, I do have a few gripes. First of all, the reverbs are not editable. Second, there are not any names assigned to the drum kits (it would make picking them much easier), and there are not any printouts of the drums and their numbers (you have to scroll through to see names and numbers). However, considering the price of the unite, these are forgivable. Keep in mind that this is my first drum machine -- I bought it to use the presets until I learned how to program it (which is what many drum machine newbies do).

I am not sure what the polyphony is (see below reviews). The button action is kind of cheap feeling (not as nice as the boss's). Touch response is also not very noticeable. Effects are built in and are not editable (make sure you like the reverb settings). Overall, this machine is pretty easy to use. A cool feature is the abillity to break into a fill anywhere in the song (the fill will be different depending on when you start it). This gives the machine a "real" feel and sound. Sounds can be routed through four different outputs. No battery capability. Midi capable. Very portable and lightweight.

Sounds are definately realistic. My only problem is finding drum sounds that fit my needs. I like simple drum sounds, but many of the sounds contain too much reverb for my tastes. There are only 3 or 4 (out of 40 somthing)preset drum kits that I actually like. I also wish the preset songs were a little better (I will eventually get better at programming my own, but until then, the presets will have to do). I would say that the presets sound too techno/hard-rockish. However, if you program it, it will sound good for just about anything. As I mentioned above, it does not react very well to velocity.

I use it for home recording -- I like to perform with real drummers. However, this machine is definately road worthy. The only problem is that the volume knob is a little "scratchy". Other than that, just don't drop it.

Never dealt with alesis, but they have a lot of support on the web.

For the price, this is a great drum machine. It it were lost/stolen/broken, I would go with a BOss DR5 or 660 (which have more features and better sound IMHO). It was definately worth $160, but I would not pay more for it. I love its sounds, but I hate most of the presets (but not a big deal since I program it now). The reason I bought this instead of the others was price (the bosses sell for around $250 used), but I would definately spend more and get something better next time. I wish it had more control over sounds/reverb. This machine is beginning to grow on me, though.

Good sounding box. 50 preset patterns, 215 different drum sounds. You can make your own kits, and patterns. The SR-16 makes a great Sound Module, but it doesn't transmit constant time. example: I'm working in 110bpm, and the sr16 is waffling at 109.8 - 110.2 (i'm getting this info from my sequencer) Midi documentation stinks, there isn't anything, that talks about how kits are assigned without lots of interpretation. The drum machine itself is easy to use, just set tempo, and hit start. The sounds are driving this rating.

It has 10 instruments it can play, they can be programmed to correspond with GM, or any other drum kit you are using. Midi docs stink. It doesn't keep accurate time, but is a great sound mod. Velocity sensative input pads are nice.

Sounds are great. Alesis did a great job. The drums are full, and the cymbols ring. with 215 different drums, it can cover all types of percussion.

I have had this machine for 7 years, and it hasn't failed me. It has fallen on the floor, or had things fall on it, and it just keeps playing.

Never talked to Alesis, but the have a great web page. You can even download a new manual if you lost your old one. I wish all companies did that.

I'd probably by a D5 for sounds next time, or for a rhythm machine maybe the Dr.Rhythm. The fact that it can't keep solid time as a controller really pisses me off, IF they could fix that, I'd buy it again.

This is a dedicated drum machine. Only drum sounds and patterns. It comes with 233 sampled sounds (16 bits). 50 of them are kicks, 60 snares, hats, cymbals, toms and some Latin percussion. The quality of the sounds is superb, and you've got plenty of room to choice from. It also have 100 patterns, 100 fills and 100 preset patterns, I think. The reggae ones are cool. Fool proof, anyone can use it just taking a glance at the manual.

Midi in and out. (trhu programmable using the midi out). 4 outputs, useful for separating kick-snare-sterero pair. Twelve keys. Each key have a six layer velocity response, although the sounds respond to velocity via midi. You can edit wich midi note will play each sound. The internal pattern mode has a cool swing quantization.

Very cool sounds. If you hit harder, the pitch of the drum sound changes pretty realistically. Good for rock, pop. Not so good for those into hard electronic music, because most of its sounds are sampled from real drums. No onboard effects (never seen a drum machine with them). Not too much editing of the sounds, just some pitch.

It's a strong machine, I've used it live and it is great (anyway, always make backups). Never had a problem. Small and easy to move (slightly bigger than size of a VHS videocassette, and not much heavier).

If you want to kick your drummer and still use good realistic drums, buy one.