Boss DR-202

So you want a drum machine? Expect to do some drum programming. You'll
have to spend time tinkering with manual in hand to get the hang of it.
Once you've got it, it's pretty easy.

The DR-202 is a great device for the show room. It has cool features
like real time controllers for cutoff, resonance, delay, delay/reverb,
and flange. It has a three part sequencer for drum, bass, and one
external device. It's got cool glowing buttons.

But once you take it home, here's some of the junk you have to deal with:

-No backlit LCD, and the screen is really hard to view from an angle or
with weak lighting.

-You can record the filter controls to a pattern, but there's a delay
and no fine tuning mechanism so it's impossible to apply anything to
the first note or beat of a pattern!!!

-Patterns cannot be strung together. If you want to reiterate something
with slight changes you'll have to create a new pattern. This wouldn't
be so bad, except:

-YOU CAN'T CHANGE PATTERNS WITH MIDI PROGRAM CHANGE. Program changes
only change the drum set. Now maybe I'm just missing something, but this
strikes me as incredibly stupid. Each pattern is assigned its own set,
so you can simulate drum set changes by creating an identical pattern
and assigning a new set to it. But there is no way to simulate pattern
changes with drum set changes, of course. This ridiculous limitation
makes it impossible to change patterns with your feet, as I need to when
on guitar. This wouldn't be so bad since you can just make songs, except:

-No song looping. Basically, thanks to relatively minor issues, this thing
is useless for dynamic, live solo accompaniment.

I couldn't find any aids for the above in the manual, but if anyone
knows any workarounds, please drop me a line. I find it especially
hard to believe you can't change patterns using a MIDI foot controller.

Having only stereo out is a problem if you want to add external effects
to only drums or only bass. RCA jacks are less than welcome, and one
of them conked out on me (more on that later). The pads are cool for
the bass sounds, but having velocity sensitivity would be really useful
for the drum sounds. I have an Alesis HR-16 that has frightful sounds,
but velocity sensitivity and better programming options, so I generally
use that to program my rhythms and drive the 202 over MIDI. (Program changes
do change patterns on the HR-16, but it only has a one part sequencer.)

Some of the preset patterns are actually pretty inspiring, and 100 user
patterns is plenty if you've got a computer to dump 'em on. Only 20
songs isn't so great, and the unerasable demo song is grating. You can
make 100 custom kits from the 256 sounds.

The roll feature is great in concept, but I haven't been able to get
many useful sounds out of it. You can't program it in relation to tempo,
which strikes me as really weird, but I guess that sorta fits with
the 202's other self-defeating feature designs.

Turn it off, turn it back on, and you're back at the first preset pattern,
unlike the HR-16, which starts with the pattern you were at when you
powered off. This can be very irritating.

9 for features minus 4 points for poor implementation

I love the lo-fi and hip hop sounds. The techno sounds are pretty cool.
The drum and bass stuff was pretty miserable. I programmed some that
sounded good over the headphones, but transformed into complete cheese
through loudspeakers. But the drum and bass stuff, and many of the
sounds that were originally pretty unusable (like the acid jazz sets)
sound great with heavy compression. The compression can turn the bass to
piddle, though, so you may have to choose between one channel of compressed
drums or no bass sounds.

The filters are great, the flanger is cool, the delay and reverbs are okay.

This unit is more or less the noisiest thing in my collection, not helped
by running it through a gateless compressor and having to use the headphone
jack (see below).

I wrapped it up in clothes and stuck it in my suitcase for a busride
home and, at the end of my journey, the left RCA output did not work.
I now use the headphone jack as the main output, which sounds a bit
more noisy. It's worked fine besides that. Unlike the HR-16, it
has never gagged while realtime recording (but I haven't run its
memory to the max, either).

Couldn't find and e-mail address to send questions/grievances to.
I'll try to get it repaired one of these days...

For all my complaining, this is the only drum machine I know of that
does what it does. The Zoom RhythmTrak has good sounds, but its lack
of MIDI out is at least as bad as any of the problems of the 202. Other
more expensive Roland drum machines I've lisetned to have sounds as
cheesy as my HR-16.

If it was stolen I would look at the new 307 Groovebox, but now that
I have a sampler its not so urgent to have a dedicated drum machine. I
wouldn't mind holding out to see if Boss/Roland comes out with a revision
of this machine, which it desperately needs.

To replace all of the features on this would require a much more
expensive piece or combination of equipment, so I have to hand it
to Roland for that. Thumbs down on overall product design, though.
They could have created a much better product with these sounds and
features.

This is real, real easy to use. The sounds are pretty neat and you can make your own kits and tweak the onboard sounds quite a bit. And if you turn some of the bass's octaves up, some sound like pianos or organs. You can jump right in and go crazy with it. My friend made a "bomb" loop in the store one day in about seven point three minutes while I was checking out other stuff.

24 note polyphony, but you can't really have more than three bass tracks on top of each other (in different octaves for a fuller sound) unless they are real minimal. It'll lock up if you gots more than that. It's got decay, resonance, and cutoff knobs which you can record the turning of in real-time. The knobs won't move, but the sound will. You also got flanger and delay/reverb knobs, which are not recordable. They are still real neat. You've even got a few different types of flange and delay/reverb to work with. Nifty. No expansion possibilities. It works with midi, but it's more for triggering samples from an SP 202. That works well and it's pretty much designed for use with it. The sequencer is pretty neat. You do only have 3 tracks (midi, bass, drum), which makes it a pain to wade through a long or full sequence in step mode. It does also crash on you if you have a high bpm or a lot going on. It's even locked-up on me while I was real-time recording, but it did save everything I did. That was nice of it. There's even a song mode. This box could use more memory though, I've filled the 100 loop limit up a few times (I've had it for 8 months), but what was a real bugger was the actual memory. I made a lot of lush, full loops that eat up three or four percent of the memory a piece. And after you get below 30-35 percent memory, it starts to lock-up a lot and act real weird.

It's got a lot of expressiveness and that has a lot to do with the nice reverb knob. The drums sound pretty good, could be better, but ok. The basses aren't very good though. There's a bundle to choose from, but a lot sound alike and only a few even remotely resemble piano or and a keyboard sound at all when you turn the octave up. Effects are real good. The pads are not touch-sensitive, but you can adjust they're levels before or after you input the note or drum. I also think it quantizes really nicely (you can even turn it off), but maybe that's just cuz I got so used to it. The groove templete stinks, though. I makes everything you make sound corny, unless you "groove" it first and then work around that.

It'll save everything you do instantly, but it will mess-up if you run low on memory. You could get away with using it without backup.

Never dealt with.

I'm selling it now, not because I don't like it, but I'm moving on to bigger and better. I wouldn't sell it, but I need the money from it to get other things. I've used it for 8 months. I've never owned a drum machine like it (it being all nice and useable). I own a Mattel one though, but that's another story. I've used quite a few of others and found nothing that compares with it. It's clearly not setup for rock, so I wouldn't even try that. It needs more memory and less preset sounds (although the demo song is good. It shows you all the possibilities of the thing. It took me a while to find out some of the tricks that guy used to make that). I find this box to be a tool which one can be very spontaneous and creative with. I recommed it to all.

This thing is pretty easy to use once you get the hang of it and you understand all the options. I don't think any drum machine becomes fun or usable unless you spend some time leaerning how to play and becoming comfortable with it. Overall, the engine is very usable and allows for much options. I bought this expecting to never use to presets, but I was pleasently surprised by how good they were. I really liked the drum n' Bass, Jungle and Hip Hop beats. Editing patches in realtime is a breeze (it's easy to get that squelching 303 bass sound on the fly) and it's very easy to change kits and basses during a song. The real-time muting is a huge plus and makes for nice breakbeats. the manual is okay and it gets the job done.

I don't know what the polyphonic capabilities are offhand, but I do know that I've never needed to find out or worry about polyphony. There are knobs for resonnace, cutoff, decay, reverb/delay and flanger. The reverb/delay is pretty mediocore but the flanger is very impressive. I think that most people who reveiwed these product did not take the time to really explore the capabilities of this machine. They never mention that the flanger has 4 differnet modes and can be applied to different pads or that preset kits can be bulit which drasticly different knob setting can be created. The MIDI capabilities are there ( works very well with the sp-202). It has a 3-track sequencer ( bass, drums and external source). I was really surprised that such a cheap box could have such extensive editing capabilities.

The sounds are not realistic per say, but they sound like drum machines. I was not really looking for a realistic-sounding thing anyway. It is g4reat for hip-hop, drum and bass and most types of groove music. The onboard effects are great and very flexible. The roll generator is a godsend for D n' B/ Jungle lovers. The pads kinda suck becuase they stick sometimes and are not velocity sensitive. I did find however that the pads stuck less when they were broken in and when they do stick, they stick "to the ryhthm". the bass sounds ( 49 of'em) range from many different Tb-303's to sh-101's to B3 footpedals to synthbasses and pads. they can also be strecthes over 8 octaves and can get some good lead and chord comp sounds. The kits include tr-808, tr-909, 606 and 707 simulations. There are tons of vinyl sounds, and special effects, and cowbell hits and other shit like that (all fully editable).

It's very light and usess up lots of batteries. Use a Ac adaptor. I've dropped it a few times and nothing has happened but I would,nt treat it like a tank

don't know. nO problems yet

I would definatley buy thsi again. As I said before, I believe this box got mediocore reviews because the people who bought it did not spend alot of time exploring it's capabilities. While this seems like a low-price box that gets the job done it is really very deep and has loads of possibilities. i would choose it over the higher priced Roland 303 and Zoom or other boss boxes any day. Just don't expect incredibly realistic sounds. Pair it with the incredible SP-202 and you've got a killer ass workstation. Mark my words, the DR-202 and the sp-202 are going to be CLASSICS

This is the Roland beat-box aimed at dance music people and the presets reflect that. No suprise here. The presets are okay but there is nothing there that is really a knockout in my opinion. Editing different elements of a breakbeat are simple enough and , if you have had experience with other beatboxes, you'll be able to find your way around without the manual for the most part. The manual itself is a barebones document though it covers most of the basic questions a person might have.

My favorite features are the roll generator and the flanger. Honestly I don't plan to use the 202 for much besides the roll generator. This feature gives you acess to many different types of drum rolls. some are pretty intense. I plan to sample these rolls and mangle them. (If you stick with the presets it will be obvious to all where you got your sounds). The flange is deep and metallic though its easy to put too much on a breakbeat. For a box this size I was suprised that the flanger swept that deeply. I like the groove templates also. These are nice becuase you can preview your breakbeat with different types of accents. It also comes in handy when you don't like editing in step mode (which is something I loathe in any case)

The pads are terrible. Some stick and they are very stiff in general. I cannot imagine somebody wanting to hammer out a real time pattern on this esepcially since there is no velocity sensitivity. I've recorded some patterns in real time though I wind up using one of the groove templates to tighten up the beats.

Its kind of cheap feeling. Its plastic and light and can easily be carried. It uses batteries and alot of them if you don't watch out ! You might want to get a power adapter of you want to spend a lot of time with this thing. I've already dropped mine and it still works so it must not be so cheap.

I've not needed to contact Boss at all so I can't rate them in this area.

I would not buy this unit again. Its okay but its kind of cheaply made and for $400 I would expect better quality. I admire their attempt at putting the effects and and features in place but some of the stuff (like the reverb) are just too cheesey for me. The sounds in this unit are for dance which is cool but the presets definitely won't age well. That is, i've already heard alot of these beats in many DIY releases. The roll feature is most cool but again only as a source or starting point for new sounds. This thing is definitely not a toy but it looks like one. Boss has definitely made better drum machines though I think this is their first shot at the dance market. To be fair they do have many of the classic sounds available so you won't have to go far to get access to these. If you are just starting out then this might be nice way to get your feet wet. If you have been at the dance game for a while, then you want to save your money for other stuff.

This is very easy to use and only takes a short time to get the hang of it. The presets are very good if you are into electronic music and the real-time knobs are a lot of fun to tweak. There are some fairly decent flangers and stuff that help to add some flavor.

Forget trying to program any sort of drum sequences from the pads, they suck. Also, you can only save 19 songs. Oh, it says it can store 20 of 'em but one is a demo song that you cannot erase. After listening to this unispiring ditty once I wish I could have erased it for space for my own compositions. I used to have an Alesis HR-16 and I must have had dozens of half-done songs and pieces that I could piece together. With this unit song writing like this is out of the question. Another thing that bugged me about the unit is that you are stuck with the "grooves" that it comes with. You can't tweak and save changes, so it's basically like you are buying a CD with a lot of grooves on it that someone else wrote. I guess this is okay if you are not interested in "making" music.

The sounds are very sweet on this thing. I plugged it into my Marshall cabinet and it shook the windows. Very nice basses. Expressiveness sucks because of the pads however.

seems very reliable, but I wouldn't know because I sent it back after a couple of days. NO adapter came with it and that pissed me off.

don't know

Overall, its a very nice sounding electronic sound source. It sucks as an sequencer and you can't store very many songs and you can't tweak the "grooves" it comes with. I sent it back. I am still looking for a drum/bassline unit that can actually be considered an "instrument" and not a toy. Considering this thing is 400 bucks I wouldn't recommend it. It just didn't inspire any new tunes.

I've only had it a short while and I've made some patterns with bass and drum sounds, and I'm copying them all over the place.

There's no MIDI through, but I think it can emulate it through MIDI out. The pads aren't touch sensitive and they're pretty awkward to use, but there's a row of knobs at the top for resonance and cutoff etc., which digitally control the sound, so it remembers what you canged it to. It can also control one external MIDI instrument with the built-in sequencer.

This is definately only for dance, but there's a *lot* of kits in there. I'm going to use this a lot!

It seems pretty good, though I've only had it a few days.

I haven't dealt with the company, though I'm a bit miffed they didn't supply an adapter with it but they did package enough batteries for a few hours.

I would buy this again, the sounds are very good and it's great fun changing the cutoff and resonance in real time.

The machine is a snap to use. I've used R-8, R-70, DR-660, and Boss has really gone a long way toward making the interface easier on this one. 22 buttons, 8 knobs, and a data wheel allow a system which has very little "nested menu-itis". The only reason I don't give it a 10 is due to Roland's sometimes wierd nomenclature, like referring to velocity as "accent" and the metronome clicks as "Strong Beat/Weak Beat" The manual is actually one of Roland's better efforts but take that as faint praise indeed.

First the down side: The performance pads suck...REALLY suck. I find it very difficult to perform anything on this machine in real time. You're going to have to find other ways of setting up your beats: input quantizing, slowing tempo down, step entry, or a remote controller. The pads do not respond to velocity. However the machine responds to velocity from a remote controller and you can edit velocity info into the sequencer after the fact. The sequencer is moderately flexible as drum machines go...finally Roland has seen fit to give plenty of memory in a drum machine (14,000 notes). It's a three-track sequencer with track one for internal drums, track 2 for bass, and track 3 for controlling an external MIDI device. Track 3 is sorta optimized for controlling an SP-202 sampler (which looks almost like 1/2 of a DR-202, obviously together they're the low-cal "groove system") but it can be used for a one track recording of any device. There are no expansion capabilities. The effects section is quite extensive with a usable reverb(8 types)/delay (2 types - delay will sync to any quantize setting!!); a GREAT flanger (4 types); a resonant filter; and a very effective bass cut/boost section. What's great is that all of these effects are controlled by realtime tweakable knobs...and you can apply an effect to either the entire drum mix or individual drums in a set. That goes both for realtime tweaking (there's a knob that determines what instrument your realtime tweaks affect) and for designing custom-effected instruments and saving them in a user drumset. The editing control is about as deep as I've ever seen in a drum machine, and believe me, you can use these effects to absolutely mangle any sound till it bears no relation to what you started with. There's also a "roll" button that accesses one of 67 automatic roll types in real time, 20 flavors of groove quantize, real-time muting of instruments in a set, portamento control, and tap tempo. There's no tempo track per se, but tempos are associated with patterns so by chaining different tempo patterns into a song you can implement tempo changes.
I tell ya, mangling sound on this baby is about as much fun as I've had with a synth.
There are also 500 or so canned patterns in hop hop, jungle, drum n bass, techno, house, acid jazz, latin, and rock styles. Many of these are quite good, the cheezoid factor is fairly low, and at least one listen is critical because these will give you an idea of the sonic power of the machine. Of course I make my own grooves so I'll basically ignore this feature. Well, I might nick a kick line or two...and the patterns are great for quickie songwriting inspiration.
Can't give a 10 because of the bad pads but the rest of the feature set is dynamite.

The sound quality does not match the high level of the feature set, but it's competitive with most of the "drum machine market". The output is rather anemic and it's fairly noisy. A lot of the raw samples are not very hi-fi, which is probably OK for the "dance" production market this is aimed for. I recognize many samples as identical with the (seven or so year old) DR-660. I also have an SC-88Pro sound canvas and the drum sounds on that just kill the DR-202 for pure sound quality. Nevertheless, the way to approach Dr. Groove is as a percussion synth, not so much a "realistic" drum machine. The effects all sound excellent except the reverb, which is merely adequate. The bass sounds are adequate for demos but nothing to write home about. I play bass guitar so they're going to be in a supplemental role for me anyway.

It's plastic and seems like it would be reliable. Light as a feather without batteries installed. It probably won't survive a drop off of a stage or anything like that.

I've never used Roland support but I always hear fairly good things about it.

I really like the Dr. Groove. I wish the basic sound quality of the samples was better and the unit was quieter, but the sound quality is adequate for many applications. The immense tweakability of the machine should give it a long shelf life because when you get sick of the sounds you can just mangle them into new ones. It's easy to use and you can really cook up cool backing tracks quick and easy.

The preset sounds wonderful and editting them is a breeze thanks to the control knobs located atop the unit. The manual was put together very well.

Polyphony on this baby is 24 notes which sounds limited but really is'nt considering this is a drum machine and a bass synth. I've done some com- plicated work on it already. The pads feel good and sturdy. It has Reverb/ Delay and Chorus/Flanger these can easily be tweaked by the dedicted control knob on the upper right hand side of the box. Sorry no expansion. Midi con- sists of IN/OUT so throw it at the end of your MIDI set-up... Oh and it receives and transmits! There is also an on-board step and realtime 3 track sequencer. Channel 1 is for the drums/ Channel 2 is for Bass/ and Channel 3 is for External devices. The Sequencer is easy as hell to get a grasp of and quite flexible.

The tones in this Little beast sound great. Most are very synthesized & there are a few realistic kits and bass (fingered, picked, & slaps). For the most part though the sounds are 'dance related'. Some of the basses iclude TB303, SH101, Junos, and even that weird ass sound from Aphex Twin' Come to Daddy single. The Kits include CR-78, TR606, 707, 727, 808, & 909. Not to mention tons of specialty kits for Drum & Bass, Techno, Big Beat, and so on. The effects are wonderful and sound very rich. Also there is no v-sensitivity in the pads you must enter the Accents manually and no Aftertouch (it receives it though).

It's made of plastic I would try to leave this in the home/ home studio/ studio. I would use this on a gig w/ out back up for sure!

Roland are always helpful.

A Wonderful little beatbox & Bass synth!