Boss DR-202

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!