Boss DR-670

This machine if you are a novice with drum machines is ridiculously hard to master, the manual is a farce, I took mine back to the shop for help, even they were dumbfounded.

Its ok but the Alesis 18 eats it for breakfast.

Pretty good but not great..........

This is a Roland product so do not think you will get any customer support.................

This product was just to hard to use, to complicated and eventually I took it back to the shop and once they tried it they gave me a new Alesis 18 which is so easy to use, and as I said it creams the 670

Very very awkward to use,
The hand book is all over he place instead of following on to the next move.

All the drumbeat "preset paterns" are too complex for me to use.
Bass stuffs good, but......

The demo is fantastic, sounds pretty good for seting up the PA.

It:LL NEVER BREAK DOWN AS I CAN'T REALLY USE IT.

I tried E-mailing Boss for help quite a few times, but maybe they know theyve made a complete lemon and want to steer clear of any corespondance.
Took it back to the shop I got it from, even their tech couldn't make any sence of it, but no chance of any return, or money back.

I got a couple of basic tunes together, works OK, but the hours of messing about makes this DR 670 a waste of money, when Cake walk on your PC leaves it for dead in minutes, burn a CD and "yer sorted".

This DR 670 is the most difficult "thing" I ever used. I sat every evening, for sixteen weeks with it and the hand book, thinking I'd get some sense out of it, but to my amaisment I got the backing for "Albatross" half done, then it all went somewhere??? I went on a ten hour flight to LAS with it and ear phones and the hand book and spare batteries, thinking I'd make something of the other half of Albatross, but nothing but distress! I've built and programmed a few PC's in my time, I dont have any problems with e-mails, but this DR 670 must be the bollocks of them all, or we've all been ripped off with a lemmon. It simply does not work, or I'm reading the handbook upside down. I resorted to Cake walk and MP3 CD's for my backing tracks, which takes minutes to sort each track and once on CD, its virtually indestructable.

Buttons work good and are pressure sensative, it must be the bits inside that dont work together at all. The whole thing looks impressive, but to no avail whatsoever!

When connected to my Gigrack 1000, it sounds really impressive and is good for checking "around the room sounds" at setup (but absolutely nothig else).

For something that is prety darn useless, its taken a few knocks while I've been trying to make sense of it. It will probably be indestructable and still be working fine in 50 years when I'm dead.

I never tried to repair this or needed an upgrade, even though I've had it almost a year, I've never actually used it for its designated use.

I'm in a couple bands and do music most weekends at least once. I always had problems with drummers and their moods, Bass players are strange people too. I thought I'd be able to save their wages and buy a couple of extra beers, but this has backfired on me for sure.
I certainly would never buy another of these.

I have only had it a few days but immediately discovered glaring ommisions in the manual. For instance, the instructions to save a present to a user location neglect to mention you have to put it in pattern edit mode first. The biggest bummer so far is you can't use the key transpose function to shift the bass down on any factory preset. I tune down to e flat so this would have been a crucial feature. Even worse, I figure ok, so you save a preset to a user patch, then edit it to include shifting the bass down...no you can't do that either! To ad to frustration, it gives you no indication this is not possible, it registers all the proper messages in the display as you go through the sequence of steps. So the key transpose only works when cooking up your own bass and rhythm patch from scratch!? The manual seems ok for most other basic functions so far, but as I get deep into programming I have no doubt I will continue to find what-the-****-where-they-thinking bummer limitations like that. It should go without saying you need to thoroughly read the manual to use something this complicated. I give it lame marks because the manual has ommisions of crucial functions you need to know to include how to shut off the bass which I found thanks to google.

It does not have built in effects other than a touch of gate reverb on the snare. For a metal/rocker like me, the choice of presets is generous. The main feature that sold me on this was the Bass tones. This is a Godsend for a solo jammer like me who gets bored playing alone really fast. The number of possible drum sounds is amazing and I think very good for a reasonable amount of money. However, this machine was not optimally designed for non-drummers like myself who would ideally use this to take a preset, save it to a user location, adjust the tempo, maybe some very light editing and again TRANSPOSE THE BASS LINE TO FIT THE KEY I HAPPEN TO BE JAMMING IN AT THE MOMENT! Boss, how could you do this to me? All in all, the features it has are impresssive and I don't think most people buy a unit like to replace Terry Bozio and program Frank Zappa's black page into it. As a practise aide, it's loaded to the gills with more than I will ever use. As a substitute for a virtuoso drummer, I don't it's even ethical that attempt that!

I play this out through the stereo system in my music room and the sound quality is incredible for me. Very, very realistic drum sounds. Very inspiring to jam along with and really, sounds just like a recording of a drum kit. I'm not expecting it to have human nuances that of course you hear with a real drummer so I'm not saying it sound like that right out of the box. I play hard rock and old school metal stuff mostly. I'm so happy it has bass tones that I'm not going to get fussy over their sound quality. They are a bit electronic sounding, less convincing than the drums, though still convincing in context. The tap tempo is a great feature.

I would baby this thing and not expect it to tolerate being dropped to a hard floor. It seems a well built as anything these days which is to say well enough to hold up under normal use, but not well enough to tolerate any abuse.

I tried to register with Roland to get e-mail help and got a message that my login info would come to my e-mail. It's been two days and no e-mail. I have not tried to contact them yet, I want to go as far as I reasonably can figuring things out myself then have a list of questions to get help with in one shot. I don't have a rating for this category so far.

I should have bought a drum machine a LONG time ago. As a practise aide this is fantastic for pushing me in directions I don't normally go. I love just turning on a new patch, setting the tempo then jamming to it. My friends always comment I have the best time they've ever heard from a guy who doesn't play in a band. However, I do a lot things in odd times without realizing it and turn beats around a lot, so this little machine is going whip me into shape and not a day too soon! I'm looking foward to the education I need of programing my own beats to jam with. I'm also looking foward to recording simple groove jams and the sound quality of this thing is just fantastic to my ears for that. I didn't see any other low cost drum machine with bass tones and I am amazed that that is not a standard feature with drum machines. If only you could easily transpose factory preset bass tones on the fly this would be a dream come true for me. Despite this huge bummer, I'm still very happy with it and intend to keep it. Worth every penny for my level of demands.

The thing is quite compicated, to find out how to delete single drums in a pattern I had to read the manual, only to find that you can only delete one and one step when step editing. madness.

I spent quite some time before realizing that half of the patterns and drums and song are presets. the drumkit presets change back to it's original state after you change them, which caused major frustration. the shift key system is quite unuseful too.

This is where my anger comes from IT DOESN'T HAVE SWING/SHUFFLE!!"!!#"%

This means that this drummachine is completely useless to do anything in reggae or jazz where you use swing %55 and %67. Stupid.

Other have mentioned other problems with the design that I agree on.

The drum sounds are good, clear that they have put quite a few bucks in the drum sound. The bass sounds are crappy/cheesy so I only give it a 5, it would be nice to have a bass synth, but there's no traces of a 303 here...

I have very good experience with other boss equipment.

This is not a good drum machine. I miss my alesis sr-16. The drum sounds are not good enough to weight up for the stupid design. It has so many flaws it's a shame on BOSS's credibillity.

Compared to the sr-16, they actually tried to build a good machine, with a nice design. this one they didn't.

I had never used a drum machine before using the DR-670. It was fairly easy to figure out though. Most everything about it makes a lot of sense except the fact that you can't take the bass out of the preset beats (at least I've never figured it out). The manual is good.

I do not use the bass on this machine at all. I use it to record drums. For this purpose, it has every feature I need. You can make drum beats sound really natural with the amount of drum sounds they have. The roll and flam features are very good compared to other machines I've heard. I also really like the way drum kits are edited and the DPP (direct pad play). I do not use this machine live so I have no idea if the features are versatile enough for live play.

I give this category a 10 because I love the drum sounds on this machine so much. I record songs using real drums and the DR-670. No one who has ever listened to one of my songs that used this machine has thought for even one moment I was using a drum machine. It is truly amazing to record with. I never thought I could get something with this type of drum sound for as much as I paid. As I mentioned earlier, I don't use the bass, but I imagine if I did I would give this category a much lower rating as the bass sounds pretty bad.

Don't gig with it, not at liberty to say.

Never dealt with boss

If it was lost of stolen, I would definitely buy another one of these machines or something else in the Boss DR line of drum machines. I have been playing guitar for 11 years and drums for 6 years. I use this machine so I can record songs (for fun) and not disturb my neighbors with a loud drum kit (live in an apartment). If you are a guitar/keyboard/horn/bass/etc. player trying to record drums without a drum kit, you should definitely consider buying one of these as it will not break your budget at all.

Not difficult once you check out the manual. Most of it is easy enough to figure it out on your own.

I believe it has 20-note polyphony. Pad sensitivity works well, and is easily adjusted in the utility menu. 200 Preset patterns, all with bass parts and fills, 200 user patterns, 100 user song memory. Too bad you can't back up the pattern data externally though. Pretty standard outputs:MIDI in/out, stereo outs and headphone jack.

Some of the sounds are better than others. I plan on using mainly the rock kits and sounds - most work just fine for me.

I use a band on stage. I didn't buy this to replace that. Seems pretty tough for a plastic box.

I bought this as a practice tool for writing lead parts and soloing. I wanted someting that had drums and bass. This works. If I had to replace it, I'd check out the ZOOM 323 first, but this is still a very nice unit.

A read of the manual is necesary from the outset. However once you get into it's pretty logical and you realise the flexibility you get with this little box. The manuals are OK. But with most things like this you have to get used to the style they're written, then you're away.

There are plenty enough features in this for me. i.e. You can complie and edit up to 74 of your own drum kits from around 250 sounds (I think). That includes parimeters such as, panning, tuning, decay etc.

Pattern editing, copying and pasting is pretty quick once you get the hang of it. Song recording is easy to and you can build up things pretty quickly. Another really good feature is the direct pattern play. Although as others have mentioned it would have been exelent if you could have more than one set of 16 asigned patterns. Perhaps a few banks you could cycle through with the data wheel. Another thing that would have been really good would be if you can dial in the number of the drum kit you want, rather than cycling through with the data wheel. I mean, you have 150 of them. Oh and of course this has several bass tones you can edit to. As a guitarist I like the way the bass is played like a 4 string bass on this. Simple and intuative feature.

One thing that I find a little tricky is the pressure sensativity. That is to get anything between full volume or barely audible you have to do several takes. However I think you can change this, thogh as I've mislayne the manual I haven't tried yet. Despite what some may have written, you can change key of the bass on a recorded pattern. You go into pattern edit and use the voice mode. I find that pretty useful.

The sounds of the drums seem good approximations to me. I mean with a little reverbe and tweeking of EQ etc, you can get a passable sound. Of course not exactly real. But that's what drum kits are for. Also this thing has a load of dance, hip hop sounds which are also pretty good.

When I first got this box it looked a bit fragile. That is, it's very light. Even though it's designed for it, I felt a bit aprehensive about wacking the pads with heavy fingers. So far so good though. From what I've heard Boss / Roland are pretty reliable. Of course it's a plastic box with electronics inside so it won't make a good door wedge and it's not aerodynamic.

Tried to get a PDF manual for a Roland synth Didn't find them very helpful. I spoke to the UK side of things and they just said something about waiting for them from Japan and left it that. Well... Never had anything repaired yet. But I'll give a 4 anyway.

My main instrument is guitar. I play mainly either surf style stuff, or stoner rock or industrial metal. I needed a flexable drum machine and that's what I've got. I love this little machine and wouldn't be with out it. I only considered getting an Alesis SR-16 before I got this, but I went for this as, well it was more modern and I thought it would just have better programming possibilties. i.e. more sounds, more pattern storage etc. I would definitely replace this if I had to.

I use this primarily for recording as a hobbyist songwriter, and the DR-670 probably won't win awards for ease of use, but it's powerful and not hard to learn. The manual is pretty thorough and explains a lot of the mysteries of this unit if you are patient and don't mind keeping the manual close by. I would be wasting a lot of time by guessing from the button layout. It's easy to try editing a non-editable preset and then wonder why your changes don't stick. It's also too easy to accidentally assign a new, wrong pattern to a position in your song, since there's no confirmation step to ensure you're saving the right pattern. I wish the bass sounds didn't come on by default with preset patterns. I have to go into Utility Edit to turn them off. Aside from those minor gripes, once you get used to it, it's pretty easy and nimble to use. Synching the DR-670 to an external recorder couldn't be easier. It's all in the manual.

There's a lot of "meat" here. You can assign any sound to any trigger button and there's a fair amount of tweaking you can do to *any* percussion sound. A lot has already been written about features below. I'd prefer bigger trigger pads, but for the price I'm happy.

I don't expect Neal Peart drum solos from this unit. With a little tweaking, I find some good, natural-sounding drum sounds that don't sound too digital or artificial. I don't venture out into the exotic or hip-hop/R&B sounds much, so I can't comment on them. With a little effort, you can get some convincing and good-sounding results.

I've never had any problems with this unit. It's pretty rugged.

I've never needed customer support

I am very happy with this unit and would gladly buy it again. It has a bit of a learning curve, but with some time and patience you'll be pleasantly surprised by good quality sounds and the flexibility/ MIDI features of this unit.

Ok, forget what i said before, i figured out how to use this thing much better after spending the day on it, now i have to say i am much more happy with this drum machine, the sounds are very true to a drum sound. Its good

I is compatible with alot of things, only - is the touch senstive pads are to touch senstive, it would be nice to be able to turn it of.

The sounds of drums are great, bass arent so great.

Boss is a reliable name,

Hard to get ahold of boss

I like this alot more now that it makes sense, i would buy it aggain for that price.

This thing is easy to play around with, how ever 2 things after readig the manuel i still do not under stand. 1) When i push A/B it dose not change to pattern A or B it stays the same, on my Aleis Sr 16 there are 2 patterns. Next HOW THE HELL DO YOU TURN THE BASS OF ON THE PRE SET PATTERNS? IF YOU KNOW PLEASE EMAIL ME intotheforest689@yahoo.com i would realy like to know because the bass sounds are realy week.

Has alot of features. Its decent, you can hook it up to a midi device, lote of memory, big screen.

Problems are the beat idecator dose not tell you when the beat starts or finishes, its a light, on the aleis it say 1.2.3.4.est..

next its annoying to have to read so much into it to learn to use it.

The touch senstive pads are realy annoying because you realy have to hit them hard to get any sound.

I play death/ black/ doom and prog metal.
All i need is a steady 2bl bass drum and some blast beats. It dose that ok, how ever the roll button dose not keep the roll at a constent tempo, its all over the place and sounds fake.
The drums are good, i realy wish the would not put the bass on this, it realy ruins it.

I have bought many boss products over the years, and they never broke down on me.

The problem is its imposible to get a hold of boss to ask a question

If i lost it i would be sad, but i wouldnt buy it aggain.
Over all its good, the sounds are ok, i realy hate the bass thought. I would rather have an aleis sr 16

For just playing around with the factory presets, the device could hardly be easier; take it out of the box, power it up, turn it on, plug it into an amp or pa or even head phones, turn the big knob until you hear something you like and go to town. Programing user patterns, however, is a little more tedious than what one might think required.

I've owned an Alessis sr-16 for years now. The 16 has been the standard I judge other machines by. The dr-670 shares some of the same features of the 16, and a few nice new ones of its' own. The ability to change keys for the base WITH OUT having to write a new pattern isn't a feature this machine has and it makes it almost useless for live work as a result. Bummer....

Many of the factory presets are usable as is...not all though. Regretably, too many of the presets sound like they came from an inexpensive midi keyboard. You know what I mean. By the way, I spent a full afternoon doing NOTHING but carefully listening to the presets through a pair of high quality studio headphones, and then through a medium sized pa such as one might see in a 200-300 seat club which includes a powered sub woofer. So I gave the dr-670 a fair chance to impress me. (It didn't quite make though)

Boss has the reputation for making very reliable equipment and I've no doubt that this is true of this machine too.

You'll probably never need them as long as you don't do abusive things to the dr.

I am a professional musician and earn my entire income from music. I had hoped to use the dr-670 to supliment my solo guitar gigs; fatten up my lone guitar sound while playing standards. I've given it a good listen at home and read the manuel carefully. I'm sure it's fine for someone using it to jam on at home or the like; but it just can't do what I needed for live work. As a matter of fact, I can't seem to find any device that meets my need as a solo gigger; a small, reasonably priced (I define a reasonable price as what a device is really worth in terms of it's function. I'm willing to pay alot of money for a truely professional quility device) , programable with enough memory to be usable live, decent sounding out of the box, drum & bass machine. I really would have thought that by now, SOMEBODY would have made a really professional quality machine. I'm tired of paying too much for something that just doesn't cut it. And if it can't do what you need, then any price is too much. Roland, Yamaha, Alessis, Korg....somebody please listen!

its very easy to start playing right out of the box, takes a little bit more
to do advance functions, the menual is great and tell you all you need to know
about this little machine

It has a full midi capability, and you can backup all your data to a sequebcer which
is great, it doesn't have any effects and it does have only two output, so, you can't really
send diffrent drums to diffrent outputs
I find that edit patterns is a breeze once you get it

The sounds are GREAT, really really good drums and when you play with the touch sensitive
it sounds really real, bass sounds are ok, but i bought a real bass for this
with this little machine i fooled a lot of people who thought there was actually a drummer
on the tape

never broke, or failed, looks solid to me

never used it

This is a great little machine, i would buy it again

presets sound o.k, some deeper functions need knowledge from the manual. Manual is decent.

It doesn't have any real inbuilt effects, but you could add 'reverb' by setting the decay of a sample (variable between -31 and +31)
it doesn't have any expansion stuff, it does feature full MIDI implementation (as master or slave)

OF the 50 kickdrums, I found about 5 verry realistic (especially kick #18), ditto with the snares. Most sounds sound too compressed, or too much tailored for dance/R&b. Some rock-sounds are very good. I use it for metal/rock/surf (vintage/lo-fi)/funk.
Cymbals are VERY good, toms are decent. I don't care for the more exotic stuff. I wish it had more cymbals than 17. It only has 1 china, 1 splash and 1 gong.

touch sensitive pads are good. Sensetivity can be set to high/med/low.

Sure. I have it for 8 months now and it never stalled on me.
But the only minor flaw is, that the AC adapter isn't fit tight into the AC input. So, on stage you'd need to duct tape that, if you don't want a jumpy vocalist to tear the power out....

If it were lost or stolen, would you buy it again or get something else? Is it worth what you paid?>
I'd probably would replace it with a DR770 or maybe a secondhanded SR16, because those have 4 outputs.

what do you love about it? What do you hate?>
I like the sounds, the sample-editability, the custom drumkits.
I hate the the lack of 4 audio outputs, and lack of onboard effects

Did you compare it to other products? Which ones? Why did you choose this one?>
I compared it to some Zoom rhythm-track models. The Boss sounded more realistic to me. The Zoom seemed more like a toy.

Anything you wish it had?>
4 AUDIO OUTPUTS!!!!!!!!!!! SO I CAN SEND INDIVIDUAL OUTS FOR KICK, SNARE AND OVERHEADS (L&R)!

Does it help you make music, or does it get in the way?>
It helps me for basic ideas, and I also use it when I finish up my songs. But to emulate a real drummer, it needs a lot of programming (especially fills), so I can imagine it could get in the way.

It isn't incredibly hard to use, but simple procedures take a few more steps than necessary. To set the drum kit to the sound you want, you have to go through a lot of different sounds before you get to the one you want, since it is possible to set any sound to any button. And after I've found the sound I want and program it in to a pattern, the sound goes back to it's default setting when I switch to another pattern and come back to it, which is pointless. Anyone know how to fix this? I bought it without the manual and most of it is pretty straight forward, but the manual would help a lot. If anyone has a manual or could help me out, email me PLEASE! The preset patterns are fun but totally unusable.

There aren't any effects, but a seperate unit for effects is better for my setup anyway. I haven't accessed any features that have blown me away, but how would I know without the manual (I'm a little bitter about that).

The drum sounds are great! I do home recording, and the sounds are perfect for my little acoustic songs. There is a lot of diversity as far as musical styles go, and playing around with them is fun too. The bass is terrible, I won't use it, but the drum sounds are worth it.

Well i've only had it about a week, and nothing's gone wrong yet.

I've been trying to get some information on getting the manual, and it is IMPOSSIBLE to get one through their website. It is hard to even find a way to email them, and as far as i've heard, they don't respond anyway. I've also heard that it's like $100 to order one over the phone, because I'm not the original owner. If ANYONE has a manual I'd gladly pay to get a copy of it. I don't need an original, just a friggin copied version.

If I lost it, I'd probably get another one, or upgrade to the DR-770. The drum sounds are great, and it's worth the price I paid for it. I wish the bass sounded better, but I'll survive without it.

I find the ease of use to be typical. Desired improvements:

Menus could wrap around.

Bass on/off could have a dedicated button at the top level, instead of being a drill-down menu item. Ideally, this would be setable/savable per pattern, with global options for "Bass on, Bass off, Per Pattern".

I do really like the "fretboard" way that bass is programmed on this box. Nice work!

Lot's of good drum sounds, and quite a few bass sounds. I find that having bass available in the drum machine is really great for practicing, composing, and jamming.

200 user patterns is a workable number, much better than 50 or 100.

However, in a major error, Boss neglects to include the transpose parameter at the Song level, offering it only at the individual pattern level. Why is this important? Well, ideally one would like to be able to program a song (a blues, say) using just one pattern and having the bass part be transposed at the appropriate bars. If this were possible, you (or the Factory!) could quickly take each stylistic preset pattern and program a song in that style without even having to create any user patterns at all. Voila, dozens of simple songs could be created from the presets alone, very quickly. All the user patterns would then be available for actual beat/bass variations, and with 200 of them you could complexify (!) all those dozens of songs at your leisure and still not fill up the memory.

Unfortunately, the only way to transpose the bass is to create a completely new pattern in the user pattern space. This starts eating up memory fast, and is alot of extra work. Too bad. By saving one extra byte per song step (i.e. the transposition) we would have had a home run here.

One other really great feature, falling short at the implementation: DPP (Direct Pattern Play). It's very cool to be able to have 16 patterns assigned to the pads and a mode whereby touching each pad calls up a different pattern. It's very galling that there is only one such map available! Arghh! We're talking a handful of bytes per DPP map - WHY NOT HAVE 100 OR MORE DPP MAPS? Each DPP map could represent a song (containing up to 16 patterns), and you could have scores of such available simply by turning the Alpha dial (or sending MIDI program changes).

Hurrah for touch sensitive pads! HOWEVER, touch sensitive pads are not a substitute for being able to numerically edit the velocity of your drum hits. That's right, THERE IS NO WAY TO NUMERICALLY EDIT THE DRUM HIT VELOCITY. Want to tweak your snare just a little hotter (or cooler? - the only way to do it is to bang the pads with your fingers. This is hard to get just right with any subtlety. We are talking major step back here in the evolution of drum machines. Someone should lose their job for this one. All <I> can do is lower the rating on this review!

So far, so good.

Not used, no opinion.

The overall rating includes the price, and the DR-670 is fairly inexpensive, so that places the numerical rating higher than it would have been, considering the flaws noted above.

However, I personally am still waiting for the fabled "DRUM MACHINE DONE RIGHT" - and this one isn't quite it. It really shouldn't be as bad as "Waiting for Godot", but it is. Decades into the electronic music revolution and the newest gear is still just as likely to take steps backwards as forwards. Pity.

The presets sound great, from real sounds till electronic ones. Editing is a piece of cake, ya can hear instantly while tweaking.
The manual covers all very well.

It features a 20-voice polyphony. You can synchronize performances with a digital recorder or MIDI sequencer.I must admit I'm not into that stuff, I'm kinda MIDIot as someone once said.

As said, it covers lot's a kinda music styles. Electronic, realistic...From hardrock to ballades, drum and bass, to afro.
The bass sounds you can choose from are not all of them very realistic, but they are usuable, and some tweaking around makes a difference.

Since I only have it for 4 days (guess I'm the first one in Belgium, beside the importer)it's hard to judge, but I guess it's a piece of gear ya can thrust on, knowing Boss...

Didn't have to deal with them yet.

I must say that I bought it coz I had a credit at the music store, I had to buy a Boss product, so I went for the DR-670. I must say it's great and leaves me no nightrest! hah, It's very easy to use, I only master 35% of it till now and that's a good sign, meaning it has lot's a possibilities. It suits my purpose completely, I'm able to get nice drum sounds with a bass line, I can jam along, our drummer, who's kinda sceptic over these things was very enthusiastic. THe in-real time programming is a killer, using the sensitive keys, for sure, it will improve my guitar playing.
Ya can change several parameters for every "instrument", kick, snare, toms...ya can change sounds by changing the way ya hit them! And so on...

Relatively easy to program patterns and compose rythmn for songs. The presets sound good although they are only patterns and you most likely need to make your own for your songs. The manual is fine, technical enough yet not difficult to follow.

256 drum and percussion sounds derived from the dr-770 model. 20 Velocity-sensitive pads. Rhythm patterns include bass and drums (16 basses for bass lines). Start/Stop & fill with footswitch. Battery or AC powered. Stereo output, headphone jack, volume control, MIDI in/out and footswitch jack. Built in sequencer. AC power jack. Step or real time input.

Sounds to me are good for such a compact device. Drums sound very similiar to the dr-770 unit. While, its less versatile for pure drums sounds as in the dr-770 model, there are many more features for bass programing (16 instruments-fret line interface). The velocity pads react well as they do in the dr-770.

Roland/Boss tends to be very reliable and dependable.

All in all a good solid unit. I also have studio software but I prefer using this because its portable and has programming in real time as opposed to just step. What appealed to me about this unit was that is can be battery powered (some of the other drum machines need to be plugged into the wall.) And the fact thats its primarily made to be used for Bass and Drum programming. Both work well and fit their function. The fretboard layout and velocity sensitive pads are very good features for it to have. There are even some synth bass, drum and bass, and a few groove sounds thrown in. The unit would be a must have if it was more verstaile though, like having all the instruments from the dr-5, groove sounds and knobs like the dr. 202 groove, and a sequencer as big the dr-770. But then again it probally would cost a lot more like the Roland 505. This is a great box to have if you want to record live or just jam with it. Perfect for Punk (I play guitar, and use drum and bass tracks with the dr-670). The velocity sensitive pads are a godsend and very helpful in creating more life-like sounds; without the hassle of re-tweaking the velocity parameters. I was surprised to get the results I got without having to use a exteral controller. The sounds are good enough to fool a listener with very little tweaking on the mixer or software.