Drum machines, my G.A.S. and the Arturia Spark

What's going on y'all. Sooooo....IC's minimal boss thread had me reminiscing on the dr880, and my decade long dig for sick drum samples. Now, here the disclaimer:I am not bigging any products up, just looking for some opinions/options to up my drum game!

Okay, so. The boss dr880 is dope, easy to use, etc. but it's expensive for what it does, IMO, and I don't really like the sequencer. I wanted an electronic drum kit for a long time, but don't have the space. Basically, I'm looking for a small, fun to use drum machine with a bunch of good sounds that are tweakable.

Now I've ran across the Tempest ($2000, hardware drum synth)....too much dough, and I don't like the build quality of DSI gear (sound is dope, though). Also looked at the MFB-522, but its really only an 808 sound. Machine drum looks interesting, but hard to find locally. In other words, not a ton of options that are reasonably priced or easy to find.

What really has me interested is this Arturia Spark. It's a hardware/software thingy, a la mpc studio. Lots of analog emulations (what Arturia is known best for), realistic sounding acoustic drums and sampled drums with .wav import. Notice that they support their gear, too, unlike akai.(OS 1.5 was just released, 1.4 was out less than 6 months ago). Really like the idea of a box of drums with a xox style sequencer combined with mpc style sequencing. Anyone have any experience, opinions, etc?

Thought about the electribe, but I want to try something different from the traditional sample this, chop that, resequence, wash, lather, repeat shit, hahaha.

Oh, and I'm running a 2KXL as my sampler/midi sequencer, an SP303 as my effects box and a voyager for synthy sounds/pads etc.(if it matters, lol)

I may be confused by your specific question but the old electribe R's are just xox sequenced drums in a box, and so are the mc303-505's. I had a lot of fun with my mc 303 linked to the sp303 and kinds salty I sold it really. Its archaic but for a little more than a $100 dollars it's pretty nice.

I personally feel Spark is overpriced. I do however think it's sounds, mostly synthesized a few of them samples are quite good. They have the Vintage Drum Machines version that's available separately at $130.

I just can't see the whole thing as value at $550-$600 with Maschine being far more versatile and the Studio on the way at a similar price.

If it were $350-$400 I probably would have got one.

Arkyve's suggestion is good too, getting an old box and filling it with classic sounds. That's kind of the only reason I don't sell my 1000.

I have a 2000xl loaded with drum samples, breaks, etc. I'm looking for a drum synth/drum machine that I can layer and use in conjunction with what I have currently. Something not so MPC/sampler, more of a versatile drum tone module...

Im not too into the idea of having my computer on all the time, i only power that **** up to track into pro tools, lol.The spark is just seems to be the closest thing to what im looking for....and yes, it is a moderately overpriced midi controller/software bundle

A strictly hardware version of something similar to the spark would be ideal, just looking for suggestions, I guess. Tempest looks cool, just not feeling what I've seen of it so far (but that goes for 90% of user demo videos on YouTube, tbh)

I'm still looking at Arkyve's suggestion. The more recent Electribe (the red one), holds a fair amount of user samples, the sequencer is fun and there's just enough there to tweak the sounds a bit. Only thing is the cheaper units only take older memory cards that I believe top off at 128MB are expensive and harder to find. The current model does SD cards but is twice the price as the older ones.

I feel you jonestown, there's not a lot in between MFB's, little boutique analogs and Machinedrum and Tempest.

Tempest will be last major ticket item for awhile, probably early next year. If it didn't double as a polysynth I doubt I could reconcile spending the $2000 otherwise.

for drum synth you really cannot beat machinedrum - a mk1 non-uw could probably be had for cheap - but i would imagine once you got into it you might reeeaaallly want that sample mangling.

an er-1 is also a nice, very cheap drumsynth. wonderful bass drums / synthetic noises. definitely only synthetic though. i really enjoy it paired with an xl.
i personally think that an electribe es-1 would be too much double-duty with the mpc (in a more annoying way) and the cards are just too much of a pain.

the only thing about the spark is you got to have that computer, correct? at that point you could just go mpd and do it all in pc.

but i think maybe yer looking more for experience with the spark than for other suggestions?
well i can still stay on topic, as today i finally saw one in real life - though it wasn't hooked up / working. as far as i could tell it was 'on' (splash screen was on) but i couldn't get it to do a dern thing. take that how you will (i got all the hardware boxes working fine).

physically it looked awesome - felt good - nice data wheel - smooth knobs - cool buttons - and a layout like nothing ive ever seen.

im curious about experience with it in use too.

I bought my spark used for 133 bucks on clearance at a guitar center. Sometime people let them go for 300-350 on eBay. 550 may seem pricey for a midi controller, but its a nice light aluminum body and its light enough to play on your bed and do some patterns before sleeping. The emulations they speak of are amazing and you will catch yourself doing Miami bass with the 808 and 90s house with the 909.

Tell me more! I'm worried about future proofing myself and how much I actually have to look at the computer screen...also midi integration with my mpc...

This will be my first virtual instrument, ...very reluctant. Machine drum and tempest are looking nice...no USB!




Edit: need to try and get to using PT for more than tracking too, though. Spark has RTAS compatibility...

I have already read the manuals for the tempest, spark and the electribe...

if all you really want SPARK for is the sounds... can't you just get a copy of the software and/or the additional sample packs and save yourself some $$$ by not spending on the little flimsy controller you don't really need?

It's not neccesarily the sounds, but also the manipulation capabilities. I NEED a hardware interface, not trying to make a jump into keyboard and mousing it, just a slow transition, lol.

And yes I could rip the sounds into my mp, but I've done that with most drum plug ins already...want more of an instrument, I guess.

hmmmm... most the usual suspects have already been mentioned here... the older korg electribe ER1 comes to mind [and those can be had for under $100 easily on ebay]... the BOSS dr rhythm series was always classic as well... i've had the dr-660, dr-5 and dr-202 over the years... all available for cheap as well... but it sounds like you're looking for something with the X0X style sequencer... so yeah... i'd suggest the electribe ER1... even if you don't end up using it as an actual drum synth, you could still just use it's X0X style sequencer to control software or even your mpc via MIDI. just my 2 cents...

i dont know if youll like it, or if its even the kind of sounds you want, but i was watching some videos on the akai xr20, and yesterday went into guitar center to play with it for a bit and thought it was cool.

i didnt like the sequencer, but the drumsounds were badass, they were mainly geared towards electronic/hip hop users though, not so may organic live kit sounds.
i also liked some of the synth sounds on it.

would be cool to midi up to your mpc.

i wouldent buy one new, but you can get them for about 100-130 dollars on ebay now.

Here's all the sounds from the XR-20 if anyone wants to preview them or make some pgm's.

I didn't sample these but I've had them so long I forgot who did to credit them.

http://www.mediafire.com/?fcprmo3bv64gq51