Boss DR550 mkII

[Bass Ninja]

Does anyone have any tips and tricks for getting a more "realistic" sound out of the DR550? Perhaps through re-programming or effects.

[SenhorLampada]

Have you messed up enough with the Decay and Color parameters?
If you're not satisfied... try to pass through some effects processor...

I just bought a dr-550 mkII, and the sound is aaaaaaaalmost how I like it... But i'm gonna use my Zoom 506 II (Bass Pedal) to beef the sound up!

When i'm goin' noisy, I pass the 550 signal through my Korg EA-1!

Basically, use some Equalizin', maybe some Chorus/Reverb... but don't abuse on it, or it will sound fake!

Hope this helps...

[SenhorLampada]

I have another problem with the DR... It's how to backup my shit...
I'm not using any tape recorder... and batteries (at least here in Brazil) are expensive...

I tried recording the backup signal in Wave format... but trying to load/verify the signal, it shows up that some Error occured!

It did load the pad config... but i'm fear someday i'll come up with some good patterns and end up losin' it! :|

[Stink]

Check it out!!! I've owned my DR-550 for about 15 years - and have faithfully kept it plugged in and swapping batteries for the past 10 - since I don't have a cassette tape recorder any longer.

Continued... (the plot thickens...)

Recently I decided that I had shelved my talents for long enough, broke down and got myself a Tascam DP-01fx 8 Track hard disk recorder. In searching for some information on folks that had made "digital" backups I came across your thread. Your results did nothing for my confidence - but I'm hard headed and decided to have a go at it anyways. I figured that if I watched the input levels - and got them as high as possible without having any clipping - I'd be OK. To make a long story short - I was able to pull it off on the 2nd try.

Hook up is as follows:
1) 1/8" (.125 for you engineer types) mono plug into the save/load jack on the DR-550

2) Other end to a 1/4" (.250) mono plug into one of the inputs on the HDR

3) Assign and Arm the track you want to record on - (named the song DR550_BU) to the jacked input.

4) Start the "Save" process on the DR-550 and adjust the gain on the HDR's input until you get a nice high level - again - without any clipping!! Distortion is only good when you are slapping it on a guitar signal!!

5) After you get your settings nailed down - stop the recording on the HDR and erase/clean/wipe the track and start the save process over with the good settings.

6) After you get done with the save - do a verify by hooking a 1/4" (.250) Stereo to 1/8" (.125) mono into your HDR's headphone jack and the other end to the DR-550's save/load jack.

7) You might have to adjust the level of the head phones - I started out fully muted and then opened it up gradually so as not to hammer the DR-550's save/load jack - until you get a good verify. After a successful verify - I would recommend taking a listen to the signal that is going to the DR-550 using a pair of headphones - so you can get an idea of how low you can run it - wouldn't want to fry the circuit by over driving it too much. See?

8) Go have a brew!!! You now have a digital backup of your drum setup - and unlike analog (cassette tape) backups - it should never ever go bad from magnetics getting old/weak. Yeahhhh!!!

Have a good one!
~Stinky

[SenhorLampada]

Hey stink! Nice one, man!
When I tried making backup to the PC, it could be buggy alright... Maybe too many SoundBlaster EAX effects and so!

But now I have a MicroBR... Gonna try to backup to it!


Thanks for your tips anyway

(although I think i'm gonna sell my DR and my MC-50... need the money right now! )