Groovebox or similar - please help!

[akpcep]

Hi guys,

I really need your help, I'm at the end of my tether!

I'm basically a guitarist/bassist/songwriter who plays a bit of keyboards. I'm looking to buy an all in one unit that I can use to produce drums, synths and basses on to complement my acoustic gigs. So far so simple!

I got an MC-505 for this purpose, but i just find it impenetrable. I'm not a technophobe at all, and yes I have RTFM! I just don't like the non-musical way it's programmed, it's counter-intuitive and I just can't get any flow whatsoever. It just feels clunky and laboured and the sounds are a bit too "hardcore techno" on the whole.

Is there anything out there, not too high-end price wise, that has a good range of useable (realistic?) drum sounds, an easy to use sequencer (with real-time record) and good build quality? The only other thing like this I've tried is when I borrowed a friend's RM1X, which as far as I can remember was a lot more user-friendly.

Please, any suggestions would be great, even if they're just product names that I can research myself!

You guys are great, thanks in advance.

[ssscientist]

You would probably find the Korg Electribes a whole lot more friendly than the Roland unit. I have recently parted company with an EMX-1 (the blue one) and I loved it while I had it. It has 5 monophonic synth voices and 8 drum voices running the gamut from realistic to very electro/synthetic.

The RMX-1 you mentioned becomes quite powerful when teamed up with it's intended partner in crime, the SU-700 sampler --- which is quite easy to use as well. They were originally made to be used as a team but when the RMX-1 started to outsell the SU-700 the team kind of split up. There's another recently discontinued Yamaha machine called an RN-200 (or is it RA-200?) that's probably going for about $100 on eBay now...

[junplugged]

you need a sampler with a sequencer

[akpcep]

Thanks ssscientist - that's some great info!

junplugged, why do you say I need a sampler with a sequencer?

In fact, what would I use a sampler for in this situation?

The other idea I had would be to use Reason to create my accompaniment, and take my iBook to gigs. Of course the down side of this is I'd have no real-time control, and I might start to worry about things like reliability.

[ssscientist]

For live gigs I port my Reason wav files over to Ableton's Live so I can have control over the arrangements. It's a system I've cooked up and refined over a period of years --- at one time I included the EMX-1 in my gig arsenal along with a laptop computer.

And I always feel worried about taking my computer into a smoky bar. That's something that you need to work out for yourself. Sort of a cost/benefit analysis with a music-on-computers topic...

[akpcep]

I've been reading up on the EMX-1 - it sounds pretty good, I might see if I can find one at a reasonable price. As it stands though, they seem to be about £400 new, which is what my iBook cost (second hand) so the financial risk of gigging either would be about the same.

Thanks once again for taking the time to give me your advice - much appreciated!

[junplugged]

If you have access to drum sounds you like, you can sample just the ones you like, also with keyboard sounds, and play any of it live or over the sequence. I just got an SP-505 for this. But I'll be keeping it pretty simple, it depends on the complexity of your backing and playing live.

I haven't used it yet for this b/c I just got it, and of course, I started producing some stuff w/ it first since it's so cool and I haven't had one before....