Dr-880

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hmarq

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Anyone have one? ... doing a google search on "DR-880 review" turns up very little useful info beyond links back to Roland/Boss site.

I'm starting from almost zero, gear wise and the combination of decent samples, ez composition, the GT6 and reasonable IO selection makes it look like a good unit as both a jam/practice box and a demo/recording box. Ease of use looks to be good; I say that with the understanding that I'm starting at 0 on the learing curve and comparing it against a sequencer, sample library, loop library, etc.

Just curious about others experiences with the machine.
 
I've had one for about a month now and I'm pretty happy with it, but this is really the first piece of gear I have ever bought so I really have nothing to compare it to. It sounds really nice....very realistic drum sounds. This thing is awesome for jamming. I just plug the guitar and some headphones straight into it and now I'm a three piece band. The EZ compose is nice and very easy to use and you can set up a beat with it and then go into it with the "step recorder" and change just about anything you want. I love this thing, but like I said, I have nothing to really compare it to.
 
Well I ordered one. Still waiting for it. It seems like a great jam box if nothing else, but with all the IO the thing has I'm sure it'll make nice recordings too.

How easy is the ez compose for bass lines? ... that's the thing I really couldn't get a handle on from the demos ...
 
The EZ compose for the bass is about as good as they could make it. There are four main catagories you can choose from - steady and simple, rock blues, ballad, and funk soul. Each catagory has about 25 or 30 simple bass lines to choose from. you can make all kinds of adjustments like which key it plays in and the tempo, etc. You can also go into the step recorder and change the individual notes. I kind of wish they had included a few more catagories, but oh well. One really nice feature that I just discovered is the ability to import MIDI files. I can go online and find a Metallica MIDI file, download it, connect the DR-880 via a USB connection, import the file onto the DR-880 and now it plays the drums and bass to the song while I play the guitar part. It's pretty cool. It would take me hours to program these songs in manually, but with this it takes just a few minutes. I'm sure you'll be happy with it.
 
that sounds good ... I hadn't really considered importing midi of songs I knew already, I was planning on using it as a compositional tool ... but it might be fun to import a few cut loose!

It should be delivered tomorrow, unfortunately I leave on business early Thursday, so it'll have to wait till the weekend for me to play with it.
 
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