New Drummers
Posted By Scott on April 15, 2011
Over the winter I picked up two used drum machines on EBAY. They are very different little beasts. The first one is a Yamaha RY-9 called the Big Jam. The main reason I got this was because of it’s small size and it can run using battery power though it did come with an AC adapter. I figure it will give me something to do on long flights or even when at the beach waiting for wind. However after struggling to learn how to program it I am ready to give it the boot. Though it has some interesting presets it is just not much fun to make beats on. The LCD display is a bit faint also. As I want to spend my spare drum time on the Roland MC-303 I sold the RY9 on EBAY shortly after making this post.
Yamaha RY-9
The second drummer I got was an Roland MC-303. There have been several Roland MC-### models made over the period of like the last 25 years. The MC-303 is way more than a drum mahcine, Roland calls it a Groovebox. The presets are mainly techno trance beats. I was surprised that it contains several rhythm sets as well as a bunch of tones and a bunch of specialty sounds in preset banks as well. I’m still learning how to program beats on it as there are tons of options. The display is neat and bright and the kinda keyboard buttons on it along with all the little led lights .. well it’s cool to
Roland MC-303
just look at when it’s beating. After fiddling with this girl a few hours I now love the EZ-Composer feature on my Roland Boss DR-880 drum machine even more. The EZ-Composer is just such a big time saver as it lets you quickly preview a bunch of different combinations very quickly to come up with a good matching drum beat and bass line for a song. With the MC-303 you need to have what you are looking for in your head first .. then you can program it and go wild with effects. I’m looking forward to spending some serious time with this little girl.
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