Rhythm box for solo swing/jazz playing

Dirk B · Post by **Dirk B** » 12 Sep 2000 6:43 am

I enjoyed David Wright's playing in the Sierra room at the convention and would like to get a similar setup to play solo here in town; but getting a laptop with the band-in-a-box and all is a little prohibitive ($$). I've read some earlier posts on this; the Boss dr-5 is supposed to be pretty good, but does it have swing/jazz rhythms? I'm prepared to live with the programming limitations of a drum machine. It would be nice to have something that I could load up 12-15 songs on and play with, even if the changes couldn't be programmed as much as I'd like.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.[This message was edited by Dirk B on 12 September 2000 at 07:44 AM.]

Kenneth Kotsay · Post by **Kenneth Kotsay** » 12 Sep 2000 3:06 pm

Try the ROLAND JS-5 JAM STATION, it's the replacement for the Dr.5. It cost's about $480.00. I had a demo of it at MARS MUSIC Store in Margate, Florida. Has great potential for creating your own tracks. You get to view the chords as they are played by this machine music box. Has pitch control and tempo control etc.,

WWJD ........... WWJD ............. WWJD[This message was edited by Kenneth Kotsay on 13 September 2000 at 03:42 PM.]

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 12 Sep 2000 5:25 pm

Remember Sonbone? He's a steel player on this Forum who wrote a little program called Basic Beats that runs on Windows PCs. Works great.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 13 Sep 2000 2:35 am

Zoom has a unit for about $250 that will allow you to program the drum and bass tracks. I don't remember the model number but they have this unit and a cheaper unit that does some of what the $250 unit does. I looked at it when I was looking for a drum machine but I didn't need the bass and only wanted a drum machine so I settled for an Alesis SR-16. If you don't mind programming in the songs the Zoom may be what you are looking form.

Rich Paton · Post by **Rich Paton** » 13 Sep 2000 8:18 pm

I would look around for a good deal on one of those Yamaha "Midi Filers", which looks like an external 3.5 floppy drive. You record your midi material on a floppy, and play it back from the "filer". you would also need a tone generator box, but this stuff can be had cheap used...you know how a lot of musicians are about having the latest doo-dad. Maybe some of the newer units combine those functions, anyone know about that?

gary darr · Post by **gary darr** » 14 Sep 2000 1:15 pm

Dirk,the aleses DR 16 works great for me. I play in a three piece dance band and hardly miss a drummer not being there. I think you can programe like 40 songs or just use factory or user written patterns on the fly. allso this unit records very well email me if you like if you would like any additional info

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sho bud pro 2 session 500

Darvin Willhoite · Post by **Darvin Willhoite** » 14 Sep 2000 2:02 pm

I have a Boss DR-5 on its way to me now. I'll let you know what I think of it after I play with it a while.