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First, this is a great drum machine. Fully programmable, reasonably intuitive, excellent sound, very versatile for live performance. That said ... Main "issues": The bass line is on by default, and their tech support is useless. Also, the owners manual has a lot of errors. The big problem is the bass line. Each pattern has a bass line that plays along, and in a random key! They don't even tell you what key it is - very bizarre. However, There is a way to "permanently" (you can turn it back on) turn off the bass line. Basically, you reduce the bass volume to zero and save the setting. Actual procedure is too complicated for this review, but it can be done. I posted it on the Alesis forum. Anyway, great machine once you get rid of the ridiculous bass part. I am very happy with it!Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Refurbished
Poor execution in several area but excellent in others. Has 3/4 time patterns unlike the SR16. Has great sound but is primarily 16 beat patterns. NOT good for live performances where 8 beat patterns are the best. Battery powered is cool but it can eat batteries because of the bright screen. If you know how to write bass lines great! Otherwise it's a useless feature and annoying as hell to turn the bass off every time you turn the machine on. I wouldn't buy another one and continue to use my sr16 regularly..........
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
The Alesis SR-18 is a welcome update to the now classic SR-16. The sample library is very extensive, ranging from acoustic to electronic sounds. Honestly you could definitely write a full track off this unit and this unit alone with some creative sequencing and the help of a DAW. The SR-18 sounds are wonderfully editable with pitch adjustment up and down an octave, low-pass non-resonant filtering, and, probably most importantly, decay editing. The onboard compression/EQ processing options sound quite good and the reverb algorithms are actually stellar in my opinion as well. They really deliver amazing & lush sounding standard reverbs as well as more washed out or effecty type algorithms. The onboard sequencer is easy to use but a little tiresome. Sequencing from a computer is much better for getting the nuances of off-the-grid looseness. If you wanted to gig with it you could program in the DAW and then record unquantized straight in to keep your original computer programmed feel. The only real downside to this unit, and it’s somewhat irksome, is that the sample library isn’t organized super intuitively. Alike samples aren’t always grouped together so if you’re looking for which clap to use for instance, you can’t just browse all the options in series. Apart from that the samples are really quite useable and even the bass/synth sounds are pretty interesting too even if they don’t have any real-time control. The SR-18 does so much to enhance the SR-16 that I really hope we get a similar & unexpected leap to what Alesis does in its hopeful next upgrade.Read full review
Verified purchase: No
This is a great drum machine. Right out of the box it’s easy to understand and use—if you give the manual a glance. For the more advanced functions, a more intensive study is necessary. One thing the Alesis SR-18 comes with is a printed list of the presets and options! Any other device I’ve purchased has not come with any list, nor has there been one available online. 🙁 So the preset and user preset list makes it easy to go thru each drum quad and mark down your faves. The drum background made it easy for me to gig in public for the first time! I could play along with a selection of beats that I chose the night beforehand. I’m very happy with this unit.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New
This is a wonderful drum machine, very instinctive set-up and easy to work with. I had previously owned a couple of Boss units and I thought of them as perfectly fine, but the Alesis sr18 really takes it next level. I'm excited to do music again as a result of this machine!
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New
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