Alesis Sr-16

Hi all,

Just a quick question to see what people think of the Alesis SR-16. I’ve got the opportunity to buy a second-hand one relatively cheaply (I know they’re all quite cheap these days) but I’m not convinced I’d use it that much…

What do I want to use it for you ask?? Well I don’t really like much of the preset sounds I’ve heard and, seeing as you can’t record or load any more I’d probably try and circuit bend it, or do some kinda “crazy” stuff sending it MIDI and routing it out through other effects…

Haven’t got time just now but I’ll do a search of the forum later and see if there’s any other discussions about it…

So yeah, any thoughts?? Pro? Cons? Seen any good, creative use of it by electronic artists?? Would I be better saving my cash for something a bit more modern I can load my own samples on?? Do I need any drum machine when I’ve got Renoise?!? ;)

Anything you got to say really :)

Ta.

OK I think if I be bothered to buy this I’m gonna circuit bend it following this guys guide…“problem” solved!

I say get as much hardware as you can afford! :) even if renoise is the best drum-sequencer ever, it is really nice and fun to use other stuff aswell. wacky CV-sequencers will most probably make you make different tunes and grooves than what you are used to doing.

does it have midi out? cause maybe then it can sequence other gear which is really cool. if its cheap, why not!

Pretty sure it doesn’t have MIDI out… just in and throu. Still though, think I’m gonna try and get it! :)

otherwise you could save your money and get this one, a bit more expensive but daaaaamn, what a machine

out side midi performs either function. don’t worry…

mostly not too crazy sound-wise but meant to be kind of a generic, catch all genres drum machine and very well selected drum samples in it and alesis succeeded at what they were trying to do there… very useful, i think. my opinion is: nice selection on the low cost side.

One interesting factoid is that the SR-16 “features a great selection of 233 realistic, natural drum sounds” but really inside the chip there is really only 66 samples which are mixed together in different ways to create 233 combination sounds.
I wonder what was the first drum machine to use that technique?

Wow, that’s quite interesting BatBoy. Apparently a lot of the sounds are just wet versions of the dry ones, so maybe it uses some kind of convolution to create the reverbs etc?

What do you mean by this oHMzwitch? Could I still use it to trigger sounds from other midi synths even though there’s no out??

Haha pleasuretrail! I wish I had that kind of money to spend on hardware…I wouldn’t have to look up crazy circuit bends for what I can get cheaply then…would my ‘music’ sound any better though?? Hmmmm…It probably would actually!!

Well I see that you can actually get them cheaper on ebay that the “cheap” one I saw for £50…so I think i’ll look out for one coming up and have a go at the circuit bend project just for fun :)

Thanks for all your input guys…

PS. I read somewhere that Autechre used one…anyone know what songs/albums?? Would be interesting to hear what some masters can do with something like this…

9 of the samples are pure wet reverb tails which get mixed in to varying degrees with different samples. There doesn’t seem to be much correlation between the reverb tails and the samples they are applied to in most cases. I gathered this from taking a look at the eprom rip someone did.

What do you mean by this oHMzwitch? Could I still use it to trigger sounds from other midi synths even though there’s no out??

i remember it being being software switchable. maybe you will have to find a pdf of the manual but there was some setting that would determine how the port would work. i think it was an either/or type of thing. it would not function as both at once. i think?
i had one and i liked it. then again, i had a magnus organ and i liked that too, so take it for what it’s worth.