Help, which drum machine / sampler

[normanlevene]

I have to perform live on stage for 6 hours at a time using rhythms for upbeat songs. I'm currently using a touchpad with mp3 player with prerecorded loops and drum songs I've made. But I want to tempo set and trigger for certain tunes. (Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody and Don't stop me now) being 2 of them where the drums stop and start a lot. I'm hitting the stop button instead of triggering an endfill for each song so the endings are sounding like a bit of a let down.

My question is...

Is there a midi drum machine / hardware sound module / touchpad / ipad program that has all the main functionality of something like the Alesis SR18 in that it lets you trigger intros, fills, endings alternative verse / chorus beats on the fly.

Possibly triggered by a foot pedal.

Also allows you to import midi files of rhythms created externally on a DAW like Cubase or Logic. I'd rather program rhythms externally of most drum machines as you have more control and it's generally easier and faster.

Most importantly a drum machine that let's you use drumloops in wav or mp3s instead of just its own generic 1980s sounding samples?

Possibly with a built in bass sound.

Preferably with a simplistic song / pattern selecting process for rapid groove changes. I'd to spend no less than 10 seconds finding each loop / song.

I need something like this for live performances and the Alesis is just too 1980s sounding for me.

Credit card at the ready, where do I spend?

[chrisso]

Not exactly what you're looking for, but have you looked at iMaschine?
the advantage is that the sounds are good, contemporary. It's super portable and you could work on it while inflight or hotel rooms etc......
I would probably go with the iPad version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E_T7...eature=related

[Kiwi]

A song like Boho Rap pretty much has a fixed structure - can't you just program the whole song and let it play, without dancing the fandango on any pedals?

I would recommend you create your tracks on a computer, using a good sample library. It beats programing drum machines or workstations - and you have massive control over every detail.

Unless you have a need for midi to control other hardware, I would just bring audio files and let them play. If you want to loop certain sections, you could possibly do that with a looper pedal - which is also a pretty good audio playback solution.

I have an SR18 - and I think the drums samples are great. The bass samples are useable - you can edit them a bit with filter and envelope which helps.

You might consider a Korg M50 keyboard, which has pretty good sounds all round, and a sequencer. You can set it up to loop different sections by hitting different keys.

I see that Roland have a brand new looper pedal, and also a drumpad that can play very long samples. You could use either to loop verse or chorus etc.

Right now I'm looking for the perfect solution to stream both midi and audio for live stuff. I can't get past using a computer and a DAW. I thought the Kronos might be the answer, but it takes 2.5 minutes to boot up, and I don't trust the touch screen to not break. Basically, it's a computer (a pathetic Atom processer) that comes with a bloated hard drive. So as nice as it is, I think i'll stick to the computer idea.

6 hours playing is a long day. I would suggest multiple redundant systems, so you don't die of boredom, and in case anything breaks.

I have a Roland SC50, which can play back midi files (with respectable rompler sounds, except I hate the drums). It's also a good audio playback device, with 24 bit line level converters and uses a regular USB stick.

For some reason, nobody has built the perfect machine for playback of backing tracks. The makers have to realise that need audio, because midi generally sounds bad. But we also need midi - to control guitar processors and vocal harmony boxes, if not mixers and lights. And if it could playback HD video we'd put that to good use too ... And yes, we might want to loop sections at will. And no, we don't trust computers.

It shouldn't be so hard to make the perfect box that would please millions of musicians ...

[Kiwi]

Roland CONNECT - SPD-SX: Sampling Pad

[Kiwi]

Roland CONNECT - RC-300: Loop Station

[normanlevene]

Much appreciated advice but still not quite there. I've decided to amend my criteria.

I've already found a small bass module.

I've already created loops and drum songs for over 200 songs now in wav / mp3 format in cubase so creation isn't the problem. Just playback.

They're all approx 4 minutes long rhythms too. The problem is that 75% are simple repeated loops. No verse chorus distinction and no endings. I just search for the appropriate mp3 and play it and stop the player at the end of the song, which means no end fills.

I simply want to be able access them incredibly quickly, add fills / chorus rhythms and endings in real time whilst on stage. The loop station is almost the thing but I'm standing in front of a grand piano so looking down at the the foot pedal to change songs would be bad for me.

It's a bit of a spinning plates affair where looking down from the crowd and ignoring them to mess around with software for more than 10 seconds really kills the vibe. Hence my current choice of android touchpad. Fast and easy to see in the dark.

Perhaps software for the Ipad or HP touchpad. I'll keep looking but any suggestions would be most welcome.

I'm basically looking for 5 massive clunky and hard to miss trigger buttons (possibly the top 5 keys of a midi piano) and the worlds fastest song selection system.