Boss DR-880 Dr. Rhythm Drum Machine

The DR880 is an amazing piece of equipment. Other reviewers have criticized the "user friendliness" of this unit. I will agree with them. There are so many things that you can do with this unit that getting started is daunting. I did purchase Roland (Boss) DR-880 DVD Video Training Tutorial Help, and have found it an excellent resource. I also have a lot of experience with other drum machines (this was a replacement for my old DR5), but with the aforementioned DVD, I was creating useable arrangements in about three hours. And not just "simple" things, either. My own compositions.This unit has amazing sounds and the amount of "humanization" (or perhaps anthro-imitative capability [? :-p ]), from relaxing the time (laying back, pushing forward), the velocity, and bending/fingering, makes this unit very usable for REAL demos and REAL music.I highly recommend this piece of gear.

The Boss DR-880 is an amazing machine. Yes, there are many options for drums within any given DAW, but I was an owner of BOSS's DR-5 and sometimes prefer just to program a little without having to fire-up the computer. I think you can get more of a variety of contemporary polished & un-polished sounds through software; however, there is still a ton that you can do with the sounds inside this unit. The sounds are about as real as you can get on a drum machine. Even my DR-5 fooled people into thinking it was real drums. As with any drum machine, it helps to think like a drummer when programming (and use the "groove modify" function - the added ghost notes are incredibly believable). Also,you can separate the kick and snare sounds when sending the output to your favorite DAW or some other audio source.If nothing else, the DR-880 is a great source for inspiration. Program a beat, or use the "EZ Compose" feature and just start playing along...

Enjoying this product, somewhat limited but still a great drum machine

Very complicated to use..... sad to say but I never got it to do much of anything.... I guess if I want a new hobby I could try to figure this out. I just wanted to use it as a drum machine.

This item, is undoubtedly one of the more excellent drum machines available; and for a price cut of nearly 60 percent, you really can't turn something like this down. I am still working on becoming familiar with the DR-880 and have been told that it takes some time to get a grasp on all the workings... however, I have seen what they can do first hand, and I am excited for all the new possibilities available to me in my music, now that I have this product.

I LOVED this unit, although it's a very dated design (2004). While it was working, it was wonderful to practice to. The variety and adjustability of the patterns is fantastic. However, unlike most of the Boss stuff I've had, this unit was not solidly built. The motherboard gave out after only 14 months (2 months out of warranty) and the cost of repair is approx. 50% of the cost of a new unit. And, for Boss, "out of warranty" means "out of warranty."

I bought this used for a friend that has a home studio, and when we hooked it up, it sounded terrible and muffled. After some research, I did a factory reset (as the previous owner must have hosed it up really good with a bunch of weird settings) and it came back so that a level EQ on the board is now a perfect sound. The machine must also have an update installed or after 500 writes it will do its own factory reset automatically and delete all user data and settings, just like that! This is a slightly older machine from BOSS, but is still holding its value very well as it's really a great drum machine with great features. My only complaint is that the seller did not do the factory reset or the update before selling it, leaving the buyer at risk. If you buy it new, you'll likely have to do the update to the 2.0 software yourself or it will ultimately reset itself when you save ~500 user patterns. That has to be done with a PC that has a MIDI interface to do the update, as even though it has a USB interface that's only for backups and won't work for the update. We have not done the update since the user does not intend to program the machine or save any data on it, but uses the kits and patterns to record on his board only.

This drum machine has been the best I've ever owned. It has so many features many of which I've yet to explore. The sound, the feel, and programing are wonderful. I'm so glad to have this piece of equipment with all my other gear.