Alesis SR-18 Drum Machine with 500+ Drum/Percussion Sounds

2023-07-02T17:20:06

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. I used to record full drum mixes off this with all the effects going and loved my results. I've always sequenced from Ableton but now for finer control I record each drum sample into my DAW after sequencing and load each sound into an instance of a sampler to really get fine control of processing and EQ. Also don't forget to check the phase of each sample if you choose to do it this way. Sonically aligning your phases will do wonders for a mix when using samples as opposed to analog waveforms which have different phases with each note. Your mix will sound fuller from just adjusting the phase of each sample. You will hear the difference. 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.

Tom N.

2023-02-09T15:06:06

This is a great product that can create tons of drum sounds. I have been using it for my electronic drumset to make beats. It's a seem-less way to record your drums without having to use microphones. Just plug directly into your triggers and play the song then you're ready to start record/rehearsal. It can be added to an acoustic drumset to add more beats to the drums or adding triggers for sounds as well. Great tool virtually can create any sound of a drumbeat you can think of!

Brent R.

2022-09-25T09:27:23

The Alesis SR-18 is a wonderful tool for a guitarist to practice playing in real time with a wide variety of beats. The drum machine comes loaded with 200 preset beats(A and B variations) as well as another150 user beats which can be modified to your own liking. There are bass lines that accompany each beat which can be turned on or off. And for the more advanced musicians drum tracks for entire songs can be written and stored for use in recording or as practice guide. My one criticism is that when writing songs the available space for original user patterns is somewhat limited. It would be nice if those ideas could stored on an SD card to be easily uploaded for future use, thus freeing up space for additional new songs. All in all I have found great satisfaction in working with the SR-18 when no live drummer is available.

TIM Z.