R-5 drumz
David A. Roth
Subject: R-5 drumz
Date: Mon, 11 Sep 89 14:01:25 EDT
( please reply to fle...@athena.mit.edu since I am posting this for
'fleabag'.)
hi!
i'm having trouble posting, so if you could throw this onto the net for
me, there might be some appreciative people out there who also want
to read this...
you are reading the unfairly biased comments of one happy R-5 owner. and since
the only drum machine with which i'm at all familiar is this one, it's hard
to decide what's common knowledge, what features are common, and what the
specialties of the machine are. so, with humble apologies, here is my
analysis/description of the Roland R-5...
SOUNDS: you can all hear them for yourself. they really cut through a mix.
there are several changeable parameters for every sound, namely
output: 7 stereo orientations, or one of the 4 multi-s for processing
(8 multis on the R-8)
routing: poly [for cymbals], mono [basses], and eight
"exclusive" mixing channels [for hi-hats, etc.;
ie, only one sound passes through the channel at once]
pitch: incredibly useful for bass playing (by the way, the acoustic
bass sound is really neat!), agogo melodies, tom tunings, etc.
nuance: this seems to have something to do with small timbre changes
depending on how you play an instrument (for example, the
book stresses the variation in cymbal timbre depending on
how close to the cup you play; i don't notice a *major*
difference here). there are only seven settings, and i don't
use this feature much. use the pitch control instead.
these parameters can be set for performance (namely, they change the way the
pads enter the sounds), for sequence editing (ie, you can change them after
the fact), and for real-time editing (this is neat: you can change the pitch
or pan of an instrument as it decays).
ENTERING RHYTHMS: the entering system is pretty standard. a few nice features
stand out in my mind...
midi: each sound can be assigned its own channel & note number.
keyboard following: change two parameters and your keyboard can
play a bassline into the R-5: that is, the bass sound used is
the R-5's, the sequencing is done on the R-5, etc.
pads: they feel really solid. i like the short throw and stiff feel.
as far as pads vs. sounds, the R-5 fares well. you have five
"pad banks" - arrangements of sounds over the 16 pads. the
sequencer plays back the *sounds*, not the pads they were
entered on, so you can use all 92 (?) sounds in one pattern.
step edit: it seems pretty easy to me. the whole thing is graphic
enough to be visual without being baffling.
HUMAN FEEL: what a marketing tool! this feature has a lot less use than
it claims. basically it is a figure of 4 to 8 notes (16ths, quarters, whatever)
which has associated changes in pitch/nuance/velocity that it imposes on
whatever instrument you choose. for example, if you have a sixteenth-note
hi-hat part, and you assign the "groove" to it that has velocity deltas
of ( +10 -5 +20 +5 ) , then the first 16th note of a group of four will
be hit harder (+10), the second softer (-5), etc. the most useful aspect of
the human feel feature is the random factor. each groove can have its own
random factor associated with whatever aspects of the sound you change (pitch
etc.). so your original groove might actually end up as ( +8 -9 +22 +4 ).
INTERFACE: sometimes complex. since there are generally several levels to any
one menu, you may find yourself lost for a while. and until you learn all the
options, you may not be able to find the functions you want right off the bat.
especially since when you re-enter a major mode you are not necessarily placed
in the top level - sometimes you go back to where you last were in a menu.
in general, the terminology used is good, as are the abbreviations. and after
not too long, the interface makes total sense. (it's like unix - the
complexity flusters new users, but makes the experienced revel with power).
OTHER NEATO FEATURES: since i'm no drum machine expert, i'm not sure if any
of these features are standards on newer drum machines. but you can set initial
level and tempo for songs, as well as include tempo and level changes anywhere
in a song. you can insert labels anywhere in a song (eg. "Vrs2") for easier
editing.
COMPLAINTS: not enough pattern memory! one serious song will eat up the
entire memory. some (not much) memory is wasted on cheesy preset rhythms, then
more is eaten up when it copies the presets to RAM! so at initialization, you
have huge chunks of memory used up by the (admittedly impressive) song demo
and the (undeniably lame) preset rhythms. there is also too much song memory
for the amount of pattern memory (ie, there's no way to fill up the song
memory with 6 songs, since you don't have the pattern memory to do so!). and
the screen isn't backlit, goddamit! there's no gong sound (but it's not hard
to imitate by detuning cymbals and adding some deep tom sound).
other complaints are mostly due to the fact that i didn't buy an R-8.
the screen is too small, there's not enough multi-outs, and no expansion slot.
these are really the only differences. but i'm wary of relying on ram cards
(which are generally too expensive new and very hard to find a year after the
fact).
SUMMARY: all in all, i love this machine. it's tiny, yet makes incredible
music. the sounds are great, entering them is easy, and you don't have to
do lots of startup tweaking to get good sounds. you have excellent control
over the 68 samples, both in performance and in editing. i figured that the
four multi-outs would be enough for separate processing; you may need 8.
at this point, i don't know what else to say without having a specific
question, so feel free to ask one.
good luck!