Zoom Drum Machine - The Only Comprehensive Review

by Cool Bob
If you have used any zoom gear before you will know that they're the masters of packing in loads of great sounds for not very much money...and the RT223 zoom drum machine I have just got is not exception.

A few of my Favorite things...
1. It's really small and light so if you're a subway musician you will not break your back bone trying to carrying the thing.

2. There is a super massive range of kits for any style of music you could ever want to make. I'm talking 70 kits...acid jazz anyone?

3. I'm not sure if I will ever use it but the most fun thing about my new zoom drum machine is the human beat box. It gives you five different sounds and even let you record your own voice...amazing!

So what is it like to use?

You get 13 pads on which to play yours beats and you can also do it manually by entering your measures in with the manual edit feature.

But believe me you don't have to be some kind of crazy good drummer to make something really cool. You could just play one drum at a time and even slow your song right down to make some crazy fills.

Another thing that I found useful was to be able to EQ my beats on the fly because all different venues sound slightly different. Sometimes the pitch and high end needs tweaking a little and you can do all that right there on the little zoom drum machine.

Calling all lazy dudes!

If you can't be bothered to make your own beats there are also a lot of preset patterns that you can just cut together and have a tune up and running in about half an hour.

I use this for demos and I have even got to the stage where can jam with it live.

The rest of the band think I have spent hours working on the tunes.

Pretty sneak!

It's not all good though...

Although a drum machine is great for live work because they never crash, you would be mad to even think about using it for home recording. There are so many software programs out there that make the beat making process a lot easier and allow you to edit even after you have finished the tune.

This is impossible with a drum machine because you record the flat audio onto you track and it's a major hassle to change.
Zoom Drum Machine - The Only Comprehensive Review