tonyj@UNIXA.CLP.AC.UK (Tony Jewell) (02/05/90)
> Does anyone have info re/ the Roland Human Rhythm Composer? It's relatively > new. It is selling for about $800 around here. I was planning to buy an > Alesis HR-16 drum machine ( for $400) and was wondering if the Roland was > worth the extra $ (I am a guitar player, not too sell versed in MIDI, etc.. > I want the percussion machine for demos, etc., mostly "normal" music, but > sometimes pretty far out there........). I'd appreciate any help. Well, I'm sure I'm not the first person to reply, but here are my impressions of the beast. Firstly, it comes in two varieties, the R5 and the R8, the R5 being the cheaper of the two, about 349 pounds in this country, and the one that I own. The difference between the two being that the R8 has more internal memory, and RAM & ROM slots for extra memory and drums sounds (there is only one extra sound card at the moment as far as I know). The R8 also has a far higher quantize level than the R5, which only goes to 1/96. The R5, however, to make up for its inablilty to take extra sounds has far more built in sounds (about 60 sounds in total). Well, what is it like ?? I.M.H.O. I think its incredible .. if you get a chance just play its demo ... I heard it, 30 seconds later I owned it !!! The sounds are superb, just for the choice they give you .. for instance you could have a dry/reverb/fat/rim/jazz/electric/brush/ouch!/tight snare in your latest pattern. All sounds are fully tunable, within the pattern, as is the panning, duration, nuance(!) and velocity. So within a single pattern, you could have sounds leaping around the speakers, wildly changing pitch etc ( I often do !) Well, what makes this a HUMAN rythmn composer as opposed to a drum machine ?? Basically, because of two things, nuance and feel. All sounds have nuance parameters, depending on the sound. For instance a tom's pitch increases slightly if you hit it harder, a cymbals decay gets longer, a snares decay might get shorter. This all adds to the realism of the sound. Next we have feel patches: These are a template which you can apply to a number of paterns to give them the same feel, for instance for an eight beat rock pattern, you can set the accent to be harder on beats 1 & 4, the pitch of the off beat hi- hats to be higher to simulate a r/l feel. You could also set the duration of, say, the 3 & 7 beats to a bit shorter as well. Careful programming of this means that you could give all patterns a reggae feel or a latin feel ! You could also put random nuances and accents on various sounds to make them sound more natural if you require !! What else ?? I've only scratched the surface (I'm working from memory). I could mention the build in bass sounds, which allow you to put your bass lines in the drum machine, triggering over Midi so you can use your sampler with it, 6 seperate outs, swing time, 100 pattern memory (on the R5), you name it, it does it !! Any gripes ?? Well, the memory IS a problem on the R5 .. it takes only a few complex 4-bar patterns for the pattern memory to start running out .. I had to delete the preset patterns and the demo song to leave enough memory for my own stuff. The touch sensitive pads are a little bit too sensitive for me .. I have wild variations in velocity if I enter patterns in real time. Also, the sounds can be a little bit too nice at times .. as I write electronic dance music, I would prefer some more electronic sounds, although some wild editing and pitch changes can create some strange sounds. The Human side of it does take some programming (not very Human then is it!), but it is worth it in my opinion !! Any other questions, let me know .... I'd certainly recommend it above the HR16, or any other sub 1000 pound drum machine for that matter. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tony J Jewell Systems Officer City Of London Polytechnic ___ . ___ JANET: tonyj@uk.ac.clp.unixa / \ / / \ EARN/BitNet: tonyj@unixa.clp.ac.uk / / /___ / EAN: tonyj%clp.unixa@ean-relay.ac.uk <____/ <___ / -----------------------------------------------------------------------------