List Price: Price Unavailable
Sale Price: $248.84
Today's Bonus:
- Over 700 sounds produced by Chronic Music
- 99 Preset patterns and 99 User patterns
- Backlit LCD
- Bright, glowing, backlit pads that follow the beat
- Microphone input and Headphone output
- Battery Power capability and AC Adapter (included)
- Drum Roll / Note Repeat feature for realism and expression
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I sent my XR20 midiclock, balanced its levels with some other gear, and voila! Amazing results. Funky, groovy, sounds awesome through my Korg KP3 Kaoss pad. Cool modes on this machine, too: it plays bass and synth. And one-shot FX. And there's tons and tons of samples--and you can switch drum kits on the fly. And you can switch patterns on measure boundaries only! Which keeps live jams with it from running out of control. And it does fills. And it sounds great. AND it has a microphone input, which means that I can send my voice into it! And it looks awesome. And the user interface is really well designed. And it's small. And it runs on batteries. And and and and and...Buy Akai XR20 Beat Production Station Drum Machine Now
I consider myself old fashioned by todays standards; i really can't get comfortable with using a PC for a drum machine, so i am one of the few electronic people still out there that uses drum machines. I say few because judging from the choices in drum machines today for electronic musicians, they either don't care about us (Dr. Rhythm), think were independently wealthy(Jomox or Machinedrum or Tempest), or think we accept crap(almost everything else). The XR20 seems to be a direct descendant of the Alesis SR18, i never had an ounce of interest in the SR series because they were strictly aimed at Rock musicians, and that was pretty much it. With the XR20, they basically gutted the internal sounds of the SR18, replaced them with ones aimed more at hip-hop musicians, stripped the box and replaced it for one with a more MPC feel to it. This is probably the first drum machine i have ever owned that actually left me content. The sounds, while aimed at hip-hop producers, work great as well for electronic musicians, not a big surprise since Hip-Hop & Electronic musicians use alot of the same drum machine samples (TR-808, 909, DMX, LM1, etc). Being a tool aimed at the hip hop crowd, the kick drums do not disappoint. I would say most of the sounds are completely usable, i was able to put together about 5 kits that i used in the first month of use. The programming setup is perfect, you get 2 sub patterns for each pattern, and 2 fills for each sub-pattern, meaning you have almost no need to make song chains, which is a big plus, as song chains can be tedious and annoying to setup. The physical look is amazing, it really shines in a live setup next to a couple of synths. I am currently using it with a Akai Miniak & Dave Smith Evolver and have had zero sync issues.I have used quite a few drum machines in the last 15 years, most i hated, some i just couldn't get used to. I owned an MPC2000xl, and just couldn't put up with having to search out all my own sounds, it usually led to me spending more time tracking down samples than writing. I had an Electribe ER-1 and got tired of all the noise coming off of it on my mixer, and couldn't get passed the lack of cymbals. I had 2 MC-303's and honestly they just sounded horrible in a good setup. Had a Roland R8m, but it always had problems syncing, drums would trigger out of time. The only other drum machine i ever owned that left me this happy was a Roland TR-707, and i used the thing until it bit the dust, but it lacked in sound choices. Their was alot more, Boss boxes, Roland boxes, a drum station... Bottom line, they were all too limited (or old and unreliable), or a pain to program. This one is a nice meeting in the middle. Sure, it would be great to have multiple outs (more than one, which the one BTW is perfect for running the synth lines out), and it would be nice to have some other stuff, but with the crap, or overpriced good boxes out there, i really can't complain. I will say this though, if they ever make an upgrade on the XR20, i would probably get it in a heartbeat...As long as it was equally affordable.
Great sounds, nice to look at, easy & fun to use, and affordable...
UPDATE: I have put a demo of the versatility of this box on Youtube, you can find it by searching "Akai XR20 Demo: More than just a Hip-Hop beat box" on youtube...
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If you're looking to do electronic music this drum machine could possibly keep you occupied by itself for a very long time. With so many presets, so many samples and a fairly simple interface the beats seem to roll out of this drum machine in no time. You can add bass lines and synth lines in a matter of seconds. I own another drum machine that's a few years old and good for the basics, but all the different samples in this got me excited. I'm not even really all that interested in modern hip hop/rap but the variety hooked me and has kept me.Want Akai XR20 Beat Production Station Drum Machine Discount?
I used to own an Akai Professional MPC500 Portable Music Production Center. I sold it recently. Why? Because the pads were too stiff. Because the interface was far from intuitive. Because the polyphony on it was faulty. Because as a performance tool, it was dull as hell visually.Before I sold the MPC500, I picked up an XR20. I turned it on. Fifteen minutes later, I was programming beats and songs. The interface is pretty intuitive once you understand about five things. The sound quality is amazing. The number of kits included is insane. The look of the unit once its turned on it pretty spiffy as well. I love the light-up pads (I also own a Korg PadKontrol USB Drum Pad Studio Controller, White instead of a number of other pad controllers for this reason).
Plus biggest advantage over the MPC500 the pads feel GREAT. Solid but "soft." No more pounding to get a trigger response the XR20 responds like a dream.
I cannot recommend the XR20 enough for any level of producer (amateur, professional, etc.). If you need the "flexibility" of the MPC500, then I suggest you buy some software for your laptop. Otherwise, the XR20 will get you 90% of where you need in a production scenario (for beats). Awesome product. A home run for Akai!
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