Drum Machine in 2026
I am looking for some advice on a drum machine to buy.
Some background, for beats I have a Maschine Plus and a Behringer RD-78. For whatever reason, they aren’t hitting the spot for me.
More recently, I got the Roland Cloud membership and just used the TR 707 plugin and played along with it. Recording it was a bit odd (we had to send audio to a BUS and then record that audio back in on a BUS audio track). It lost a bit of “something” but we loved it.
In terms of music, we make (I guess) psych rock. Play the drum machine and live track guitars, bass, and synth (some hardware some VST), and vocals.
I have only used the TR 707 plugin once, but it had that “yep, that’s what we want” feel straight away. Set a beat and then just jam for 12 minutes haha. Could also see that being more appealing for live if we ever have to, rather than have a laptop.
The behringer rd-78 is a bit lackluster, and as for the Maschine plus I just find it so annoying to get it to clock with Logic and for whatever reason, if I disregard clock and just track audio out of Maschine (in standalone mode) I find the audio not great (plus I run out of CPU quickly… and yes I use bounce in place).
I’ve had my eye on:
- digitakt II (or 1 if I can find one cheap on marketplace)
- launchpad pro (I also like that I can use that to play hardwear synths - and I may get this regardless).
- or Roland TR - 8S
Just don’t know if there is someone making music in a similar vibe (more jam style, and less electro beats, sampling etc) that has any tips when it comes to beats.
Thank you