Open Box Roland TR-8S Aira Rhythm Performer with Sample Playback Level 1

Compare to everything else…. This kind of sucks. It's too expensive to be this limited. It's so finicky with which samples it'll play and which turn into noise, can't play the synths with a midi keyboard…. Kind of a ripoff. Great nostalgia trip for someone

I'm 46 years old, and I was looking for a traditional drum machine with play along beats that I could jam blues, rock, latin, etc. I've shifting through the preset rhythms on this and did not find any blues, jazz, country, rock, bossa nova etc.. this unit is all techno music only. It's kinda like guitar hero, where you get to press random buttons and trigger space alien sounds, get credit for all the work, with lights(like a nintendo). I'm starting to like this thou, I bob my head around and move the volume up and down, and the people gather around and say " Hey man you sound good!" and they start bobbing their heads around too! So, the trick to this unit is... you really have to bob your head around a lot so that it looks like you know what you are doing. Try it this way, it's very cool. I'm going to keep this unit so that I can catch up with the new generation. If you are looking for traditional drum machine with traditional rhythm bank, maybe this one not good. I don't know, maybe times have changed.

There is a learning curve on the TR-8S for sure. But once you get over that, this is a very fun instrument to play. They just released the firmware 2.0 too, which is so cool that they are still developing for the TR-8S!

I've only ever used older style drum machines like the Boss DR550mkii,DR-3, Volca Beats so I was completely blow away by the capabilities of this beast of a drum machine. Pretty simple and intuitive while retaining vintage sounds and capable of creating pretty much any newer sound. Previous experience with drum machines and access to YouTube tutorials will get you rolling in no time. The colors alone of the keys and switches had me sold but holy cow the powers and sounds created while tinkering with said keys and switches will blow your mind and make time travel possible. I had trouble figuring online if this came with an SD card. It doesn't. It has internal storage so you can save some stuff but get an SD to store and import samples. It's pretty easy to lose something you just created so tread lightly if you find that perfect beat/sound I had trouble with shipping and getting a floor model but that's not the machines fault. COVID is happening so I was bored and used it and quite honestly I fell in love. Despite that and getting charged full price I'm going to keep this baby. It's that good! Plus I already edited so many of the default patterns to create hit songs already.

I have a TR-8, but wanted the upgraded feature set of the TR-8S and I'm not disappointed. Quite the opposite.

I love my Push 2. It's great for a lot of things. It's pretty good at making beats. Better than mouse clicking for sure. But I found making beats on the Push, not as free-flowing as I would like for my sound. Enter Roland TR-8S. In some ways, it makes making drums seem too easy. It feels like cheating in some ways. With the Roland TR-8S, you can make unique and interesting drum patterns for days, non-stop. Just hit record in your DAW. Why? Because of all the mixer sliders and knobs. Really, this is almost a digital mixer. Although it does not time-stretch or tempo-sync WAV files. But that is ok. It will tempo-sync an LFO, and things can be mapped to the LFO for a tempo effect if that is what you want. Having the separate outs makes placing my kick, where I want it in the mix super easy. I'm planning on adding a mono synth to this next and then do some DAWless live performances at some local dives in town. I can't wait. I'm pretty sure this thing is going to get a dance floor moving and maybe earn me some free cocktails.