INSTANT DRUMS FOR ON-THE-GO MUSICIANS. Alesis knows drums. Our SR16 has dominated the drum machine market since 1990 and continues to be in-demand today. Following in the tradition of its relative, the next-generation SR18 is loaded with cutting-edge drumsets, electronic drums, one-shot hits, and modern percussion sounds for any cutting-edge musician’s performances and compositions. From hip-hop to country and everything in between, SR18 nails it on the first take. SR18 has an effects engine with Alesis reverb, EQ, and compression so you can output recording or performance-ready sounds. Dynamic Articulation™ enables sound to change in color and timbre, the same way that acoustic instruments do for truly realistic performances. SR18 can be powered by AC or batteries, so whenever or wherever you need to lay down a groove, you’re ready to roll. It’s time for the next Alesis drum machine.The next-generation Alesis SR18 drum machine is loaded with cutting-edge drumsets, electronic drums, one-shot hits, and modern percussion sounds–from hip-hop to country and everything in between–for any cutting-edge musician’s performances and compositions. It also offers an effects engine with Alesis reverb, EQ, and compression so you can output recording or performance-ready sounds. And Alesis’ exclusive Dynamic Articulation feature enables a drum sound to change its tonal content as it’s played harder–just like an acoustic drum–for truly realistic performances.
![]() The next-generation Alesis SR18 drum machine (see larger image). |
![]() The rear ports of the SR18 (see larger image). |
You can plug in an instrument, such as a guitar, and play along for setup simplicity. You can play in bass parts using the pads on the SR18 or connect a MIDI keyboard for fast, musical low end. The SR18 can be powered by AC or batteries for on-the-go composition
Key Features
- Large, 32 MB sound set with percussion bank and bass synth
- Over 500 drum and percussion sounds and 50 bass sounds
- Built-in Alesis effects: reverbs, EQs, and compression
- Pattern Play Mode enables different patterns to be triggered from the pads directly
- Programmable Drum Roll function
- Mute/Solo Function: mute drums, bass, and percussion or individual pads
- Flexible wall (adapter included) and battery powering (six AA, not included)
- Backlit LCD
- 100 preset patterns, 100 user locations
- 12 velocity sensitive pads
- Tap tempo for instant beats exactly as you want them
Dynamic Articulation
Discerning ears will notice that each sound is actually a series of different samples; multiple dynamic-level samples and articulations are all built in so as you play harder and softer, the drum or cymbal changes its timbre, not just its volume. This engineered realism is known as Dynamic Articulation, an Alesis exclusive.
This results in sounds that respond accurately not only to dynamic changes, but also with the appropriate timbral and color changes you’d expect from their acoustic counterparts. You can play with or without reverb for different room sounds and enjoy a wide variety of rimshots, rim clicks and different stick-placement sounds on the cymbals. The Random Sample feature also ensures you don’t get the same sound twice for further creative realism.
Specifications
- Sound set: 32 MB, multi-sampled
- Polyphony: 32 voices
- Inputs: 1/4-inch instrument (guitar)
- Outputs: 1/4-inch stereo pair, 1/4-inch TRS, 1/4-inch TRS stereo headphone
- MIDI: in, out/thru
- Footswitch: two inputs – start/stop, count/A/B/fill
$ 212.00
32 of 32 people found the following review helpful
![]() Alesis SR18 Drum Machine with Effects Engine, By
Vestige (PA) – See all my reviews
Verified Purchase(What’s this?)
This review is from: Alesis SR18 Drum Machine with Effects Engine (Electronics)
The Alesis SR18 Drum Machine is amazing. I have had many problems with every computer based drum machine program. It’s not that they didn’t work right, but the fact that they just weren’t for me. I am very good with computers, do photography editing, and music editing, etc, all on the few computers I own. As far as doing drums on my computer, It just wasn’t clicking. Everyone has to find their path of least resistance, and THEIR best method for doing things, since everybody is different and everyone has their own path of least resistance. Hence, to each, their own. What works best and is the easiest for one person, may be the most complicated for the other. What is most complicated for you, may be the easiest for the other person.
Basically what I am saying is this drum machine, once in my hands, really clicked. This was MY path of least resistance. It’s good to know I can sit down with this machine, and only this machine, and make full drum tracks. As far as some people saying this is so hard to use, or takes a couple months, for me it took two days. Hence, 6 one way, half dozen the other. The first day I just messed with it, without directions. It was confusing. The second day, I read the directions, and by the end of the second day, I had already made three full length drum tracks, doing everything from customizing my entire drum set and sounds, making a bunch of patterns, and then piecing all those patterns together to make tracks. Ok, so now for what it can do: All in all, this machine is amazing. I am a heavy metal guitarist, and I record my own tracks on a Tascam DP-02, and this works great in conjunction with that. This machine works very well with the metal genre, or rock, or any genre at all. It lets me put together full length tracks (from all of my combined patterns I made), does very very well using it in a double bass aspect (you can program the bass to sound like double bass, and as fast as you want), and you end up with very realistic sounding drum tracks! Since I play metal, this is VERY important, since it’s hard to find a good drum machine that can go with the metal genre. Last, all I have to do is plug it into my Tascam recorder, and record! Love it! This sounds amazing! The one and ONLY downside to this is the fact that there is NO connection to connect it to your computer. I want to make this clear. There is a way to hook up through your instrument cable connections, but then I’m not sure how this hooks to your computer through a 1/4″ cable connection. But all I have to do is record them into my Tascam, then send them to my computer, where I can save them for later. Hope this helps, and sorry about rambling. Any questions, feel free to comment and I will surely answer them for you the best I can, to help out. 0
32 of 34 people found the following review helpful
![]() Wow – What Great Sounds, By
Chris Downing “Chris Downing” (Chippenham, Wilts England) – See all my reviews
This review is from: Alesis SR18 Drum Machine with Effects Engine (Electronics)
This is just a huge sounding drum machine. Forget what they used to sound like years ago – this sounds like a real drummer – and a very good one at that. With the basslines added this machine can be used to back a singer / guitarist / keys player and you could go on the road solo (what I plan to do).
It can be complicated if you want to go the whole mile and programme it rather than use the sample tracks, but it comes with a very thorough instruction manual. Plan to learn how to do most of the good things during a month of tinkering with it in your spare time. I bought it with two Yamaha FC5 pedals to work it ‘live’.Yamaha FC-5 Sustain Pedal for Portable Electronic Keyboards (But it does work with other on/off pedals like the Yamahas as well.) This allows me to start stop and switch between A / B fills and A / B rhythms. You’ll need pedals like these if you plan to use this box in front of an audience – but you won’t need it for practice. This is a great tool. And better than a drummer because it doesn’t have an ego, doesn’t need beer to fuel it, and I get to keep all the money from gigs. (I’ll do a video review soon.) If you’re on a tight budget or want something a bit easier to programme, try the SR16. Alesis SR16 Drum Machine 0
52 of 59 people found the following review helpful
![]() a very weird machine, not much of an upgrade, By
Verified Purchase(What’s this?)
This review is from: Alesis SR18 Drum Machine with Effects Engine (Electronics)
I had the SR-16 and out of all the drum machines I ever owned it was the most user friendly so when I noticed the new SR-18 I had huge expectations, basically this is the same machine but they have made some very weird changes, my first complaint is you have to save every single thing that you do, they took this to the point of being completely ridiculous,every single edit you make must be saved I am not kidding. and then something weird; I noticed that whatever tempo you decide to play a pattern in it is automatically saved, one of the least important things (to me anyway) so now every pattern has it’s very own tempo, that just seems strange to me, one thing I liked about the SR-16 was when you wanted to change the length of a pattern you were give the option of taking bars off the end or the beginning, the SR-18 is like every other drum machine and you can only cut off the end, the SR-16 also had an output to dump all of your data onto a tape or cd (or whatever you prefer) so then you never run ot of memory, The SR-18 does not have this cool feature either,the sounds are good,lots of cool presets but drum machines still have a very long way to go before I will get too excited, I thought this was supposed to be an upgrade. ?
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