Reviews: Alesis SR-18

Alesis SR-18 Drum Machine

A useful drum machine if you're willing to invest some time

Available since 2005.

Price New (Thomann.de): £205

I paid (Cash Converters): £120 (+£3.99 shipping)

I want to talk about the Alesis SR-18 Drum machine. I bought mine second-hand from Cash Converters a little under a year ago. I wanted an easy-to-use drum machine to play along to, for writing a few guitar and bass sketches to a simple rhythm. It was my first hardware drum machine, I really knew nothing about them at all. The difference between sample-based and synth-based sounds, attack / decay / sustain / release parameters, gates - these things were alien concepts to me. I had used Addictive Drums 2 and a couple of free VST plugins, but not a hardware unit. I had wanted to improve my drumline writing as it’s a real weakness and was holding me back.

I got the Sr-18 hoping to be able to use it to write and store drum tracks with a good variety of drum sounds. That was hopeless. Its User Interface (UI) is awful. There is very little visual information that tells you what it going on, the pads are really stiff making them barely useable, the pdf manual is very limited for help, there are so many problems with this thing. The presets, oh the presets! Unusable unless you switch the bass off. May as well switch the percussion off as well. It’s very limited unless you want to write bland kick-snare-kick-snare patterns for modern worship (“hallelujah”!)

I have come to the conclusion that my initial approach wasn’t getting the most out of the SR-18. I accidentally discovered a new approach which has changed my mind about it, and that is to treat it as a sound module. Let me explain; the UI on the SR-18 is really bad, but the sounds in its electronic guts are actually pretty useable. Some of them are pretty good. If you’ve got a bit of MIDI experience, and if you’ve already got some hardware MIDI controllers you can probably get a lot out of this little unit. Let me explain my setup and why I’ve come to value the SR-18.

Before I get to that, here’s something I’ve learned from listening (I mean really listening) to drum machines on recorded tracks vs drum machines as their internal sounds erm… sound. Listen to a song or tune with a drum machine and there are good ways and bad ways to use them. Listen to New Kids on the Block, “The Right Stuff”. That drum line sounds AWFUL! Bad way to use a drum machine. Early Stock-Aitken-Waterman releases were that same, using the drum machine with no consideration to how it sounds. I’m struggling to think of any standout examples of how to use a drum machine well, there are so many of them! Maybe listen to “The Prophet” from CJ Boland’s 1996 album “Analogue Theatre”. He uses a synth bassline to augment the kick drum, whereby the bass almost turns into a latched-on tail for the kick. I wouldn’t even say it’s a particularly subby bassline either, it’s well into the audible register. The bassline is offset against the kick so when they sound kick-bass it sounds like one MASSIVE kick.

This leads me to my top tip for electronic drums: LAYER SOUNDS. Assign different kick sounds to two pads and combine them so they’re triggered together. Combine two different snares with a high tom to get a bigger sound, or combine two of the same snares with one tuned up (or down). The other great layer trick is to add a very low sub bass (the “Sine” bass is ideal for this) to push your kick drum. You can tweak the envelope on the bass so it’s almost inaudible, but you’ll notice when it’s not there. Or downtune a tom and trim its release as an alternative to a kick. You get the idea, get creative! This approach will lead you into the various sub-menus in the SR-18, which isn’t necessarily a nice place to be, but with a bit of practice and time you’ll gradually get familiar with where you are and how to find the sound you’re looking for.

Now, a word about your MIDI controller – you’ll want something with a sequencer so you’re really just using the SR-18 as a sound module. You’ll want to transmit MIDI note data for this to work, CC data isn’t really appropriate here. I’ve used the Arturia Beatstep Pro for drum patterns without the sub-bass and the Arturia Keystep Pro (chroma edition, ooh get me!) with the Sine bass on the SR-18. The Keystep Pro works a little better with the sub bass, BUT….. There’s an awkward thing with the bass and drum sounds triggering on the same MIDI note. That’s fine if you don’t want to use your bass notes, just switch that layer off. But if you do want to use the bass layer for just your kick drum, you need to assign the other drum pads to lower MIDI notes that won’t trigger the bass notes (are you still with me?). Fortunately you get enough low notes at the bottom octave on the Keystep to avoid having that problem.

I’m still fairly new to working with the SR-18 like this, but I’ve already used it with the sub-bass in one project I’m working on and I’m going to experiment for others. I’m so pleased with the sounds I’m getting that I’m going to revisit a couple of harsh electronic projects I’ve been working on to see what I can get out of the Sr-18.