MusicRadar Verdict
In terms of authenticity, AudioThing's virtualisation does the business and lands at a fair price.
Pros
- +
Well priced. Authentic.
Cons
- -
Sounds aren't terribly desirable.
MusicRadar's got your back Our team of expert musicians and producers spends hours testing products to help you choose the best music-making gear for you. Find out more about how we test.
This cheap and cheerful drum machine bundles the sampled sounds of 80s classic the Sound Master Memory Rhythm SR-88 into an intuitive interface, complete with its own step sequencer.
SR-88 has five sound channels: Kick, Snare, Cymbal and two HiHats
(HiHat 2 in fact being the sound of the original hardware's snare drum triggered in pattern edit mode).
Each sound has Pan, Decay, Pitch and Volume controls, and their mixed output runs through a 12dB/octave low-pass filter, then overdrive, reverb and compressor effects.
The sequencer runs up to 32 steps, and as well as a regular Randomize button on every sequencer lane, there's also the option to have individual lanes randomise every time the sequence cycles back round to step 1 - very jazz. Sequences can also be dragged from the GUI into the host DAW as MIDI clips.
SR-88 is fun to work with and very easy to use, and the only issue is that the SR-88 itself just doesn't sound very nice these days - 'small' and 'cheap' are the operative words.
“So I’m standing in the vocal booth one night and I felt Johnny’s presence. I am not a woo-woo, but I felt his presence pushing me": Sheryl Crow says it felt like Johnny Cash was with her when she recorded her vocals for their posthumous duet
“Chris, that’s not how it goes”: Chris Martin does his best Bruno Mars impression as Rosé joins Coldplay on stage to perform APT in South Korea
“OMG the cops are shutting us down!”: Lorde’s impromptu New York Washington Square Park gig just got axed by police
