Shitty drum machines?

[mr. sound boy king]

I seek a pedal or desktop unit to make my shitty drum machine sound more awesome. I mean, I need the drum machine to be louder and more characterful so it hangs out in my mixes better. My idea originally was to get a filter unit like Erica Acidbox III. Now I wonder if it would be smarter to get a preamp pedal like EHX LPB2?

I hope to keep the drum machine in stereo but if there is the Awesome Thing in monophonic, I would probably consider it, too.

The drum machine in question is an Akai XR-20. It is shitty, it's so good & I like it alot.

Thanks for your help.

[friendship]

First thought was a Line M5 or M9, but I thiiiiiiiiink the dirt effects sum to mono before hitting the outputs?

Elektron Analog Heat is very expensive but seems like it would be a lot of fun on drum machines, especially with that filter section.

[Seance]

Stereo?

Two ProCo Rats.

[friendship]

Stereo?

Two ProCo Rats.

I withdraw my reply in favor of this one.

I got really excited to recommend an old Boss GL-100 but I just read that only one of its two inputs work at once, so mono in only

[MaxMaps]

I seek a pedal or desktop unit to make my shitty drum machine sound more awesome. I mean, I need the drum machine to be louder and more characterful so it hangs out in my mixes better. My idea originally was to get a filter unit like Erica Acidbox III. Now I wonder if it would be smarter to get a preamp pedal like EHX LPB2?

I hope to keep the drum machine in stereo but if there is the Awesome Thing in monophonic, I would probably consider it, too.

The drum machine in question is an Akai XR-20. It is shitty, it's so good & I like it alot.

Thanks for your help.

You said shitty twice, so cant be that shitty right?

[UglyCasanova]

Not gonna win any beauty prizes, but this is stereo and gives you some EQing, boost and saturation

[crochambeau]

Drum machine?

Can you scare up an old stereo (integrated amp or receiver), a couple dummy loads, and a pair of DI boxes?

[Seance]

Stereo?

Two ProCo Rats.

I withdraw my reply in favor of this one.

Or no pedals at all. Just two Rat Tails.

[fcknoise]

I ran my, dare I say, even shittier drum machine (Zoom RT-234) through a metal zone and it put me in the metal zone. Those are cheap enough to buy double sets of also. These sounds are heard on track 1, 4 and 6 on this album which I and Coldbrightsunlight made https://mediocrisy.bandcamp.com/album/the-warehouse

With that much gain it almost stops being a drum machine and instead is some type of rhythmic texture generator.

I have also run it through the fuck overdrive and it sounded very good.

Although thinking about this makes me want to again invest in some stereo dirt pedal

[01010111]

Dual Boneshakers seems like an excellent option for this? My go to for my mono drum machines is the boneshaker. It gives me all the dirt, volume, and EQ I need. This seems like a fairly cliche answer ILF, though

[fcknoise]

I have in the past said maximum gain is maximum brain
But now I realize I might've been wrong
The noise floor is very high with a dimed chainsaw settings metal zone
That might not be a big issue if you are recording but it adds the droning noise between the hits
Sometimes it drones the wrong notes

[coldbrightsunlight]

I frequently just use two different fuzzes on the L/R channels to liven up the sound. As long as you reduce the stereo width in the mixer/after recording this sounds excellent. And if you leave the mix really wide it can sound pretty strange as an effect. ahah


So in conclusion, whatever dirt pedals are lying around?

[fcknoise]

Stereo?

Two ProCo Rats.

I withdraw my reply in favor of this one.

Or no pedals at all. Just two Rat Tails.

this is also an absolutely excellent product that i didn't know existed

[coldbrightsunlight]

kinda seems like a terrible idea to me

[ognoy]

Moog MF-102 Ring Mod is rad on drum machines. Crank the preamp for dirt and add ring mod for weirdness.