The 5 Best 8 bit Drum machines (2023 reviews)

The alesis 8 bit drum machine is capable of outshining several other machine featured in this list in overall features. If you can't find a drummer, this drum machine will do the job,and won't argue with you either. It features a great selection of 233 realistic, natural drum sounds that have been meticulously sampled to sound authentic and amazing. This unit has Midi Out and can provide a midi stream to any device capable of receiving them. It's simpler, better sounding, nicely balanced and panned.

This unit has all your rhythm needs, you can program a song beat for beat or jam along to the many cool patterns they have, and its important to note you can adjust the tempo on all of them so the possibilities are endless. The Sound quality is awesome and it is easy to program beats on it. This product features a 'Start/Stop' port located on the back panel which is suitable for operation with any momentary non-latching footswitch.

Why We Like This:

Has rich sounding tones and sounds like a real drummer and not canned
A great machine, highly responsive and functional
Lot of satisfied buyers

Best For songwriting: Singular sound 8 bit Drum Machine

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The singular sound 8 bit drum machine's material feels more premium than its price would suggest. It allows you to play them at whatever speed you want, with a super intuitive KNOB to turn. It features to tweak songs and drum kits while a separate midi editor is available via the bb forum to edit midi files. It will allow any midi-capable looper to sync perfectly with the drum beat.

You can change the drum sets on the pedal and get complete acoustic sets with percussion when playing acoustic sets, or get full drum set when playing Rock music. It is also built very well and can take a beating. This is fun and quite flexible. It is easy to use, sounds amazing and gives you very powerful hands free control of the beat with very little effort.

Why We Like This:

Realistic breaks and actually gives you endings
Makes learning bass a lot more fun
Easy and intuitive to use and you can constantly add more beats to it
Easily the coolest jam tool ever made for guitarists

Best With synth: Akai 8 bit Drum Machine

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If you often find yourself scrambling for convenient and suitable machine, akai 8 bit drum machine is your end point. The XR20 features sounds of standard and electronic drums, single (one-shot) hits, bass and synth sounds to easily create your maximum mix in minimal time. The physical look is amazing, it really shines in a live setup next to a couple of synths. There are numerous single shots from everything you'd expect (kick, snare, toms, hats etc) from a variety of sources that all have some sort of processing.

The XR20 has a vast amount of on-board sample based voices (drums, percussion, fx, hits, and synthesizer parts) that the user arranges into kits. You can attach a pedal switch to it to start and stop, and the sounds are good enough to record a demo if their is a preset that pleases you. The possibilities are endless if you use the xr20 with midi in/out as a controller or sequencer. They would be fine to mess around with while creating song ideas, or to have a backing bass when creating something live when brainstorming with other musicians.

Why We Like This:

High quality sounds which can be tuned/panned and otherwise customized
Easy to learn and sounds awesome
Good enough for spice samples on top of your beat
Great great for a first-timer tryna get use to pads n making beats

Best For experimentation: IK Multimedia 8 bit Drum Machine

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The ik multimedia 8 bit drum machine is specially designed for your regular usage and has all useful features. The UNO Drum, like many affordable pieces of audio hardware, has a high noise floor that sounds like a “hiss” when you turn it up. It is the ultimate beat creation station for anyone and everyone to create warm, punchy, high-quality, and inspiring grooves. It comes with 100 included pattern presets, 8 parameters per step and easy-to-use controls, all you need is a creative mind.

The UNO Drum makes it easy to program and perform using the widest sonic palette to add professional drum grooves to your music. It even allows you to apply compression to the audio in, to help glue your mix of instruments together. Theres even a cool cancel feature that removes all of your manual sound changes and reverts to the saved kit. This is a portable, battery-powered analog drum machine.

Why We Like This:

Useable for recording and gigs while still being portable and battery powered
Great little drum machine with classic and unique sounds
Delivers what they promise

Best For guitarist: Boss 8 bit Drum Machine

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Next on the list, we've got yet another machine that manages to win our hearts. It's the boss 8 bit drum machine and it's widely considered as one of the best convenient machine you can buy. It adds an even greater illusion of hearing a real drummer. It is geared more towards composers than live performers. It is easy to create your favorite song and play all day. The machine mimics the natural response of drums being hit harder or softer. It is best for recording or live performance but they are plenty good enough to jam along to the drum beats on and the included effects are fun to mess around w.

There are 500 built-in rhythm patterns to choose from in a variety of different genres. They are of the quality where they will sometimes sound a bit funny when recording demos if you don't spend enough time getting your guitars and to sound as good as the drums. The drum sounds on this things are great. You can make it sound as synthetic or authentic as you need it to, depending upon the style of music you're creating.

Why We Like This:

Very straight forward to use and sounds great
Easy to play with right out of the box
Good investment for long term