The 8 Best Patterning Drum machines (2023 reviews)

Best part: alesis patterning drum machine costs reasonable and it is available to ship in 24 hours. It features a great selection of 233 realistic, natural drum sounds that have been meticulously sampled to sound authentic and amazing. It is easy to connect to a pa or amp, and lots of options beyond the per-programmed beats and drum sets. It's simpler, better sounding, nicely balanced and panned.

This product features a 'Start/Stop' port located on the back panel which is suitable for operation with any momentary non-latching footswitch. It is made in a two button configuration to reduce cord clutter. The Volume knob works just on the drum going to headphones, so you can control the instrument outboard so the volume is really like a mix control. It's easy to use, so just enjoy it. There's plenty of sounds and kits and options to tweak.

Why We Like This:

Great for bass practice, and just plain fun
A great machine, highly responsive and functional
Great sound and easy to create patterns and songs

Best For songwriting: Singular sound Patterning Drum Machine

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The singular sound patterning drum machine is capable of outshining several other machine featured in this list in overall features for the price point. There are plenty of genres like Rock, Blues, and Country that would probably work fine with the Worship genre. It opens up some really great possibilities to improvise by adding crashes or'startstop' beat pauses. The sound quality coming out of the pedal is good. The BB has features that vary the volume and timing of the beats slightly to give a very live, not mechanical feel to the drum sounds.

The drum sample is amazingly real. It is simple to use, intuitive, and really makes you a "one man band" in a very effective way. The sound quality of the drums is very good and the concept and use is good after you spend some time learning how to use it.

Why We Like This:

Great for live performances and practices
Easily the coolest jam tool ever made for guitarists
More robot-perfect timing needed to keep your loop in time

Best With synth: Arturia Patterning Drum Machine

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Best part: arturia patterning drum machine costs comparatively low and it is available to ship in 24 hours. It is a drum machine for musicians and producers who crave raw power and monstrous tone. Every one of these synthesizers has unique features that make them truly irreplaceable. It offers several options for programming beats, whether it's playing live on large, accessible pads, along to a metronome, quantized or unquantized, programming a performance. It is designed from the ground up by passionate musicians for passionate musicians. This drum machine makes it easy to create a beat, add and remove parts while playing, and to add manual dynamic flavor to the sounds and rhythms during a performance.

The sound quality is super low noise with high headroom, meaning you can really crank this thing without losing sound quality. This thing also transforms into a really trippy lightshow when sitting idle for a few minutes. The controls are super intuitive and easy to learn.

Why We Like This:

Built like a brick and sounds great
Easy-to-use drum machine matching vintage-flavored sounds with modern workflow
New and hot release

Best For rock: Akai Patterning Drum Machine

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The akai patterning drum machine should be able to handle its purpose and duties with ease. There is classic drum machines samples that you can use that will always be in modern music like the 808 kit, other than that the other drum patches are being left behind by some of the new Dance tracks that are coming out in the last 2 years. It is a drum machine with a sample set geared towards hip hop and dance music. It is loaded with pro-grade, industrial-strength drum, percussion, bass, synth, sound effects, vocal and instrument hit sounds and has the ability to lay them in a groove wherever and whenever you're ready.

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 sound quality is amazing. It is used for main sounds to take it serious. 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. This is an awesome entry level drum machine.

Why We Like This:

You can add bass lines and synth lines in a matter of seconds
Almost perfect little, turnkey beat box
Awesome hip hop and beat sounds
High quality sounds which can be tuned/panned and otherwise customized

Best For experimentation: IK Multimedia Patterning Drum Machine

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Ik Multimedia offers a variety of machine for personal choice and yet maintaining quality in all the variants. 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 offers audio in a daisy chain with uno synth or other gear. This drum machine will make your music shine with six great-sounding analog voices and up to 12 pcm voices. The slim design and capacitive touch of the UNO Drum is very similar to the layout of the UNO Synth, but it just makes a lot more sense for a drum machine.

The Uno drum makes it easy to program and perform using the widest sonic palette to add professional drum grooves to your music. Theres even a cool cancel feature that removes all of your manual sound changes and reverts to the saved kit. It is the ultimate beat creation station for anyone and everyone to create warm, punchy, high-quality, and inspiring grooves.

Why We Like This:

Great little drum machine with classic and unique sounds
Useable for recording and gigs while still being portable and battery powered
Good investment for long term

Best For guitarist: Boss Patterning Drum Machine

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The boss patterning drum machine's material feels more premium than its price would suggest. This item, is undoubtedly one of the more excellent drum machines available. It comes with preset beats in different styles that can be used to start a song. You can do any manner of odd signature or tempo change you want and there is plenty of flexibility in song and pattern structure. There are drum humanize options that are quite robust, as well as some swing options and these can be dialed per beat, lending a more realistic performance.

The unit also has midi in/out mode which can be accessed from the menu. There is still a ton that you can do with the sounds inside this unit. Song arrangements are rigid and it is geared more towards composers than live performers. They also included a fairly decent multi-effects unit.

Why We Like This:

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

Best For synthwave: Sonicware Patterning Drum Machine

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The sonicware patterning drum machine is suitable and reliable and fits well with your daily purpose. There's plenty of room for activities. It has a built-in sidechain compression function that ducks the volume of the bass and the line-in audio. It includes reverb effects and it is accessible when the edit mode is active. The amount of this effect is variable so you can dial it in to taste or turn it off when it is not needed.

The case is a 'bathtub' style. It features responsive hands-on controls which are optimized for jamming and live performance. These knobs can be used to create an overall volume balance, or they can be used to create drops and breakdowns during live performances. It's a blast to use and has a mostly straight forward workflow.

Why We Like This:

Build your own sounds from scratch or modify the presets
Solid keys, and while hollow feeling, it feels sturdy where it counts
Three sequencer effects you can use to turn your sequence into a performance

Best For practice: Roland Patterning Drum Machine

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The roland patterning drum machine's superior materials makes sure that it ages well with use. This drum machine is very difficult to use with very strange drum rhythms. It offers all the acclaimed sounds from boss' flagship dr. It takes a little browsing through the manual to do certain things, it's not entirely intuitive, but spend a minimal amount of time with it and it is easy to understand. With a little practice, it is possible to play this thing like a miniature drum set, especially if, like myself, you have really small fingers.

It's not hard to program jazz drum parts in real time because you can slow the tempo of the machine down to a crawl if you need to while playing the individual drum set instruments in real time. The time correction feature works very well in the event that your button pushing is a little sloppy. The sounds are very nice.

Why We Like This:

Good investment for long term
Delivers what they promise