The 6 Best portable Drum machines (2023 reviews)

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Best Overall: Buy: Alesis portable Drum Machine READ REVIEW

Best For beginner: Buy: Korg portable Drum Machine READ REVIEW

Best For experimentation: Buy: IK Multimedia portable Drum Machine READ REVIEW

Best With synth: Buy: Roland portable Drum Machine READ REVIEW

Best For synthwave: Buy: Sonicware portable Drum Machine READ REVIEW

Best For rock: Buy: Donner portable Drum Machine READ REVIEW

Best Overall: Alesis portable Drum Machine

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Alesis line of machine come in a pretty wide variety of styles, so you can definitely find one that suits your individual preferences and needs. If you can't find a drummer, this drum machine will do the job,and won't argue with you either. It has outstanding multi-sample, stereo quality drum, percussion and bass sounds, with plenty of cool drum patterns and kits and variations, along with an adequately varied range of passable bass patterns. It's simpler, better sounding, nicely balanced and panned. It comes with a 9 vac wall-wart power supply.

The Sound quality is awesome and it is easy to program beats on it. It's made in a two button configuration to reduce cord clutter. There's plenty of sounds and kits and options to tweak.

• Works great as a pinch hit drummer
• Great sound and easy to create patterns and songs
• Has rich sounding tones and sounds like a real drummer and not canned
• Wide range of drum sounds, very customizable

Best For beginner: Korg portable Drum Machine

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The korg portable drum machine's material feels more premium than its price would suggest. It has been reborn with cutting edge technology inherited from popular korg products such as the kingkorg, kaossilator, kaoss pad, and taktile. It features geared towards the creation of all types of edm. By selecting a groove type for each part and adjusting its dynamics, you can create a natural-sounding rhythmic feel that's liberated from the.

The sound engine of the electribe provides 55 types of analog modeling oscillator, giving you a high degree of flexibility to quickly create sounds. It is specifically designed to safely carry one microkorg, electribe/electribe sampler (2 in total), korg volcas (up to 4) and many more korg products. It includes from classic to cutting edge, 100 diverse, ready-to-play effect programs. You can choose from a total of 25 groove types that reproduce the playing technique and rhythmic feel of percussion instruments such as congas and bongos. It is ideal for inputting rhythm.

• Complete tools for the creation and performance of any genre of electronic music
• Completely laid-out, track-by-track, and ready to serve as the basis for additional music creation
• Good investment for long term

Best For experimentation: IK Multimedia portable Drum Machine

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Ik Multimedia is known for creating pragmatic and minimalist machine for people on the go, and its line of ik multimedia portable drum machine definitely falls in line with that reputation. This versatile portable drum machine is powered by your device/usb and works with iphone, ipad, mac, and pc so that you can create your beats and grooves wherever you are. 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. It is the ultimate beat creation station for anyone and everyone to create warm, punchy, high-quality, and inspiring grooves.

The Uno drum makes it easy to program and perform using the widest sonic palette to add professional drum grooves to your music. An intuitive editing section gives you control over key parameters like tuning, snap, and decay, and advanced controls for the digital samples. Theres even a cool cancel feature that removes all of your manual sound changes and reverts to the saved kit. The sequencer also allows you to automate up to 8 parameters per step.

• Great little drum machine with classic and unique sounds
• Useable for recording and gigs while still being portable and battery powered
• Lot of satisfied buyers

Best With synth: Roland portable Drum Machine

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Best part: roland portable drum machine costs comparatively low and it is available to ship in 24 hours. The AIRA Compact puts Roland’s legendary creative magic in the palm of your hand. The 60 synth engine and preset chord sequencer effects the j-6 chord synthesizer is an endless well of musical inspiration, pairing a powerful chord sequencer with the lavish tones of the renowned juno. It comes with 64 user patterns and up to 64 steps in each.

• Portable song creation machine with professional roland sound and features
• Programmable chord sequencer with 64 user patterns and up to 64 steps in each
• Create with 100 chord sets spanning classic and contemporary music genres

Best For synthwave: Sonicware portable Drum Machine

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The sonicware portable drum machine is suitable and reliable and fits well with your regular usage. The sounds are much more complex than you'd expect out of a $240 portable drum machine/bass synth unit. It is equipped with over 350 high-quality rhythm sounds carefully selected for modern dance music. It has a built-in sidechain compression function that ducks the volume of the bass and the line-in audio. It allows users to introduce drum elements on-the-fly to build energy and create unique breakdowns.

It does midi, it'll sync with a volca, or audio sync. The amount of this effect is variable so you can dial it in to taste or turn it off when it is not needed.

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

Best For rock: Donner portable Drum Machine

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Donner has been making great machine for years, thanks to a combination of clever design and appropriate materials. It's a decent valued toy if you don't like much variety in your voice library. It has a 'Tambourine Mode' for hand drumming but no voices to go with it like bongos, conga or djembe. The pads have a great, reactive bounce to them, making it way easier and more natural to do drum rolls and the like.

The unit takes 6 C size batteries, not AA's. It's got MIDI support, which is a GREAT feature, and you can even plug it into your PC and play drumming games with it. The speakers are amazing, but you do not need to try to find an amp for drums. These are really easy to set up, out of the box. It is perfect for beginners or someone who wants an easy way to practice without needing a full kit.

• Loaded with great features to aid in developing tempo and technique
• Midi output to trigger other voices through a synth, etc
• Surprisingly good sound & very responsive pads
• Buttons and dials are all response, easy to use, and clearly marked