stupid if we disliked the damn thing.

We use it a lot combined with both digital and analog-synths. It sounds great.

We have tried to get a "ministry" sound in the machines.

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COOL FEATURES:

1.choice of battery or AC power

2.four tracks are available to record a drum track and/or an arrangement of your choice from a variety of bass, brass, etc. sounds. In essence, it's a four track sequencer with a dedicated drum track.

3.each of the four tracks can be assigned to a separate MIDI channel which I find SUPERCOOL!!!

4.relatively large selection of drum/pitched sounds

I can go on about this box and the various applications/programming techniques that I've come up with but that wouldn't be any fun. I think it's safe to say that there's more than a drum machine lurking in the circuitry of the DR5 if used with a wee bit of imagination. However, it would've been nice if the DR5 had individual outs. That isn't as bad as the fact that over half of the kits and patterns that were available were indelible presets. I'm still trying to figure out ways to dump them! And to top it off, the damn thing doen't even come with a power supply!! (unless, of course, you count the 6 AA batteries which were included that only lasted, like, a second a piece!) How incorrigibly annoying! That deserves a 2 point deduction! I must admit that I was amused by the batteries for their lameness so I'll give it (the DR5) back a point. Tons o' cheap thrills, so buy one!

fulfills its role as drummer, but also rhythm guitarist and

keyboardist, too. It can play 4 multitimbral parts at once,

giving you drums, keys, bass, and other instruments. The sounds

are at least good, some excellent and the unit has a subset

of MIDI sounds for your selection. The best part of this unit is it's keyboard. Arranged in a

6x6 array, starting in the first row with EADGBE, it is laid

out just like a guitar neck! After about an hour, I was laying

in melody lines as fast as I could think them up. You can slow

the tempo to make it easier on you. I never used MIDI before,

because I can't use those white and black things. The DR-5 has MIDI in/out, and can be used as a 4 voice tone

module with Cakewalk, etc. It can't record into a pattern via

MIDI, but it can through an analog input the call Guitar In.

While this input is really more useful as a mixed input for

live playing, it can record onto a track by sampling incoming

audio. Using a guitar is really touchy, it has to be single

note lines only or it goes crazy. I have had good luck using

the sine wave voice from the PC's sound card as a stable input.

I have even sung in parts through a mic that was preamped and

EQ'ed to be very midrangey. Back up your patterns/songs using a SYSEX utility. I use

DUMPSTER written by a certain David Churcher.