Zoom MRT3B Micro RhythmTrak Drum Machine

Feature:
lacks a bass part but is rarely missed. useful is a tap to tempo function not found on other machines.

Quality:
well made for the studio and jam sessions a road musician better take a back up.

Value:
most bang for the buck and sound is far better than Bxss or Rxllxnd.

Desirability:
every aspireing musician should have one for practical music study. if you got no friend to drum for you only have to punch this thing once.

Sound:
The sound is one of the better mechines in this price range. I use both keys and accoustic guitar so the various kits is very handy. I wouuld have had a foot pad pattern selector to get more quickly to a pattern in live on the fly giging.

Ease of Use:
my kid sister could work it with out a manuel.

Support:
they got their hands into all kinds of gear I doubt they want to hear from the end users.

Overall:
satifaction is high I come back to this mechine over and over again. lent it to a friend and went out and bought another.

Feature:
Pretty irritating to get a new toy and not be able to plug it in. Most Zoom stuff I have got in the past had an adaptor with it but nope. Other than that, it has the option for a stop/start footswitch to connect so you can use it live. Not something I am interested in as this is just a studio piece for me, but someone may want to use it for live I guess. Nice that it's there though.

Quality:
I wouldn't go bashing this thing around, or stuffing it at the bottom of a box full of gear and piling stuff on top of it. It's plastic. Hard plastic but plastic all the same.

Value:
There's some really nice sounds in it and it's so cheap that just the programmability and touch sensitive pads are worth it. I'm sure that the higher end drum machines are easier to use, but for a bare bones get-the-job-done drum machine it's impressive for the price.

Desirability:
I love little boxes that do lots of things. I don't think drum machines get you any girls but that's why we have guitars. Drum machines aren't inherently sexy as lots of people think it's just 'faking it' but if you use it as part of a recording setup to make a nice sounding demo CD then it will pull its weight in the final mix. On its own though its isn't much of a groupie magnet. Nevertheless, I wanted it, and I am glad I own one. I had been eying this thing for a long time (2+ years actually) before I finaly ordered one.

Sound:
Well for starters, when I first used it, I was surprised that the velocity-sensitive pads actually changed the sound as well as the volume, making for a more 'realistic' feel if you want to simulate what you would be playing on a drum set for home recording purposes. I was surprised. There are (like all drum machines) plenty of sounds in there that you will never use. I use it to sound like the actual drum parts I would be playing along to my guitar parts if there were two of me, so I stick to the 'real' drums and have no use for the bongos and techno hits and such. There is a decent palette to work with - even two generic organ sounding chords (a Major 7th and a Minor 7th) which you can tune to different notes, but no bass. Hey its a hundred bucks, right? A tip for if you want to use it as a recording substitute for micing a drumset: use the 'dry' sounds and add room reverb through an effect send to an external processor if you have one (or even in-line if you don't have an effect send). Do this rather than using the sounds with built in fake reverbs in the actual sound. This way it will blend in with the other reverbs on other instruments in your mix so it all sounds like they are actually in the same room, rather than your guitar and bass and vocal all having one sound to their reflection and your drums having an entirely different one.

Ease of Use:
On the upside: When I first got it hooked up I had already programmed 2 drum kits and written a 8 bar pattern within about a half an hour. It's dead simple to learn. On the downside: Step recording is kind of irritating because of the way the display works. Hard to visualize where you are in a pattern. Bah. I just record it in realtime anyways. Also, there is no quick way to jump to a specific pattern or sound or drum kit, you just have to hold down the + or - button and cycle through every number between where you are and where you are going. Not terrible, but slows things down a bit waiting to get from 03 to 51 or whatever.

Support:
I haven't needed Zoom for this guy, but have for other Zoom stuff that has passed through my hands over the years and they are pretty accomodating and easy to deal with.

Overall:
It does the job well. You aren't going to compose any techno symphonies on it or anything but it's great for line recording drum parts if you don't have the good mics and mixer and sound booth to do the real thing.