Cheap Drum Machine Roundup

We bring you the top five cheap drum machines available, featuring quality percussion sounds and loops at affordable prices.

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Thanks to technology, you can now get drum machines with professional sounding samples and loops at a very modest price. Aside from improving the quality and productivity of your practice, they can also add groove and percussive sounds to your live performance.

We have taken the challenge of sorting through the most affordable drum machines just to find the ones that are worth buying. We picked the ones with reasonable build and sound quality while not going above the $200 mark. We also considered intuitive and responsive controls, and we looked at how the drum machine can make your practice and performance more enjoyable.

Alesis SR18 Drum Machine

Alesis SR18 Drum Machine

Alesis is popular for their drum machines and the SR18 is an ideal example of why they are among the top brands in this market. Even at its low price point, the SR18 does not hold back any feature, its packed with over 500 various drum sets, one shot hits and modern percussion sounds that cover everything from ballad, to country, rock and even hip-hop. In addition, it comes with 50 bass sounds to complete your rhythm section. With its wide selection of sounds and preset beats, you'll get hours of great practice and the sounds are good enough for use with live performance or recordings! And with the SR18, you get to have a versatile drum machine without over spending.

Korg MonoTribe

Korg MonoTribe

Instead of the usual bass and drum combination, Korg uses their expertise with electronic synthesizers to materialize their idea of what an electronic percussive instrument should be like. What resulted are flexible and inspiring drum machines, which perfectly describe the MonoTribe. With the Korg MonoTribe, you get more than just a basic bass and drum pattern, it lets you create complete rhythmic musical pieces via its built in synthesizer. This synth/drum machine gives you percussive synth sounds easily fit into techno and dance music. If you are into electronic music and you are looking for a budget groove machine then this is a great buy.

Boss DR-3 Dr. Rhythm

Boss DR-3 Dr. Rhythm

The DR-3 Dr. Rhythm is a full featured and affordable drum machine from renowned effects pedal maker, Boss. It is specifically designed to provide great sounding rhythms for guitarists and songwriters. It has 100 preset styles and you can create and store up to 100 of your own rhythms via its intuitive step recording feature. It also comes with 3 variations for the rhythm variations to help give the drum machine a more organic vibe. Being able to run on battery or AC adapter makes it a great portable drum machine for practice or for jamming.

Zoom RT223 Rhythm Trak

Zoom RT223 Rhythm Trak

The portable Zoom RT-223 is among the most affordable drum machines in the market, and yet it offers great flexibility and sounds. Although it looks straightforward and simple, it comes with a wide array of sounds totaling to 70 drum kits, more than enough to produce hip-hop, R&B, funk and even Jazz rhythm tracks. Aside from the usual monotonous drum samples, Zoom RT223 lets you create unconventional rhythms with the included human voice "beatbox" samples and ethnic percussion sounds. For something so cheap, the RT223 Rhtyhm Trak is definitely impressive!

Stylophone Beatbox

Stylophone Beatbox

The Stylophone Beatbox may look like a kid's toy, but don't be fooled by its simplicity - it is a drum machine that is fun to use. Its unfamiliar interface is not designed for those looking for traditional drum machine controls, rather it will satisfy the needs of those that want to explore music creation beyond the norm. It has three analog-sounding modes: Percussion, Bass and Beatbox, all of them providing a retro vibe that's fun and easy to jam along with. For its price, this portable gadget also comes with looper functionality that allows for multiple track creation. The Stylophone Beatbox is a great a functional toy that musicians will easily appreciate.

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