Hi there, i'm new around these parts, but I've just bought my first synth (Roland JP8000) and am looking for a drum machine to partner it, but i'm not really sure where to start. I've got a budget of about £500, I had my eye on the Novation Bass Station - is this any good. I want all the sounds to be customisable, i don't want to be limited to preset sounds.

If it makes much of a difference, i'm mostly looking to make high quality (no cheese!) trance music. Like I said, i'm fairly new to this game, so any help is appreciated.

Whoops, just noticed that i put Novation Bass Station, i actually meant Novation Drum Station,

Thanks in advance.

up until this week i've been using my sampler for
drums, but now i'm gonna try reason for a while. if
you have a computer, maybe try giving reason a
shot.

what sequencer U using Matthew?

Wanted to know how you guys feel about the necessity of using analog drums instead of sampled drums. For a kick forinstance will you undoubtedly get a better much better Punch and presence than you would if you were working from a sample from lets say a sample cd from your sampler? I don't have any drum machines so i don't have anything to compare it too. Also JP, how do you like the Reason drums so far? Is it just like rebirth or ...

Foo!

I've not got it hooked up to the PC yet, i'm hoping to buy one quite soon. If I did get one, I would probably use the Logic sequencer, but maybe i should look into getting a sampler. Any recommendations? Perhaps the akai 2000XL?

Buy The MPC!

s/w drums are so good now, i wouldnt bother if it's just drums you want... Reason drums are as great as your drum samples...

Forget buying a drum machine unless you go for a Drum Station or Jomox type thing.

A sampler is your best bet and if you save up an extra one hundred pounds you could get yourself a Yamha A4000 which have dropped a lot in price !!!
The best drum machine you will ever buy. Though as mentioned earlier if you only wanna write punchy kick drum based music then an analog box maybe the way to go. As for sample based drum machines, forget them ... a sampler is your best bet.

I go for the MPC too bit more than &500 but it's worth it I think,can't beat it for makeing house trance etc,yep