I bought this as I was about to start gigging again with a few friends, mainly acoustic guitar but also a saxophone and electric bass, so some amplification was going to be needed, and if amplification is needed then so is some way of keeping time. We have been using this now for several months, running directly through the PA, and for us the main advantage is that the patterns and songs can be started and stopped using a footswitch – we use a Nux NMP-2 – IMO a super reliable switch box.
There is an abundance of patterns and kits available, although as anticipated we have ended up using only a few of them.
There are some quite important limitations to programming it, inevitably very old fashioned in that way, and I have found it quite tricky to get the beats in exactly the right places. I have not worked out if it is possible to extend recorded phrases. Possibly this is more a case of my being limited rather than the machine, time will tell.
On the plus side the sounds are really very good and there are so many of them to choose from. I can see that this machine will keep me busy for years. I have not yet tried triggering it with MIDI from a DAW, which is something to look forward to! Although it is plastic it is solidly built and will doubtless last a long time, even being gigged. It’s size is another plus point (very light and portable), I have it mounted on a microphone tablet holder, as is the fact that it can at a push be run on batteries, although I would not recommend doing this as they do seem to become exhausted rather too quickly for my liking.
Overall, I have to strongly recommend it because it does what our little group needs it to do and does it, so far, completely reliably.
