Bad Gear - Boss Dr. Rhythm DR-110

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Welcome to Bad Gear, the show about the world's most hated audio tools. Today we are going to talk about the Boss Dr. Rhythm DR-110. Is this a e s t h e t i c 80s drum machine a Roland TR-606 in disguise???

Chapters:
00:00 Intro tune
01:09 Overview
05:03 Hate
05:30 Jam 1
06:24 Jam 2
07:26 Finale
07:55 Verdict

[AlexBallMusic]

Fun fact, I've done an entire album with this as the drummer.

I won't here a bad word against my band member. We've been through a lot.

[stevehrach]

This was my beginning as a drummer in the early 80's - plugged into an amp and strictly live finger drumming in my first band. Ha! I never even learned how to program it, but spent many hours tapping on it.

[point]

I always make it through the week by counting the days until the next episode of Bad Gear.

[bowmanov]

I just discovered this show a few months ago and because of you I bought a synth. I blame you Bad Gear!

[martinbridgewater]

Back at school (god, that was long ago!) My mate and I were hiding out in the music room at lunchtimes, cranking out what would now be classed as minimal techno, with a Dr110 and an SH101, via a tascam 4 track mixer/recorder: no MIDI, questionable timing and no real idea what we were doing.
I haven’t thought about that for a long time - those were good times.

[treennumbers]

The trick with these is to run them through a resonant high-pass filter to boost the bass drum, I used to do it on a Yamaha CS-15 and it'll get you that big booming 808 sound without any problem. The snare and hats are serviceable as is and the claps are The Best Claps Ever anyway. Liked mine far more than the 606 I had even if it didn't have knobs for mixing.

[briannicholson]

The 2nd jam with all the pedal FX was DOPE!! Puts me in a mood of like an arcade fighting game!

[mokujinsan]

Wicked Show as ever mate. I've wanted this little cutie for my bad but good drum machine collection for years. Prices are rising very swiftly.

[raulgorgulio]

I really love the way how they made a display on that machine — there's something beautiful about combination of printed grid and electronic dots. I think it would be cool to see something like this on a modern device.

[heinzvoll]

I absolutely love the TR 606s hihat sounds. They stand out among all the classic drum machines of the time. Seems like the DR-110 hihat sounds quite similar. Cheers!

[pauldablue]

My first bit of tech, still have my red SH-101, I put a sample pack of this and a 606 into Zenbeats on my phone, it lives on, lovely.

[djlocodoc]

AudioPilz jams are the best! On a side note, you could never find these back in the day, at least our local music shops would not carry them. DR550's were everywhere and no one was talking about these. Way to highlight how under rated these are! The Dr-101 sounds so punchy on those jams! Well done!

[donaldpriola]

I have one, and I love it. Sure, the limits are there, but that forces interesting decisions. The sounds are pleasantly dirty.

[TobyBorrow]

This is like a journey through my late 20’s in the late 90’s. It’s a bit naff but it does sample really well especially when your using lower sample rates. We had an X7000 (128k memory) for that

[DrMuse-ondx]

Just goes to show if you know your art you can make anything sound good. You have proven this many times. As a guitarist I can get my sound from any source. Tubes, transistor, modeling makes no difference. Thanks, it's always a pleasure to see what you have in store for us.

[JJohnkkttran]

I love this machine so much. It. just. looks. cool. I've seen so many pop up on craigslist for like $100 over the last 5 years and I've NEVER jumped on them. Now you're going to make sure that never happens again as you're right, they sound awesome!

[System.]

Awesome video as usual! I absolutely love the clap on this unit, glad you showed off its full potential in that ending jam!

[vroenis]

Nice nod to JHS there 👍

It sounds pretty good, at least worth sampling for sure. I wonder how many of these & similar gear many of us came across in the 90’s+ when someone said to us “oh you can have that if you like, I don’t use it” & we said “naaaah” 😆🙁

[mikemeengs]

My second drum machine after my Synsonics...man, I loved that little box! But I happily replaced it with a Drumulator. Ah...good times! Thanks for the memories!

I recently got one for a surprisingly good deal and I absolutely love it! Super simple and love the quirky and charming sounds of it, great video as always too!