Boss Dr. Rhythm DR-880 Rhythm Machine  

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  • MSRP:
    $759.00
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  • Your Price:
    $54999
  • 1 Used From $478.49

Order Now! Expected to ship 06-01-2012

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Boss

The most powerful and easiest-to-use Dr. yet.

The Boss Dr. Rhythm DR-880 Rhythm Machine is a rhythm-programming powerhouse loaded with world-class drum, percussion, and bass sounds from Roland's famous SRX library. It also includes a stunning collection of original waveforms. You can get microscopic in programming the DR-880, but you also have the option of taking the simple route with its 3 EZ Compose buttons that allow original patterns to be constructed without note-by-note programming hassles. Patterns can be taken deeper with the Groove Modify feature, where various groove and triplet feels can be applied. Ghost notes and fills can also be added automatically. Guitar and bass players can join the action by plugging directly to the DR-880's Guitar/Bass Input jack, and playing through the built-in COSM Drive/amp models and multi-effects.

Features

  • Innovative EZ Compose feature for quick, hassle-free programming
  • 440 world-class drum and percussion sounds
  • 40 bass sounds with COSM bass-amp models
  • Guitar/bass input
  • Multi-effects
  • COSM amp models
  • 3 independent insert effects (EQ and compression), TSC (Total Sound Control) featuring 3-band EQ and high-quality ambiance 1,000 patterns (500 preset, 500 user)
  • Easily add fills, ghost notes, chord progressions, and more
  • 20 velocity-sensitive pads
  • 4 assignable footswitch and expression-pedal inputs
  • Individual outputs, digital out, USB port

If you ain't got rhythm, order the DR-880. The doctor has plenty.

Write a Review Overall Rating Customer Reviews 62 See all 62 customer reviews...

DR 880

| Review By: marcus davis | 4 months, 4 weeks ago

3 people out of 3 found this review helpful

Features:

I own the DR 880 as well as the Alesis SA16  drum machines.I love the DR880 i love all the programming functions for programming my own patterns ,my only beef is the limited memory use.I had programmed 109  user patterns before the memory full message came up.Other than that its a great machine.

Quality:
Value:
Overall:
Do you own the product?:
Yes
Have you used the product?:
Yes
Musical Experience:
Semi- Pro
Style of music you play:
Jazz/Funk/Fusion
Where you live:
Ontario Canada

Did you find this review helpful? yes no1103755

Great Device - You just have to know how to use it properly.

| Review By: Karl Houseknecht | 5 months, 1 week ago

3 people out of 3 found this review helpful

Features:

One thing Boss/Roland is good at is features.  The feature set on this device, like many Roland products, is so deep that you not only need a manual to get at them all, but a tutorial.  At the same time, the machine can be used in the simplest, most intuitive way possible.

 

EZ Compose feature lets you create patterns by configuring four parameters.  That's it.  You can have a drum/bass pattern up and going in less than a minute.  Afterward, you can do a deeper dive and edit the pattern in step recording or real time recording mode. 

 

Somebody mentioned that you can't export your drum patterns as MIDI.  If you have a MIDI interface, you can easily record the MIDI output from one of your patterns to your DAW or sequencer in real time, so that statement was a little misleading.

 

Great drum, percussion, and bass sounds are to be had with this unit.  It might be going on 7 years old, but it still plays drums.  The Alesis SR-16 is still being sold too, and it's about a decade older than the DR-880.

Quality:

I would have liked a metal case for this.  It's plastic, and I don't like plastic gear.  If you're keeping it in the studio, then I guess that's okay.  But any trips to the stage are going to require a decent case.  The buttons seem to hold up well.  No other quality concerns.

Value:

Excellent value.  I've spent far more money on drum samples and sequencer software that I can't take with me without my computer.  The interface and workflow are perfect for a non-drummer like me.  The biggest value comes from the amount of time I save when creating drum and bass parts compared to the complicated programming I used to do with my software sequencer and samples.  I can have a basic song structure up and running in minutes.

Overall:

Overall great unit.  There's a reason why it's still being produced after 7 years on the market.

Do you own the product?:
Yes
Have you used the product?:
Yes
Musical Experience:
Gigging musician
Style of music you play:
Rock, Christian
Where you live:
Palmyra, VA

Did you find this review helpful? yes no1102317

DR-880 Short on Memory

| Review By: Ray Martin | 9 months, 3 weeks ago

4 people out of 4 found this review helpful

Features:

Great features.

Quality:

While the DR-880 is basically a great machine, it does not perform as advertised.  The literature claims to be able to store 500 user patterns and 100 user songs.  After 21 user songs and 90 user patterns, I received a "Memory Full" error message.  After doing some research on line, I found a number of other owners who received the "Memory Full" message with fewer songs and patterns than I have.  This, so far, is my only major complaint, however, since I fully expected to use this machine as my full time back-up band, it is a great disappointment.

Value:

My goal was to use this machine for multiple sets.  If it met this requirement, I would give it a ten, but since it falls short on memory, it is a lot of money with very little return on investment.

Overall:

Great potential but disappointing as described above.

Do you own the product?:
Yes
Have you used the product?:
Yes
Musical Experience:
Style of music you play:
Where you live:

Did you find this review helpful? yes no1092485

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

| Review By: paul taylor | 9 months, 4 weeks ago

5 people out of 6 found this review helpful

Features:

While the unit has some pretty good sounds, both bass and drums....it lacks editing capabilities in a BIG way. The memory is non existent, unless you just want to jam along to a loop.

 

As far as using this unit in a live performance situation, this is simply a click track with good samples. The DR-880 doesn't have nearly enough memory to handle the data that is required to record more than a few (6-10 Depending) songs.

 

Editing is a long tedious process using the data wheel and the DR does not have any short cuts using the number pad.

 

If you are inexperienced with MIDI, especially sequencers, it will take you forever to utilize what little this machine has to offer.

Quality:

Boss makes great gear but "quality" is too general a term.  What they advertise this unit as verses what it does...quality is poor at best.

Value:

It seems like a reasonable price for all Boss "claims" this machine has to offer... but this unit falls well short of having any bang for the buck.

 

I'd rather spend a little less on an old Roland Mark II Micro composer and find an Alesis D4 Drum Module and a decent Bass Module.  Realistically you could put that package together for a lot less than the DR costs and have WAY more flexibility, memory and power.

Overall:

It doesn't import or export general MIDI files.  It can't be upgraded.   They quickly jumped on board to get into the DJ/Looper/Rap market and totally mislead real musicians on the features.

 

I'd like to say I'll never buy another Roland/Boss product as long as I live, but the fact is they make great gear...  That's why I'm so shocked that they would produce this horrible piece of equipment and be so misleading in their marketing.

Do you own the product?:
Yes
Have you used the product?:
Yes
Musical Experience:
40 years pro.
Style of music you play:
all
Where you live:

Did you find this review helpful? yes no1092057

disappointed

| Review By: Christopher Fabiano | 11 months, 2 weeks ago

2 people out of 2 found this review helpful

Features:
Quality:
Value:
Overall:

First the good news, it does have good drum kits and bass sounds. Unfortunately it has severe limitations. First of all there's no drivers for Windows Vista 64bit. So if you have software on your computer and you want to play it throught you're DR-880 you will have to buy a separate midi interface. While you can import midi files into the machine, you can not export your drum patterns as midi files. You can only backup the DR-880 as a whole. It also has a very limited memory.On page 76 of the manual it say you can record up to 100 songs with up to 500 patterns per song. This may be true if your songs are not very complicated and have a lot of the same patterns that repeat over and over, but if your songs are more complicated you will run out of memory fast. I've loaded ten midi files into the machine and it's out of memory already. You really have to micro manage it if you want to save on memory.

Do you own the product?:
Yes
Have you used the product?:
No
Musical Experience:
20 years
Style of music you play:
Various
Where you live:
New York

Did you find this review helpful? yes no1090228

See all 62 customer reviews...
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