Boss Dr. Rhythm DR-880 Rhythm Machine  

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.

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.

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.

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

Great features.

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.

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.

Great potential but disappointing as described above.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.