Akai Professional XR20 Beat Production Station 

Comments about Akai Professional XR20 Beat Production Station:

I have owned the XR20 for a few years now and I'm very pleased with it. You can assign sounds to the pads but you have to edit the kits to do so. If you open up any of the kits and hit user, it will take you into edit mode. From there, you can change what each pad does, EQ it, and even add reverb and other effects. I use it at church for our tracks sometimes and it works great. The start/stop pedal feature is great too. Just connect a sustain pedal or a trigger pad and you're ready to go.

Comments about Akai Professional XR20 Beat Production Station:

Have you ever been sitting around, tapping on a table because you have a drum beat stuck in your head? Me too. The Akai XR20 was the solution to that problem. You just plug it in and start to play very clear, professional sounding drum beats. It is very simple to create short or long form drum loops with fills. The A and B side are awesome for Verse and Hook style beat creation. I could go on for days but I'll end it with this: I owned the XR20 for 4 years. I came on some hardships and had to sell it last year. I loved it so much that once I got finacially stable again I purchased it right away.

Comments about Akai Professional XR20 Beat Production Station:

Exactly what I have been looking for: price, ease of use, awesome & current sounds, MIDI OUT, owned one for 2 years. The perfect drum machine for a live hip-hop style performer. Akai is a great company that builds quality products and stands behind them.
I have been using beat machines and softwares for over 10 years including the Roland MC-505, Boss DR-3, Reason, Acid, Hydrogen. If you are looking for a drum machine for the primary purpose of making beats that are of a current pop/hip-hop style, this is your machine. Very current sounding. This thing isn't quite as tweakable as more expensive sequencers, but it does what I need it to do. The footswitch compatibility sets this thing apart from other more expensive sequencers in that if you are a live performer, especially one who is simultaneously playing a guitar or keyboard at the same time, you can very realistically start/stop & toggle between A/B/fills hands free. What sets this drum machine apart from other drum machines is that it has a MIDI OUT. This means you can use this drum machine to trigger an external device, in my case, a Korg MicroKorg. The combination gives me all of the drum & analog synth timbres that I am looking for. However, editing a keyboard part can get hairy because the range of the pads on the drum machine is not as extensive as that of your keyboard, so often I find I have to completely re-record a keyboard sequence if I don't have a perfect take. This thing won't record knob modulations as on many high-end Roland products, etc. you would need to do those live. I use this thing to do cover songs from Brown-Eyed Girl (Van Morrison) to Party Rock Anthem (LMFAO). If you are a rap composer and you want to use it live, this is great. If you are primarily a studio musician, I would recommend using a computer with Reason or Ableton software instead. --DJ Guitar Hero, Tulsa, OK
High quality drum pads, LCD screen. After gigging with it for almost a year, the ac adapter shorted out. I called Akai about it, and they shipped me a new one.
For the $, the features can't be beat.

Comments about Akai Professional XR20 Beat Production Station:

I use this mostly to make backing tracks to practice other instruments but it's loads of fun by itself and has quality sounds and features. There is a learning curve so keep that in mind when reading some of the reviews out there, once you get proficient you'll love it.

Comments about Akai Professional XR20 Beat Production Station:

Please don't listen to window shoppers that don't know a thing about the Akia XR20. You can change kits and you can make any pad any pre-programmed sound you like, from Bass drum to Crash, from bass synth's to Plucking bass sounds.Work with it people - play with the buttons - hit user - drum set - page to the drum you select on the pad - just hit the pad and change the sound and record the pattern you play on it and play it back, so simple.I have not been able to get MIDI to work, but i am still new with it.Get familiar with Quantization - if you can count to 32, you'll be OK........ ;-)I have only grazed the surface on this - but I think Akai did OK for the price on this one.I can't wait to save up for the MPC 5000

Comments about Akai Professional XR20 Beat Production Station:

This thing is crazy. The sounds are off the chain and ten times better than than any workstation drum sounds. It may not be able to sample new sounds but the sounds it come with are all you need!!!

Comments about Akai Professional XR20 Beat Production Station:

The Akai XR20 is the best drum machine on the market, period. It cant be beat hands down the best on the market. For starters it has over 700 preprogrammed sounds and you can customize with tune, EQ, reverb, Compression, Panning etc. You can create patterns with 4 section A, B, A & B fills. Makes for some very complex beats. It has 4 outputs which can be assigned, it also functions as a sound module when using a Midi Cable. You can play drums with pads and use a Midi Controller to play the synth sounds. Really fst hip hop beat creation. And dont forget the mic input, you cant record vocals, but you can buss them through when recording your beats, and the sound will be mixed in the internal buss. I own this thing and I wouldnt trade it for anything else.

Comments about Akai Professional XR20 Beat Production Station:

You get a lot for the price. But if you have so much as considered getting something more expensive hold off on this thing and save up. I have had the xr20 for two days, its really easy to use and beats sound good. However, what it has is what you get. I was just looking for basic drum stuff to back my music, basic kits. I could do a lot more had it given me 10 jazz kits to work with. With this most of the "kick drum" sounds dont sound like a kick drum at all.You cannot assign sounds to pads. you choose for instance: "Addidaz" and you get the assigned sounds for that kit. Just keep in mind it is very limited on what it can do.

Comments about Akai Professional XR20 Beat Production Station:

This thing is great, super easy to use, and sounds spot on. I run it through a Dave Smith MEK to get some truly wild sounds. If your looking for a simple beat box and don't need the "music production" side of akai's basis for this unit then check it out. Didn't read the manual once....

Comments about Akai Professional XR20 Beat Production Station:

Straight out the box I was able to compose a freight load of drum loops and 3 complete songs. This thing kept my imagination running with its many sounds to create with. And the sounds contained within are no joke, snappy to the neck causing bone crushing head-nod reactions type of material. THE COMPETITION WILL GET SMOKED! The feel of the pads are way better than the MPC series that you can actually feel those kicks and snares pouring out your finger. The pads even light up to reduce guess work that so plagues MPC's. I wish it came with a sampler function, but if AKAI does so in the future they would give birth to a new series of beat machines called BPC, Beat Production Center.