Love It

It is very User Friendly. The sounds are extremely genuine and with the additional Bass, a perfect One-Man Band ! The velocity sensitive pads are easy to control and to get used to.

Much more

Fantastic unit. Makes me want to compose tunes.

Wonderful Machine

Living in the wilds of western Colorado, drummers and bassists are scarce. Hence the need for a drum/bass machine. I purchased it and the Boss DR-880 far exceeded my expectations in every respect.

The quality of drums and bass modeling is phenomenal. The machine is also very easy to learn to operate compared to others I have tried. I was recording tracks in real time within 2 hours of receipt of the machine.

The diverstiy of sounds available from this machine is amazing - hundreds of presets, scores of kits and bass sounds - you name it. Looping too. My bandmates are thrilled with it.

This machine is well worth the money.

Excellent Drum Machine DR-880

This drum machine in my opinion was made for guitar players and bass players that either just want to hone their guitar playing chops or for those that like to be creative and enjoy writing songs. The DR-880 is so easy to work with. That's the beauty of this unit, you can just take it home and start jamming! I love to hook it up through my PA system and jam for hours. Who has time to read manuals? Yea there is a small learning curve to most electronics but this baby is great for live gigs, recording and so much more. You will be blown away with the sound effects for the drums and the effects for the guitar. Absolutely Killer!!!! Buy one today.

Something every guitar player should own...

Ok, if you play electric guitar and don't own one of these babies then you are missing out big time. The drum and bass sounds are great as well as the guitar effects. There is a huge amount of flexibility with this unit... from customizing your guitar tone & effects, to creating your own drum & bass kits... its a very deep unit. But that doesn't mean it isn't fun or easy to use. In fact, the only downfall I've had with this unit is that I just lose track of time playing with it. If you are learning how to play guitar, then this unit will help you so much. For instance, there are some great patterns that help you embrace scale modes like the major scale. The fact that you can dial up a pattern, instantly set the key & tempo, and then jam along with it using great guitar sounds makes the unit worth the money, but it can do a whole lot more. And if you like playing with those long, trippy delays, well, the DR880 keeps the delay in time with the song, so you can base the delay off rhythm rather than milliseconds (but both options are available).
Every guitar instructor/school should have one of these available for their students. Every guitar player that wishes they had a drummer and bass player to jam with to help push their playing should have one of these.
I use mine every day, and record with it too... sounds fantastic.

fantastic value

Bought the Dr-880 back in 2001 and now have owned it for almost 9 years. I wanted to share my experience briefly that the Dr-880 has been truly an inspiration. I've learned alot about writing bass and drums while paying attention to dynamics, flow, rhythm, feel...all those hard to teach methods. I'm a guitar player who relies on bass and drums to help push me rhythmicly in ways I can't teach myself alone, although I have my own natural rhythm style. Excellent samples with a deep pallete of ideas to work with, make the Dr-880 a success in my opinion.

Fantastic sounds

Great sounds all around, patterns are realistic and this component gives all the versatility you will need. The ability to change the kit or tempo to a pattern makes this machine priceless. Adding a baseline is a bonus amd the sounds are all there.
What do you want from a drummer, and a bass player? To show up on time. Machines always there, waiting. To keep a beat and not miss a note. The machine is spot on. When playing smaller gigs, you don't have to worry about needing extra space for a drum set and bass amp. Plus you get all the money.

Playing The Bass

I actually play the Boss DR-880 in church every Sunday. Note by note! I use it instead of strings. I have been playing two of these units at the same time. I use one to play the highs (Vintage-Bass) and the other to play the lows(Vintage Bass-). It sounds pretty good running through a delay pedal. Other true bass players wonder how can you get the real sound through push buttons. I been playing with this thing for about four years.

So So

Sorry but I have searched for big band drumming machines and thought I was on a winner with the DR-880.
Not so....The only rhythm I get is the Bump Chink Bump Chink effect with a cymbol thrown in. I know you can program a rhytm yourself but I was hoping for ready made stuff.
If you are into R&B pop and Rock, it is great I suppose.
I'm keeping it for that JUST IN CASE moment.
Would have been better if the touch sensitive could be switched off sometime
OR...maybe I have not read into it enough????.

Great Drum Sounds

This is one nice box. The sounds are very realistic and worth the price. There is a learning curve but EZ Compose helps while you learn the unit. One reviewer mentioned the tempo changing when patterns are switched. This feature depends on how you program the song. In Song mode you can choose to set the tempo or allow each pattern to use its pre-programed tempo. Actually this is not a drawback but a useful feature that allows for tempo shifts if you want them. I am sure that after a few hours the previous user found this out too.

REAL drums, REAL guitar cabinets

I won't wax poetic about this unit. Simply put it delivers in spades. The drum sounds are frightningly REAL with all the parameter choices you could imagine. The overall layout and use is pretty darn user friendly overall. The guitar input provided me with scary cabinet emulations and I simply could NOT put my guitar down. I found a nice patch, adjusted the key of the bass riffs and played on for a long while before finally having to go to bed. Overall THIS is THE drum machine you want to own.

Tempo issue

With reference to previous post, DR-880 seems to design for live pattern playing with the favourite buttons and foot switch control - you can setup favourite buttons to call a pattern directly, or set the footswitch to select next/previous pattern.

But the problem lies with the tempo setup at pattern mode. If you set the correct tempo at the start of the song, and proceed to change pattern, the next pattern will reset your original tempo. This makes changing patterns live unusable.

Excellent sound

Drum sound: Excellent!
Easy to use: hhmmmm.... you have to be patient...
I own this for about 3 months already, it fits my purpose as a jingle and minus one producer.
But as a pro musician with weekly gigs I have 1 thing to plead for Roland: ..... please add 1 function/feature (and it's an easy one..) in LIVE situation I need to run from pattern to pattern back and forth such as: Intro-Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-ending, etc.. it's an easy one...pleaseee...
And another one (oooppss..) please add Flash Memory in the unit for the next model so we can store more songs, etc....
Thank you!

me

the boss dr-880 is awesome!! it is great for hip hop and pretty much any style of music u would need it for. i got it a few weeks ago and after a few days i wuz makin pro quality music. i havnt really tried out the chord progressions but everything else they say it does it does. I highly recommend this for any1 who wants to up there game in music production