Great Drum Sounds 
by Anonymous from Kennewick WA, March 2006

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 
by Lee Rothman from Salt Lake City, Utah, February 2006

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 
by Josh , October 2005

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 
by L. Lantang from Los Angeles, CA, July 2005

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 
by Anonymous , February 2005

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

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