4 discount drum machines for your home studio

Having a drum machine is a key part of your home studio if you’re making completely analog music. If you’ve been producing completely digital music it can be a great way to enter into the analog world, without diving straight into a modular synth. Drum machine’s can be quite costly and expensive so we’ve compiled a small list of drum machines that’ll give you the right bang for your buck.

Teenage Engineering PO-12 Rhythm

Teenage Engineering have produced this ‘pocket sized, battery powered drum machine’. It has a 16 step sequencer, 16 sounds and comes with a swing function. It retails for €69 on Thomann which is extremely cheap for a drum machine.

Korg Volca Beats

As part of their Volca series Korg brought out this miniature analogue drum machine. It comes with 6 analogue and 4 PCM drum parts, loop and step sequencer and also a MIDI port. It retails for about €169 on Thomann, check out the video below for more information.

Arturia DrumBrute

This one is a little bit more pricey than the last two coming in at about €444 but it certainly is worth the extra few hundered. It has up to 64 steps and 17 analog drum sounds and MIDI and USB connections. Check it out on Thomann here.

Roland TR-8

This is the most expensive one on our list coming in at €495. This is Roland’s modern day version of a TR-909 and 808 mixed together. It can have up to 16 kits with 11 sounds. It also has multiple knobs for fine adjustment on parameters like snare ‘snappyness’. Check it out on Thomann here.