Akai XR-20 and the Alesis SR-18 the same machine?
Forum member Audioelectronic over at the livePA.org boards brought up a very interesting point in one of today's posts. He noticed some very striking similarities between the newly announced Akai XR20 and the Alesis SR18. As you can see in the above picture both machines share the exact same rear panels.
The similarities do not end there however. They both have 32 mb sound sets; have 100 preset/100 user patterns; feature EQ, compression and reverb effects. Those LCD screen layouts look eerily familiar as well. Coincidenc? I don't think so. Both Alesis and Akai are owned by Numark now adays it might not be any surprise that they are sharing resources, but damn, these are the same machines just one has MPC pads and one doesn't. Lets hope they at least have different soundsets.
17 comments:
the Akai is hip hop/electronica sounds the Alesis is acoustic sounds. The Akai has more synth/bass sounds.
Dude i played with the akai Xr 20 at namm and it sucked really bad!!!!
If you look at the XR20 reference manual at the bottom of page 18, you'll that the SR-18 is referred to! I guess the search & replace didn't catch that one!
http://www.akaipro.com/documents/XR20/XR20_Reference_Manual_v1_1.pdf
i mean page 8
Wow, nice catch.
Was horrible machines these are!! Same old recycled junk!!
I heard four people playing the XR20 at the NAMM show, it sounded like the real thing. I'm gonna get it just for the sounds. I've got the Streetbox too, and those sound are different.
Dont believe the hater on here. It just came out today and I have it. It is NUTS! combination of sound module with HARD hitting drum samples, orchestra hits, voices etc (Basically 720 sounds that are also adjustable to sound different),
synth with 99 sounds and 36 key octave per synth sound(has transpose), sequencer with onboard effects, 100 factory and 100 user programmable/savable kits of favorite sounds on 12 BACKLIT MPC pads. This will become a classic and one of the Baddest drum machines ever. Period
I have the akai xr20. and it is worth every last penny. best drum machine I have ever owned! I love it man. perfect sound quality. If the sr18 is the same machine with a different sound bank, then I'll be getting one of those also!
Well I must strongly dis agree! I Just got mine and was soooo excited and then....... : (
put on the headphones and started playing with it.....Horrible! I'm going to send mine back if i can. Dont waste your money on the XR20 its not a very good hip hop box! It sounds very out dated
dont use headphones - both dr-machines are having bad headphone amps.
try speakers!
A shame there isn't any easier transaction from SR-16. (Eg. I will miss loading one Pattern at a time.) Bass in a pattern has limited use for me, but it is cool that you can trigger them with a midi keyboard while muting on SR-18. Cymbal "ring-through" helps the ride sound more realistic. Tighter bass from samples or better chips? Presets were nice programming. User programs that were on the machine,(approx. 50), were even more sophisticated and believable.
hurry up!! someone please give me a quick comparison of the alesis and akai..heard both, thought the akai sounded a little more fluid.
I own an XR-20 and it's fair. I'm not overly impressed with the sound-set. The 4x3 pads kind of suck.
On all of my drum machines I usually sit down and build a custom kit or kits of my favorite sounds...shouldn't be too hard with all those sounds and only 12 pads to fill...right? Yeah, I had a tough time. I'm not really digging the soundset on the xr20 too much.
will be possible exchanging sysex sounds between akai xr20 and alesis sr18 ?
I'm limited on my knowledge with drum machines. I have had a few boss dr rhythms but was always disappointed with the sounds. Is there any good samplers that can work like a drum machine building it beat by beat. For example an old sp202 on eBay for 100 bucks and assigning a downloaded drum sound per touch pad and then sequencing it on the sampler. Does it work like that?
Www.defunctpunk.com
Hi guys. At my studio I have an Alesis SR 18 which, coupled up through midi with a Dr Rhythm by Boss blends up in a great sound.
The knack is, that I am totally blind. I have the Alesis Manual in braille, but there are processes, e.g. speed, tuning, etc, as well as recording, where I get into some modes, where I seem to be unable to get back to start settings without e.g. loosing or getting away from a selected drum sound.
I wonderwhether there are any of you on this blog that might be willing to give a little hand in finding ways with me, so that I can manage the Alesis SR 18 without having a sighted assistant looking at the screen all the time? Or who might know the drum machine so well, that I, could find some procedures that could always take me back to “secure ground”. Also there might be ways to count taps on buttons to e.g. enter tuning, splitting a specific drum out to the auxiliary jack for special recording etc?
Any ideas, inputs or thoughts would be highly appreciated, as the youtube videos etc are useless to me, because they refer to the screen all the time.
Any input to my email Heilbrunn@mail.dk would be valued.
John
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