Tanzbar 2 is also very punchy. Cleaner than the Tanzmaus/Tanzbar. Means you have to process it more but also gives you more directions to take it.
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I think you all just talked my to get S2400 + MODOR
- LXR2 for the dessert
: )
Bad news are > selling TR8s and even maybe a tempest doesn’t cover costs for even one of them : )
I’ve had a lot of great outcomes synthesizing drums in Drambo. I think you could find great success with other digital modular environments. Can take you drums to extremes.
The Drambo wavetable is a great basis for a kick drum, especially with the built in wavetable fx. I’m also happy with these hihats I built.
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I have it running with an octatrack. Which is just silly it’s so brilliant.
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To me “punchy” in reference to drum synthesis is a combination of oscillator beefyness and envelope contour/snappyness. So for me (not just proper drum machines):
Analog Four
Machinedrum
Digitone
Roland TR-808 and 606/DR-110
Jomox anything (for kick drums)
For sample-based drums:
Toraiz SP-16
Digitakt
old Ensoniq EPS and ASR series
Akai S900 series and MPC60/3000
E-MU SP series
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Punchy drums ey Laughs in Pulsar 23
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Interesting. I’ve heard from one house producer that he loves TzBr2 for its “clean” and “neutral” character, which isn’t so interesting from a first sight but when you start to process it’s opens up from very interesting sides. Second time I hear that about this MFB…
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I’ve always assumed that getting punchy drums is an exercise as much in how you process your drums as the source sounds themselves.
Good drum mixing isn’t just about the drum sounds, it’s what you do to fit them in the mix too.
Every drum machine mentioned in this thread can sound punchy or flat or whatever other adjective you want to use to describe your subjective, environment and context specific take on things.
Nobody’s queuing up to describe the Model:Cycles as punchy, but process it right and it’ll be punchy enough to make Mike Tyson wonder if that face tat was really such a good idea.
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Any Drum Machine into a Compressor/Limiter.
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The undisputed analog death kick.
Damn you! I was about to sell my MBase 11
Whiffle ball bat on a warm slab of beef is pretty punchy too though (I might be the only one?)
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Well it’s true more or less, especially if we talk about studio productions and commercial music.
But if we talk about “pure” machine music - like playing on stage with 1 - 2 or max 3 devices in front of 500 evil acidheads… with no master bus compressor or anything… Then you can really feel the difference. Some machines really suck for that and the set sounds boring and lifeless.
For my taste even stupidly simple 606+303 combo will sound more “fun” and “interesting” on stage than TR8s. Just because of “that” punchy and attracting sound character.
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AR with its on-board compressor… some machines can get really punchy imo…
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Having punchy drums is so much more complex than the device the sounds come from. And even if a device sounds punchy in isolation that doesn’t meant it’ll sound that way with other instruments involved.
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yeah…
the danger of that “all around” machines like 8s etc… is that you think “aha, now I don’t need to take my mixer, my distortion pedals, my other outboard, to the gig… it has all that inside”. And somehow it’s true, but on the output you get just “an approximation” of what you wanted, usually very muddy and lifeless…
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I really like my TR-8s. I think it sounds great, but I haven’t really tried many other drum machines. Maybe explore the option of utilizing the individual outputs with some per voice treatment through a mixer, and or some FX?
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So, maybe sell 808 and get Isla + Mordor ? : )
Should be very powerful live rig and of course much more features than old 808…
But during years it almost became a part of the family, so many stories etc… Would be really hard to let it go…
Agree! With pedals and postprocessing it’s starts to be much more a “real thing”.
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I think the Tr8s requires a deep dive into the effects section to get it there.
Its basically give you clean 808/909 sounds which are honestly not that huge. We have been listening to them processed for over 20 years now so hearing the basic sounds is a bit underwhelming.
Good news is the Tr8s has a bunch of distortion and OD options. Bad news is the interface sucks so sounding the time to fine tune the sounds like I would do on a RYTM can be a hassle.
Now that they released that GUI which lets us see all the effects over a USB connection, I may revisit the effects again.
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If you do decide to, I’ll take it off your hands 
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