I hesitate to post these gear vs. gear questions, but I do have a quandary happening. I’m very much into digital drum synthesis at the moment. I’ve been enjoying the LXR-02 and the Volca Drum. Recently I jumped aboard the Pērkons bandwagon. I’ve had the unit for a couple of weeks now and have put it through its paces. I’m not exactly let down, per se, I’m just not blown away. I blame it partly on myself. I’m not a virtuoso sound designer by any means, and digital synthesis is complex. But it seems like I’ve already kinda hit my ceiling with it. I can’t seem to get past a certain tonal range. My style may not play to its strengths.
Back when the Modor DR was first released, I was a firmly in the analog-only camp when it came to drum machines, so I completely dismissed it. But in the intervening years, like I said, I’ve drifted slowly over to the digital side of things. It all started with that damn beautiful Volca. Anyway, I’ve watched a lot of youtube videos on the Modor and, especially recently with the addition of parameter locks, it looks and sounds like a pretty incredible machine. It’s price, feature set, and digital approach make it very compare and contrastable with the Pērkons.
Does anyone have experience with both machines that can speak on how they compare and differ, their relative advantages and disadvantages to one another?
At this point it seems a little like heresy to criticize the Pērkons. Performance-wise, I don’t think there is a better drum machine in existence. I love so much about it. It’s a no holds barred super villain bad-ass mo fo. But maybe it’s not for me? Trying to figure that out.
There are some good notes on this by claid on the dr2 thread. I have dr2 and it’s a great drum machine. I think maybe the comparison with perkons is a bit apples and oranges. I got the dr2 because I wanted the digital drums that is not analogs forte. I’d love to try a perkons though I am curious to see how it plays out with owners in the long term. dr2 fills a need for a digital drum machine and then that’s that.
Yeah the DR2 seems a bit more appealing to me at the moment as I get the impression you have a bit more control over the various algorithms and there are more algorithms but they might also be more narrow.
I am kind of curious to see some on the fence people get a perkons and how they get on with it / if it wins them over.
If you want an awesome groove box which, to my ears, is happiest with more abrasive sound set ( I know there are examples of softer sounds), prob perkons. If you want a really cool drum machine with great kits, editable sounds and 6 voices, and faders - super important - DR2. They don’t appear to be the same as, say, comparison between dr2 and tr8s.
Exactly what @francis has said, they’re very different - both are digital drum machines but aim for different approaches. The DR-2 takes a more traditional approach with a couple of twists, whereas the Pērkons throws tradition out the window. I would say the DR-2 has more range, as it has a lot of different ‘machines’, though as far as massive wavetable-y growling animalistic kicks, I don’t think anything is gonna top the Pērkons anytime soon.
Classic feel with a modern twist - DR-2.
Muscular ravenous animal - Pērkons.
Yeah, I can’t get enough of the LXR-02 right now. It is special. But so gosh dang fiddley. It fills up my brain’s RAM and leaves little room for if the phone rings or baby cries. I wonder if the MODOR would suit me (and my baby) better.
note: the whole baby thing is a lie. I have no baby. I have electronic musical instruments.
In terms of sound-shaping capabilities I’m pretty sure the Nord drum can do everything the Modor DR-2 can for a fraction of the price and it has delay and reverb. Sequence it with a Digitakt and you’re laughing.
I guess $1200 is technically a fraction of the price of a MODOR ($1600 at Turnlab), but I do appreciate the heads up. The Nord Drum has never been on my radar because it looks like it’s made for actual drummers with drum sticks. I’m not even a finger drummer. But I’ll check it out. It definitely looks cool.
It sounds good, but it seems like it’s geared more towards traditional drum sounds than the LXR-02 (and maybe MODOR still not sure). It does look like a lot of fun. I would totally get sticks.
I just bought a b-stock Nord drum 3p from Thomann for £579. Very excited to get on it. I could have got a new one for £450 last year but prices have gone up considerably. 1200$ is crazy.
So sorry about that. I was quite shocked myself when I saw the price difference. In the past it’s nearly always been the case that we paid the same amount of £s as Americans paid dollars for the same item which used to amount to quite a big difference in your favour but Clavia is a smallish Swedish company so I suppose shipping and distribution costs add a lot to the price.
I’m always seeing really interesting stuff for sale in Japan, particularly guitars. They have some really high quality, cool-looking pieces which are made for the Japanese market and are hardly ever seen outside Japan but by the time you’ve added 20% vat + import costs the price becomes prohibitive. it’s sickening.
It’s cool. I was joking “thanks for nothing” that you ignited GAS for the Nord 3P. I totally didn’t know about this swedish gem.
I’ve been noticing that certain gear is vastly cheaper in Europe than in the US. For example, the Waldorf M is half the price that it is here. I know it’s because these are European (or Swedish) companies, but the discrepancy used to not be so large.
