Ten of the Best: Drum Machines Over $500

Looking for a new rhythm machine? If you’ve got the cash, these 10 drum machines over $500 have the beats - and plenty more premium features as well.

When did drum machines get so fancy? It used to be you got a few sampled or analog sounds, a basic sequencer, and maybe swing if you were lucky. Now a single drum machine can have enough power to make an entire track - and an interesting track too. Last month, we assembled the 10 best budget drum machines into a single list, and now we’re back doing the same but with a decidedly more aspirational bent. Have money to burn and beats to make? You’ve come to the right place.

Whether you’re looking for a recreation of a classic analog drum machine or something packed to the gills with the latest technology, these are the best drum machines over $500. As usual, they’re arranged in order of ascending price.

Most drum machines get their sounds either from analog (or virtual analog) synthesis or via basic samples. What about wavetables though? If they’re good enough for synthesizers, surely they can handle percussion, too. They certainly can: CyDrums from Japanese DSP hardware geniuses Sonicware takes the wavetable concept and expertly applies it to percussion. And man, does it slap.

Or should that be punch, because CyDrums can hit very hard indeed. With a sound somewhere between samples and electronic, it’s perfectly suited for more aggressive styles of music like techno, industrial and the harder end of IDM. That aggression comes from the combination of wavetable engine and 22 Sound Structures to warp the tables, with velocity and pressure assigned to those structures. You also get effects, an eight-track drum sequencer, and generative parameters.

If you tread in rougher waters, CyDrums could be the secret weapon you’ve been looking for. And at $500, it’s still relatively affordable.

Find out more at the Sonicware website.

Dubbed the Rhythm Performer, Roland's TR-8S is the 2018 heir to the legacy of the TR series of drum machines that began with the TR-808. That lineup casts a long shadow over not only Roland’s history but drum machines in general, with remakes and clones of the 808 and 909 appearing throughout this list (as well as the budget list from last time). 

The TR-8S is more than just an analog-modeled take on classic TRs, though, with sampling and FM rounding out the synthesis. Accordingly, this machine makes an excellent entry point into the TR world - especially if you perform live. It’s punchy, easy to program, and sounds incredible on a PA system. A modern classic.

Learn more at the Roland site or buy it at Thomann.

While Roland’s classic drum machines powered the electronic music of the past, it’s Elektron that largely drives the present. This is doubly true when it comes to the Digitakt, a sample-based drum machine. Sure, some still swear by the original Octatrack, but it’s the Digitakt - and its doable $1K price point - that has the most representation in modern studios.

Now available in an improved version, Digitakt II features stereo sampling, 400MB of sample memory and 20GB of internal memory, 16 tracks for sequencing both internally and externally, DSP for processing samples, and the kinds of sequencer parameters that you expect from Elektron, like Euclidean sequencing and conditional trigs.

Of course, it also sounds the real business. Depending on your genre of choice, you could probably only ever buy a Digitakt II and never need another machine of any kind. It’s that good.

Find out more at Elektron or buy one at Thomann.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a more necessary drum machine for electronic music than the TR-909. Sure, the TR-808 is iconic, but when it comes to most dance music genres, the one you want, need and love is the 909. And that’s why used ones are so damn expensive. While there are plenty of serviceable clones and remakes, very few come as close to the real thing as Steda’s SR-909. And that’s because it’s not just a clone but a replica.

SR-909 is exacting down to the component level. It has the same operating system as the original. In fact, you can even use the internal parts as replacements for an original model. It’s that close.

It’s also shockingly affordable at only around $1000. The catch is that it’s a kit and you have to solder it together yourself. On the plus side, it does include all the components you need, so you won’t have to go shopping for resistors and things.

Find out more on the Steda website.

Staying in the replica realm, this is Din Sync’s RE-808, a component-accurate remake of the 808, the other most famous drum machine in the world. Like the SR-909 (above), the RE-808 is a DIY project. However, you need to do a little more work getting it all together. There’s the RE-808 bundle from Din Sync to buy, plus the BA662 VCA chip clone for the clap circuit that you have to add to the order. Then you need to head to Kumptonics to purchase the case kit. Whew! Or, if you can’t be bothered with all of this shopping, you can find someone who sells them pre-assembled, but then you’ll be paying a lot more.

Why go through all this trouble? Because RE-808 sounds like the real thing. It’s all analog, uses NOS (new old stock parts) and even runs the original operating system. If you want an 808 but can’t justify the ridiculous prices that they’re going for (and know how to use a soldering iron), the RE-808 is the way to go.

Find out more at the Din Sync website and Kumptonic website. If you prefer an assembled version, try BCM Analog.

Leave it to Elektron to come up with the best analog drum machine that’s not trying to be a long-lost member of the TR family. Massive-sounding, punchy and powerful, the Analog Rytm MKII is everything you want an analog drum machine to be - and more.

The Analog Rytm MKII is an eight-voice drum machine that can do either analog or sampling (the ‘more’ that we alluded to earlier). Each voice also gets an analog multimode filter and overdrive circuit, plus modulation in the form of amplitude and filter envelopes, plus an LFO. There’s also distortion, compression, delay and reverb effects.

This all works out to a drum machine that can be what you want it to be: a techno machine (kicks like a mule!), a TR in disguise thanks to the sample engine, or even a four-note polyphonic synthesizer. 

Find out more at the Elektron website or buy one at Thomann.

When it comes to drum machines, Erica Synths is doing its best to dominate the market. We very well could have included the LXR-02, Bullfrog Drums, and HexDrums in this list. But the most exciting of the company’s rhythm lineup has to be Perkons HD-01.

What makes Perkons so fun is how much you can do with so little. On paper, it looks fairly limited: four digital voices, a step sequencer, and a BBD delay. But it’s how everything is put together that makes this such a winner. For starters, it’s knob-per-function, with a separate sequencer lane per voice so you have instant control over everything. This encourages you to play it and not just program it. It also sounds amazing, with a gorgeous mix of digital drum sounds and analog multimode filter. It can be heavy, experimental, even droney, so while it can bash out heavy techno without even trying, that’s only the start of what it's capable of.

Perkons HD-01 is a real monster of a drum machine and a triumph for Erica Synths.

Find out more on the Erica Synths site and buy one from Thomann.

Back in 2019, we called the original Alpha Base from boutique company Jomox one of the best drum machines released since 2010. A few years later, the company dropped Mk II, improving the sound engine among other tweaks. It’s still very much worth your money, especially if you do techno, house or other dance floor genres.

Alpha Base Mk II is a hybrid drum machine with analog, sampling, and even FM sounds. It’s not trying to be everything like some modern drum machines, nor is it beholden to any classic instrument. It sounds like a Jomox, if anything, but its real trademark is the sound quality. You could plug this thing straight into a mixer and it would still shake the walls down.

Alpha Base Mk II is the best underrated drum machine on the market, hands down. Get it and you’re guaranteed to not sound like everyone else - and isn’t that what music production in these AI-tainted days is all about?

Read more about it on the Jomox site and grab one from Thomann.

There are plenty of semi-modular synthesizers, but semi-modular drum machines? Those are rarer than teeth in a beak. The very nature of traditional drum machines - predictability, defined percussion, repetition - precludes most faffing about. But if the idea of an experimental rhythm machine has you sitting up straight and ready to hear more, may we present Pulsar-23 from Soma.

It’s a weirdo. You get four analog drum sounds (bass, kick, snare, cymbals/hats)… and that’s about it - or at least in terms of what you might expect from a drum machine. There’s an AD envelope for tone shaping, but also sustain to turn percussion into drones. There’s also an LFO. But then there are all sorts of things you would expect to find in a modular rig, like a clock divider, a random generator, and an FX processor with CV control. And that’s because this is basically a self-contained modular system, just one that also happens to be a drum machine.

Notice we didn’t mention a sequencer? You can control everything from external MIDI but if you want to keep it in-house, you can use a combination of the clock divider and event looper to create rhythms. See, it’s a weirdo.

Pulsar-23 is a very special instrument. It sounds amazing, both hard-hitting and very freaky. It’s not cheap but for the musician looking for rhythmic insanity, it could be worth every penny. If you want to save a few bucks, opt for the one with screws for patch points rather than the custom turrets.

Find out more on Soma’s website or buy one from Thomann.

Ever since producers discovered that the kick drum on the TR-909 sounded amazing in clubs and warehouses, people have been begging Roland to re-release the instrument. Although the company created a few digital versions of it over the years, it finally gave the people what they wanted (well, for the most part) in the form of the TR-1000, a modern take on the TR lineage with a variety of sound engines, including - at long last! - proper analog.

A studio-focused upgrade of the TR-8S, the TR-1000 is the best drum machine Roland has ever made. It may also be the best drum machine ever made by anyone. The analog engine kicks seriously hard and does 808 sounds just as well as 909 ones. The analog drive on the two-bus is butter as well, and helps shape the non-analog sounds (including a sample engine borrowed from the SP-404MKII) into a coherent, delicious whole.

The TR-1000 is bags of fun to play and it sounds stupendous. If you’re a TR fan, it’s the only drum machine you’ll ever need… if you can afford it, that is. 

Find out more at Roland and buy one from Thomann.

The expensive end of the drum machine market just got a little more interesting. At this year’s Superbooth, Polyend surprised everyone with the announcement of Drums, an analog/digital hybrid drum machine that’s in direct competition with the TR-1000. It’s even the exact same price.

Drums is an eight-track machine with analog, digital and sample-based drum sounds, plus an analog filter and VCA per instrument. Like the Perkons HD-10, it’s very hands-on, with a similar four lanes of step sequencers lined up across the bottom and loads of knobs at the top. Accordingly, it’s been designed with live performance in mind, with a crossfader to morph between kits. It’s also got effects, a robust sequencer as you’d expect from Polyend, and a design that is so beautiful it’s almost distracting.

Drums is a marvel of modern drum machine engineering. It’s also exceedingly musical, equally at home making synthesizer sounds as well as drums. A real high-water achievement not only for Polyend but for drum machines in general.

Find out more at Polyend. Buy on Thomann.

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