DigiTech SDRUM Guitar Effects Pedal Strummable Drum

I use it in my keys act. I think this is the best sounding drum pedal I've heard, especially at this price point. The kick, snare, ride, and hats sound really good. Fortunately you rarely hear a crash, because they always sound stupid on a beat box. I run it through a PA, so that might result in a different (maybe better) sound than those who run it through a combo guitar amp.Is it fussy to program? There is indeed a gently sloped learning curve, but it's worth it because it sounds so good. I think it would be much harder teaching it a rhythm by strumming a guitar. As a keys player, I have used only the kick and snare pads.When you are programming an open part or song with the pads, a trick is to screw it up on purpose the first try. That might sound absurd, but when you try again to correct the screw-up, the Sdrum will give you a metronome that will make it much easier for you to nail the beat you want. A design flaw is that there's no metronome on the first try. I hope they correct that.Another thing with the programming: It quantizes, but not too strictly. This fact can be frustrating at first, because if you don't program close enough to the metronome, you can end up with downbeats and snare snaps wandering around a bit within the bars -- but always at tempo. However, this could actually be something jazz players might really appreciate, and some songwriters, too, who might be looking for a quirky beat to trigger some inspiration.My gripe is build-related. On mine at least, the Song button is really loose, and pressing it with my fingertip, the same way I press the Tempo and Part buttons, doesn't put the Sdrum in Song mode. I found jabbing it sharply and quickly with my nail is the only way to activate it. I looked into sending it back, but it's a month after the cheapskate 30-day return window, and I already have 10 songs loaded on it that I would have to re-create. I might have to open the pedal up and see if I can monkey with it.One last tip: To avoid screwups on stage, don't try to get too complicated with the Sdrum. For godssake, don't program a Bridge part on a song. When you toggle the pedal, especially if you're playing AND singing as I do, it takes your focus away from your performance. If you screw it up -- and unfortunately, it's easy to do if you're feeling for that button with your foot after every song part -- you will be lost and embarrassed. See if you can get by on a tune with just one part, the Verse. Everyone of course will know you're using a drum machine when they fail to spot a drummer sitting behind you. They won't care, as long as you keep it simple and play really well. Don't destroy your performance by trying to be perfect or too clever.

There are a lot of ways to get backing drums for guitarists but they are usually pre-made loops to choose from. The SDRUM allows you to make custom drum loops, for both a verse and chorus, with an automatic fill between the two. Meaning you can create a full (but fairly simple) original song for drums to play over.Teaching the SDRUM a pattern is like showing a real drummer a rhythm with a guitar. You can trigger the kick with low strings and snare with high strings. Or you can manually tap it in with key pads. After recording a measure or two of a pattern the SDRUM generates the drums. It has several types of drums like Electronic and Power for different voicings.There is a huge amount of hats/rides patterns to layer on top of the kick and snare. An entire dial is dedicated to just that, with 3 versions of each pattern as well. You can dictate 3/4 or 4/4 timing and switch between straight time and swing time feels- which is awesome for filling out a basic song or just trying something new with the same pattern.Each part of the song can be emphasized too, which just adds more dynamic range to a basic verse/chorus/fill structure. Does it completely replace a real drummer? No, but the SDRUM doesn't show up late to practice either. You can adjust the tempo and it even acts as a metronome for practice. Just a great tool for anyone that needs a drummer in a box. Being able to quickly make up new patterns opens up more creativity than just using premade loops. The SDRUM can store a bunch of 'songs' you've made drums for as well for easy playback of that idea you were toying with the other day.It does a lot but is pretty straight forward in actual application. Once you learn how to 'teach' it patterns, and how to set up verse/chorus 'songs'.... it's all just fine tuning and is mostly just experimenting with the knobs. Almost as easy as using pre-made loops. I find it much more interesting than the loops most pedals and DAWs use.

This is the drum machine that I thought should be out their in today's age of technology. I looked for a long time on Amazon and could not seemed to find one that suited me for the price I wanted to pay for it until this one popped up automatically. It seems to think for you and adds in beats when you need them. It won't replace a real drummer in a live performance but at home banging around it is the bomb! it gives you the verse, chorus, and bridge beats and you can change back and forth at any time. I saw a lot of complaints about this peddle doing something out of time. I don't know what they are talking about because a live drummer doesn't follow you, you all work together to keep in time anyway. It seemed like to me it put in extra beats to make up for what I was missing while picking the notes of a song on my guitar. I grew up playing by ear and when one of us would miss a note another person would just hit an extra hard strum especially when you knew you were getting close to your buddy's bad place. also a few complaints about all those lights. Heck I like a lot of lights. Makes me feel like I am in Vegas. You will have to watch a lot of videos and punch on the buttons a bunch of times to get the feel of it, but it is learnable and doable because I got it to work. The only thing bad about it is that amazon raised the price about 30 to 40 dollars right after I purchased it so it is getting close to being out of my price range for another toy to play with. $139 yes. Anything between $175 on up. No

I was a little leary on this since the reviews are kind of back and forth. Bottom line, it sounds great and is EASY to get a really great beat out of it.If I had to guess the three places people are going wrong with it:You can't blast a full signal at it. I turn OFF my compressor and roll the guitar volume to about half give or take. (humbuckers) With too much signal its hard to pull off more intricate beats. For me personally I pluck the low E with my Thumb for the kick, then pluck the high E for my snare. For my personal play style, this is more comfortable for me than strumming, and it seems to work perfectly.Next, it doesn't sound all that great through the guitar amp (no surprise) but into a decent PA speaker (I use an EV ZLX12 that is self powered) and it really sounds amazing. I have a lot of experience with programming and recording drums for the past 20 years and I can honestly say the samples sound really high quality. Perfect in a mix.Last is that its too complicated. Its not. It LOOKS complicated with the unfamiliar style of knobs, buttons, and lights and what not but when you actually spend 30min on it with the manual it becomes how apparently easy it is to control. Its NOT a plug and play pedal like a dirt or reverb and it sounds like that is what people are hoping for. Its still not that hard though. In 30 minutes I was up and running and after another hour of practicing with it I was good and changing sounds and feel on the fly with lots of different drum fills. SOOO nice!! You do have to have some drumming skills though.. several of the videos I saw of demos online were with people that very much lacked.Final thought. If you have a quality PA to use with it, and the patience to sit down with the pedal and manual, and of course some drum talent. If you want a plug and play pedal that shoots out premade drum tracks then I would suggest the BeatBuddy. This pedal shines for making your own, and does is very well.

The SDrum pedal is a game changer. Adding it to my pedal board has made the drum loops feature of my Nux Loop Core Deluxe redundant. The SDrum may look complicated, but the controls are intuitive. There are many demo videos on YouTube that will show you how to use the pedal while inspiring you to create amazing pieces of music.The SDrum has a jack dedicated to connecting to a Digitech looping pedal, but I had no issue making it work with the Nux Loop Core Deluxe.The ability to push drum kit sounds through a guitar amp is a relatively new phenomenon, and the SDrum sounds great through my Bugera Infinium V22 and my Line 6 Spider III, but I notice that the drum sound randomly causes "clipping" so now I only use it with the Line 6. For the inexplicable clipping I've deducted one star for Sound.Bottom line: the SDrum pedal plus a looping pedal have already made me a better guitar player. The progress I've made in the 3 months I've owned the SDrum might be the fastest progress I've made in all the years I've been playing. I would buy this pedal again in a heartbeat.