| I have one.
Starting caveat: I'm new at this, and don't have much experience
doing my own recordings with the RZ-1 yet. Most of my comments
are based on experience recording only about 3-4 songs. Some
of my comments are based on "how" I expect to do things in the
future based on my experiences so far.
Based on what I heard on the COMMUSIC tape, I'd say that the sounds
on the RZ-1 were somewhat inferior to those of the TR-707 (which
seems to be the most popular unit). However, it may be that there
are tricks in recording them that I'm not familiar with. A friend
of mine borrowed my RZ-1 and ran it through some delay effects and
it sounded much better than my attempts at recording from it, but
still not as good as some of the COMMUSIC II tape stuff I heard.
Since you specifically asked about cymbols, I think that's probably
the weak point. All sounds on the thing are sampled sounds and
I get the impression that the cymbals were recorded dry, and thus
sound dry. The crash cymbal also has a problem in that it cuts
off very quickly because the sample is time-limited. This can be
corrected with reverb to some extent.
So why did I get one? Well there are a lot of pluses:
o Try and find a machine that lets YOU create samples in this
price range! I think the sampling feature is very valuable.
You can use it to partially hide the fact that a drum machine
is being used. For example, you can have 5 snare drum sounds,
which adds a little "human imperfection" to the sound. Also
You can have a lot of fun with the sampling. I once did a track
substituting the real drums with vocal imitations of drums.
It also makes it possible to get sounds not generally found
on drum machines. One sound that I use pretty frequently
is just hitting two drumsticks together. I'm surprised this
isn't found on more machines. I use it as the count-off.
The RZ-1 comes with a cassette of 90 drum sounds that you can
sample. BTW, the sampler on it is pretty good but of course
time limited (.8 seconds)
o The RZ-1 has separate volume controls and outputs for almost
all the sounds (pretty much all the ones that need to be separate).
I've used the separate outputs only once (or twice), but the
separate volume controls are essential as far as I'm concerned.
I find that setting them even is fine for playing the unit live,
but when you record it, the mix screws up the drum balance and
you have to bring things in and out (using both the mixer section
of the RZ-1 and using EQ).
You don't see separate outputs and volume controls on many units
in this price range.
BTW, you don't need to use the separate outputs to get stereo.
The RZ-1 has stereo outputs. There aren't any pan controls
for the instruments. The RZ-1 has a sortof "builtin" pan control
that places individual drum instruments at various places in
the stereo audio field. I think this more than "sufficient".
You get a balanced mono track automatically if you only plug
into one of the two stereo outputs.
Bottom line: there are lots of units out there better than the RZ-1
but nonetheless it is a marvel in its price range.
db
P.S. Somewhere in here, someone published a list of drum specs.
I printed it out, took it home and added a column for the
RZ-1 but haven't typed it in yet.
P.P.S. If you'd like to see and touch and fool around with an RZ-1
you could drop by sometime and see mine.
|
| > Dave, can you tune the toms and/or cymbals?
Nope, but if you don't like the tuning of the toms or the cymbals
you can add your own via sampling.
One of the great things about having the sampling is that it can
be used to make it sound a bit less like a drum machine. You
accomplish this by doing things like using two snare sounds, or
two cymbal sounds, etc.
The other thing sampling allows you to do is add exotic percussion
(or even just latin percussion).
The RZ-1 isn't all that flexible. You have a total of .8 seconds
of sampled time which can be partitioned one of 3 ways:
o 1 .8 second sampled sound
o 2 .4 second sampled sounds
o 4 .2 second sampled sounds
A cymbal requires at least .8 seconds (more really), but most
other percussion instruments get by with .2 or .4 seconds. You
can also make up for the lack of sampled sound with appropriate
usage of reverb.
For example, the builtin crash cymbal sound cuts off rather abruptly
due to the architectural limit of .8 (for both builtin and sampled
sounds). Without reverb it's quite noticeable. With reverb, you'd
never know there was a problem.
It's really an incredible unit for its general price, and a steal
(MUST BUY, I'd say) at anything $400 or below.
db
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