Six great drum machines for under £400
2. TR-606
Roland (£250)
Released in 1982, and made for the purpose to accompany the TB-303. This unit may not have made as much of an impact as the 808 or 909, though the 606 sounds great and comes with seven drum sounds, kick, snare, closed hat, open hat, cymbal and toms. These sounds are produced via an analogue circuitry using ringing oscillators and noise.
The TR-606 can store 32 patterns in its memory, four of which can be linked in pattern play mode. You can also switch between pattern play and write mode, which makes this drum machine unique in comparison to others in the X0X series.
There are drawbacks, as there are no edit functions but the sounds themselves more than make up for it. I/O’s are also limited, with there only being mono and audio inputs.
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