BOSS DR-3 Dr. Rhythm
Big beats in a small package

By Mike Snyder

Layin’ it out
First off, you’ll notice the layout is different than most drum machines. At the bottom, you’ll find pads for triggering the built-in patterns. These velocity-sensitive pads are also used for playing the individual drum or bass sounds if you want to program your own beats and bass lines. The pads light up to show you the pattern style currently playing. Other buttons include big Sound Shape and Ambience buttons, as well as a host of easy-to-navigate controls.

On the back, you get two sets of stereo out jacks (1/4-inch and RCA) and MIDI In to use the DR-3 as a MIDI sound module—plus phones, volume and power controls.
The DR-3 deals with drum patterns very differently than other drum machines. Instead of the patterns being grouped into genres of music, they are arranged into Styles—100 Preset and 100 User. These Styles are groups of patterns put into “construction kits,” making it easy to find the style you’re looking for. Every Style has eight patterns separated into Intro, Fill & Verse A, Fill & Verse B, Fill & Verse C, and Ending. In addition to these patterns there’s a Variation button that alters the Verse patterns by adding more instruments. Cool stuff.

Never leaving good enough alone, BOSS added the ability to assign two different drum sets (with percussion) to each Style. With the touch of a button you can switch to a completely different set of drums.

Auto pilot, please
The DR-3 sports both Manual and Automatic playback modes. In Auto mode the DR-3 plays sequentially through the patterns within a Style. Although the Preset patterns are of predetermined length, when creating patterns of your own, you can choose the length of each section, between 1-8 bars. Playing a Style is easy. In Manual mode, you just pick a style of music, press the version of the Verse (A, B, or C) you want to play with, press PLAY, and that pattern will repeat until you press the next Verse pattern directly—or the Fill pattern into the new Verse. The DR-3 is smart, too. If a Verse pattern is four bars in length and you press the Fill button, it replaces the last bar of the Verse with the Fill while keeping the verse pattern four bars in length.

Step on me
The footswitch of the DR-3 can be programmed to perform 18 different functions, like Style Forward (advance), Variation Pattern, and even Tap Tempo (Tap Tempo can also be set by tapping the Tempo button four times). What’s more, the footswitch can be assigned to play one of 26 different drum and percussion sounds. You can even connect two FS-5U footswitches using a special cable (see Fig. 1). This gives you the ability to create arrangements “on the fly,” making the DR-3 perfect for songwriting, practicing or performing live.

TSC
The “TSC” (Total Sound Control) section of the DR-3 is worth the price of admission by itself. Each Style can have both Shape and Ambience settings applied to it, from eight Preset or eight User settings. These aren’t watered down effects; their programmability rivals stand-alone effects processors. The Shape section offers 3-band EQ and multi-band compression. Oh yeah, and it sounds great! Ambience, is where you create the room in which the drum set lives. This effect helps blend all of the sounds into one homogeneous instrument, just as in the acoustic world.

Although we’ve just scratched the surface of what the DR-3 can do, you can see that it is very easy to customize it to the way you practice, write and perform. It has tons of patterns that give you all the building blocks of a song, making it quick and simple to arrange the rhythm section; and you can even create your own “building blocks.” This kind of versatility has never before been found in a drum machine, let alone one this affordable. And did I mention the DR-3 can run on an AC adapter or batteries? Drop by your favorite BOSS dealer and take the DR-3 for a spin or a jam. I’m sure you’ll be taking one home.

SQUAREONE

TSC (Total Sound Control)
Total Sound Control, or TSC for short, is a quick and easy way to improve the overall sound of the kits and patterns. These special sound-shaping controls are divided into two sections: Ambience and Sound Shape.

Ambience does just what it says: It gives your kits a reverberant quality by selecting from one of eight room types. You also get total control over the room size, decay time, ambience level, pre-delay, density, early reflections, relative density—plus low/high frequency dampening and low/high frequency cut and boost.

The Sound Shape section offers EQ and Compression with total control. The EQ is a 3-band type. The 3-band compressor lets you choose which frequencies to compress and makes the drums tight and punchy.

Buy a BOSS DR-3 today!