Elteto.net

Reports of the SR-16's death "are greatly exaggerated".

Considering how technologically imporved modern music production is, some people may find the obsession with recreating vintage instrument sounds puzzling. I too admit to being guilty of taking advantage of the widespread sound nostalgia. We can have a lengthy argument about what counts as "vintage", but a drum machine going towards being two decades old qualifies for me. The Alesis SR-16 has been heard in countless hits in the 90's and the 00's, and artists still actively use it these days. The high quality samples, kits, variety of banks, small size, reliability, portability, and MIDI connectivity have all contributed to the success of the device. Musicians of all genres (such as this ballroom pianist) often use it to create hassle-free drum backing for their live performances. I may have been composing away using elaborate sound modules and virtual instruments, but I still found myself wanting to use the SR-16 sounds. This is where modern tech came in: I actually paid money to acquire the machine's sample library. The best thing, of course, would have been to get an actual one of these historic pieces (available virtually everywhere electronic instruments are sold), but I wanted to manage patterns and sequences faster, without having to carry too much hardware around, and without having to worry about sound quality when recording into the computer through an interface. So I figured I would just buy from Killa Beat Productions, who already had spent the big bucks and time on ProTools and on other studio equipment to get the sounds in the computer. The samples are in CD quality 16 bit 44.1 kHz .wav files, labeled in accordance with the machine's own names. This gives the musician the choice of any hardware or software to build a drum track with the sounds.

Probably many other artists out there are on the same sheet of music (no pun intended), and the continued steady sales of the SR-16 and the development of new hardware (Alesis Performance Pad, Ion Audio iED04 Digital Drum Station) using the SR-16 sample library are just further proof of the maintained enthusiasm.