Anybody have experience with pedal drum machines?

[voodoorat]

So we have a drummer reliability problem for our weekly jams--there are a few people who play drums but none of them are very vested, the ones most likely to show up are the least experienced/good and even they can't make it half the time. The bassist is kind of an intermediate player who doesn't have that strong an innate sense of rhythm--he's improving every day but he really does need a drummer to latch on to. I play a stomp and a foot tambourine but I think he needs to latch on to more of the backbeat stuff and can't quite feel it yet.

So I was thinking about solutions. I actually have a drum beat app for the iPhone and have bluetooth on the mixer, so in a pinch we can use that, but it's got kind of a limited selection of usable drum sounds and I think it would get stale pretty fast.

So I was thinking that maybe something like the Beat Buddy would be good either if I'm playing solo or with just bass. I just want something that I can very quickly tap out a tempo on and that has a selection of usable basic beats (grooves for rock, country, blues, reggae, whatever)--I don't need that much, at least not to start.

Just wondering if anybody has tried to use one of these things in the way I'm thinking and if so what your experience was.

[BrianSkeezer]

I like using the Digitech Trio or Trio+. It kinda learns the beat from you, and works well if you play a basic bass rhythm to set it up. It'll give you a few beats to choose from and will even play bass with you. If you can find one fairly cheap, you can mute the bass parts and just use the drums so the bass player doesn't feel replaced.

[Partscaster]

there are some cheaper loopers with drum beat options..NUX has a cheaper drum-looper at around 160$ ...whereas Beat Buddy is an expensive option at around 370$ and that doesnt include the looper, another 700$ and hopefully software glitches have been conquered in their compatible Aeros Looper.

[Mr. Leyvatone]

+1 for the DigiTech Trio+.

Not cheap, but a very impressive “rhythm section” to jam with.