One day while looking for various audio devices, I came across a listing for a Zoom MRT-3B drum machine and it piqued my interest. Demos of it on YouTube are few and far between, and the device dates from the early 2000s. There are a couple videos on YouTube, and I thought the sounds were decent. I sold my Digitech Sdrum and bought an MRT-3b. I really liked it from the start, but mine had a few issues. First off, it was losing all my patterns every time I powered it on, so I looked for the internal battery. Disassembly wasn’t too bad but I had to wait for the battery replacement I had to order.
Once I had the battery issue resolved, I noticed the tempo button sometimes needed an extra click to work, but that’s also the tap tempo input, so it was doing wacky things. So once again I disassembled the unit and replaced all the tactile switches. Now it’s running great.
So far this has been a great simple drum machine to use with 4 tracks. I quite like Zoom stuff for inexpensive but decent quality devices. My first recording device was an H4n, which I used to record several bands. I moved from that to a Zoom R16, which I still have but don’t use much. I recently acquired a Zoom H2, since I missed the H4n I used to have. I’ve also got a Zoom g1four, which is decent for sitting on the couch with headphones. I look forward to getting a lot of use out of the MRT-3b going forward.