On November 3, 2026, Thomann had 59 drum machines in stock, from $44 to $3,027. Half cost less than $414.
| Price | Drum machines |
|---|---|
| Under $200 | 16 |
| $200 to $500 | 18 |
| $500 to $1,000 | 6 |
| $1,000 to $2,000 | 11 |
| $2,000 and up | 8 |
Under $200: analog beats and a practice drummer
Behringer RD-6, $122
Eight analog drum sounds in the style of Roland's TR-606, a 16-step sequencer, an accent track and a built-in distortion. It is number two of 54 in our drum machine ranking. #3 of 54 drum machines.
Korg's Volca Beats and Volca Drum cost $148 and $146, battery-powered and small enough for a backpack.
Alesis SR16, $153
A different kind of drum machine: 233 realistic drum sounds, 50 preset kits, velocity-sensitive pads and two footswitch inputs. It is built to play along with, for guitarists and songwriters, rather than for electronic music. #5 of 54 drum machines.
$200 to $500: more sounds and more control
Roland's AIRA Compact T-8 costs $222, Behringer's RD-8 MKII, an 808-style machine with 16 voices, $268. Yamaha's SEQTRAK at $403 is a drum machine, synth, sampler and audio interface in one battery-powered bar. Korg's Drumlogue at $469 mixes analog drums with digital ones and a sample engine.
This is where most people should start: enough sounds to make full beats, a proper sequencer, and audio outputs for recording.
$1,000 to $2,000: studio machines
Elektron Analog Rytm MKII, $1,751
Eight voices, each with an analog sound generator and a sample engine, analog filters and overdrive, a compressor and distortion on the master and Elektron's parameter-lock sequencer, which lets every step have its own settings. Number three of 54. #4 of 54 drum machines.
Elektron's smaller Syntakt costs $1,042. Erica Synths' HexDrums and Perkons HD-01 cost $1,454 and $1,995.
$2,000 and up: flagships and modular drums
Roland TR-1000, $3,013
Roland's first new analog drum machine in decades: 16 analog instruments rebuilt from the TR-808 and TR-909, plus expanded digital features. #6 of 54 drum machines.
At the top of our ranking sits the SOMA Pulsar-23 at $2,534, a semi-modular drum machine with more than 100 patch points that SOMA calls "organismic". Polyend's Drums costs $3,027.
Drum machine or groovebox?
A drum machine makes drums. If you want basses and chords from the same box, a groovebox does both: Roland's TR-8S at $783 is the bridge between the two, and our guide to first synthesizers covers grooveboxes from $425.
Where the numbers come from. Every drum machine Thomann had in stock on November 3, 2026, from its partner feed. Places are from our ranking of drum machines, which counts each model once. Specs are from Thomann's descriptions. Prices are Thomann's US-dollar prices.
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Denis Kataev runs AudioFu. Every night the site records the prices of more than 38,000 instruments and studio tools at Thomann, and he writes about what those numbers show: what got cheaper, what just arrived, and which discounts are real.
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