Tanzbar Lite and Tanzmaus Review

We first heard the rumblings of these two drum machines a long time ago when we visited Uwe George in Berlin some years back.

The first full outing was at NAMM this year where Uwe gave us the full run down, we were excited to get our hands on these and find out what they sounded like in isolation.

The main differences between the two machines is that the Tanzbar is voiced to sound like an 808 whereas the Tanzmaus is more of a 909 style drum machine.

Both being based on classic drum machines gives these beasts a good heritage, however they can both go much further than their classic cousins.

When you first get your hands on these, you may well find that the sequencers aren't really that intuitive, however once you get into the sequencer you can really go to town. The fact that you have so many different settings, all of which can be automated with MFB's flavour of paramater locking, allows you to really open these up to new programming possibilities.

The Tanzmaus sample sets allow you to create some really interesting patterns and the fact that you can change sample per step really allows you to make the most of the available sounds. The samples can also be changed using a SYSEX program such as MIDI-OX (PC)  and sending Sysex dumps in - see these extra samples (12-bit, 32kHz) on MFB's custom webpage, you do need to configure the Sysex dumps quite specifically to oget them loaded. Its a shame its so fiddly, if there was a simpler way, it would really make this drum machine stand out from the crowd.

The Tanzbar Lite is priced at €430 and the Tanzmaus is €480

More info at MFB

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