This is the third (of 3) installment on the Adrenalinn III effects pedal, by Roger Linn Designs. This will cover the drum machine and MIDI implementation on the pedal, and wrap it up with a summary. I hope you’ve enjoyed it so far!
The drum machine in this little box is, for all intents and purposes, pretty decent. It’s not as good as a full-blown drum sequencer, but the plus side is that it’s pretty easy to use, and can be controlled right there with your feet. If you want to run a small musical group without a drummer, this is a definite possibility.
It basically only plays 4 sounds (or variations of sounds) at a time. Bass, snare, hi-hat, and percussion (which can be a ride cymbal, shaker, triangle, cowbell, etc). This is enough to give you pretty basic beats. It also allows you to pass the drum sounds through the effects section of the pedal, so you can use reverb, delay, treble filter, and distortion on the drums. This is nice if you want to “tweak” the sound for that gritty “in the stairwell” drum feel, like on Led Zeppelin albums. The distortion also works pretty well with the TS808 sampler beats, as it gives it a lo-fi sound.
The sequencer lets you do 2 measures of 8th or 16th notes. It can also do 3/4 measures, and swing patterns. You program the beats on the main control panel of the pedal. It’s a bit klunky, but it does work.
When programming the beat, each sound has a volume set for each time it’s triggered (9 volume increments), which gives you some flexibility.
The downside to having a drum machine in your pedal is that you really can’t run stereo out into stereo effects afterwards. The AdrenaLinn does have stereo outs, yes. You can split the guitar and drum sounds into the Left or Right channels, but that eliminates using any stereo effects *within* the pedal.
For instance, I use a TC Electronics Hall of Fame 2 after the AdrenaLinn. If I use the drum machine, then I either lose the Linn’s stereo effects (and run drums mono through the separate R channel) or my drums get drowned in reverb. So it’s not perfect. Ideally, it would be nice to have a third drum-only output.
MIDI Fixings
Thankfully, you can control everything the Linn does with MIDI commands. If you include Sysex messages, then you can change every single parameter on the unit, except for the input gain (it’s an analog knob). Normally, you’d use the two main footswitches, which each have a “short” press function and “long” press function, which you can customize.
But if you hook it up to a real MIDI controller, you can do some incredible things with it. It can use two CC parameters as expression controllers, and 10 CC parameters as switches. Plus you can change guitar or drum patches individually (with bank change messages and PC), and all the modulation effects and delay can be synced to MIDI clock. Which is also what runs the drum machine- so everything stays in tempo.
How I Use the AdrenaLinn 3
I initially had all kinds of ideas how I could turn this pedal into a one-man-band performance tool. And you could use it for that, if you kept it simple. But you’d be better served using a laptop, or something with programming, if you wanted a top-notch solo setup. The Linn’s drum machine is fantastic for practicing, but it’s not quite polished enough for stage use.
Things I love about the Linn:
- The amp models are great
- Amazing MIDI control capabilities
- Can use it as a single-pedal solution
- The modulation effects are incredible
- Swiss Army Pedal: it does almost everything
Things I really wish I could add:
- Separate drum outputs
- 2 more buttons, and maybe an expression pedal input
- More drum sounds
- Better reverb and delay options
- An octave effect
- An effect loop
- True MIDI-through output
Conclusion
Let’s be honest: this unit has been around for 10+ years. Surprisingly, it can still hold its own against modern modeling setups, though its age is starting to show. It’s priced (and featured) somewhere between a Tech21 Fly Rig and a Line6 HX Stomp, both of which are great alternatives. But none of them have the same feature set this pedal does. Is it still worth the money? Absolutely. It’s a great unit, with tons of options in a small package. Is it perfect? No. But if it does what you need, then it’s a very reasonable choice.