powered Rhythm machines for home practicing and goofing around?
 

I play guitar mostly for my own enjoyment these days and have used loopers, harmony boxes, etc. but wondering if there is a small self powered drum machine type box out there that could do easy shaker, conga, acoustic kit beats under songs. Dot want to have to plug an bunch of stuff in. I play on my couch or on the back deck.

I know Boss makes a DR-01S Rhythm Partner Performance Groove Machine that looks intriguing but have not seen or heard one up close. Any of you using anything like this? Thanks!

I have one of the Boss machines. I use it most every day -- but caveat is that I use it mostly as metronome, and not as a back-up rhythm section. I have a couple of simple 4/4 and 3/4 beats set up as presents, and punch up one of those depending on the material I'm working. I don't frequently change the beats (but of course change the tempo all over the map). Anyways it's much more pleasant for both me and others in the household than the "boop boop boop" of a standard digital metronome.

The Boss machine does have a huge range of beats in it that sound good, and it's pretty easy to control, so you could use it to do a lot more if you wanted. But it does what I need and I'm happy with my limited use.

The Boss unit really works well. The first thing I learned was that I know nothing about percussion….But the Boss unit is not difficult to figure out. Start by using it as a metronome, then add an instrument to the mix.
If your timing needs work it is going to be good for you!
But the Boss is a nice little unit on its own or thru a PA.

I got a Zoom MRT-3b many years ago. It plugs in and plays through an amp (or into an audio interface to a DAW). Trouble with these rhythm machines is, they just play over and over -- no variation. I guess they are programmable so you can construct different variations of your rhythm -- something I've never gotten into. I mainly use my synth as my "backup rhythm section" (as BlueStarfish mentions) since it has a very wide variety of rhythms AND each comes with four or five variations of the drum work -- accessed by the press of a button. Example When recording, I'll lay down a base rhythm track with no variations to play along with. That track later gets muted and exchanged for another rhythm track that I "play" by pressing the variation buttons at particular junctures. :D

powered Rhythm machines for home practicing and goofing around?
 

Fwiw I’ve tried a number of solutions but settled on making beats in Logic then saving them to an SD card that I can plug into my looper. Perhaps more work to set up but a world of options and the result is a one box solution for beats and loops.

Discovered that the Beat Sequencer in Garage band on my iPad bluetoothed to my speaker works really well! Easy and gets her done!

Thanks!

You might want something as simple as a Korg KR Mini rhythm machine, completely stand alone and you can find them on Amazon at less than $50 at times.