Zoom MRT-3 Micro RhythmTrak

On record

• Ian Evans — Reader’s Voice (E.P.). Zoom MRT-3 explicitly listed in four-song EP equipment. Source ↗
• Daria Lourd — the first drum machine. Lourd describes the MRT-3 as her first drum machine and recalls programming all 99 patterns in a day. Source ↗

A compact rhythm partner for the recorder

Play the seven pads, switch banks to reach another seven sounds, then make a rhythm alongside the rest of a song. Zoom presented the MRT-3 as a compact drum-and-percussion partner for its MRS-4 four-track recorder. Its manual shows the recorder supplying MIDI timing while the MRT-3’s stereo audio feeds the MRS-4’s Aux In: a dedicated backing rhythm without using one of the recorder’s audio tracks.

MRT-3 Operation Manual ↗ Winter NAMM 2002: Zoom MRT-3 ↗

A compact library of rhythms

The factory manual lists 199 drum and percussion sounds, 396 preset patterns, 99 user patterns and 99 songs. A user kit holds up to fourteen sounds with individually adjustable level, tuning and pan. Bank-A pads five and seven cut off one another, useful for an open-and-closed hi-hat pair. There are fifty preset kits and twenty user kits, with a maximum of twenty-one sounding voices and 20,000 sequencer events. Four AA batteries let the same small machine travel away from the recording desk.

MRT-3 Operation Manual ↗

A name with a later suffix

Distributor and retailer material also uses the name MRT-3B. Those listings preserve a useful naming trail, but the suffix alone does not establish a new sound engine or revised sequencer. The MRT-3 factory manual remains the baseline here; a dated manufacturer revision record is needed before differences can be assigned to the B-labelled version.

Samson 707 II product page capture: MRT-3B sidebar listing ↗ MRT-3B Micro Rhythm Trak, SKU220656 ↗ Zoom MRT3B Micro RhythmTrak Drum Machine ↗

Still useful to a musician

Ian Evans lists a Zoom MRT-3 in the equipment for Reader’s Voice, a four-song EP recorded in 2015–16 and released on 20 March 2016. Guitars, bass and a Yamaha PSR550 appear in the same list. It places the Zoom in a documented recording setup, without identifying which track or individual drum sound used it.

Reader’s Voice (E.P.) ↗

Seven pads, two banks

The pads can respond to how firmly they are struck, with kit-wide sensitivity settings or a fixed soft, medium or loud response. The Pad Bank key changes their assignments between banks A and B. Pattern, Kit and Song keys separate playing and writing a beat from selecting its sounds and arranging a backing sequence. The rear panel keeps the connections compact: mono output, stereo/headphone output, a footswitch socket and MIDI In. There is no MIDI Out on the documented MRT-3.

MRT-3 Operation Manual ↗

A first machine in Memphis

In her 2026 Certain Sound interview, Daria Lourd recalls discovering drum machines through a drummer who programmed songs for bands when he could not make a gig. She bought an MRT-3 and remembers filling all ninety-nine user patterns in a day. She also describes starting it by hand alongside a friend’s loop pedal before they understood MIDI synchronisation. This is an account of learning and playing, not an MRT-3 credit for a later named release.

Daria Lourd and the Zoom MRT-3 ↗

At the Zoom booth in 2002

Sweetwater’s report dated 28 January 2002 places the MRT-3 at Zoom’s Winter NAMM booth beside the new MRS-4. Its preliminary description gives two hundred preset patterns and twenty-note polyphony; the factory manual gives 396 preset patterns and twenty-one voices. The report documents the public demonstration and recorder pairing, while the manual supplies the finished specification. Neither establishes a first retail delivery date in every territory.

Winter NAMM 2002: Zoom MRT-3 ↗ MRT-3 Operation Manual ↗