started playing keyboards in a 2nd band. ballad, slow pop oriented.

like the sounds in dr-880.
but seems like it takes more programming to perform instead of being traditional type of drum machine with intro, a, b, fills, ending.

i used to use arranger keybd for things like these but don't wanna be tied to a keyboard. rather have drum machine

Before I went full Arranger I used a Roland CR80 Preset machine. Mostly decent usable preset rhythms and you could trigger Intros, fills, and endings on the fly and it had a couple of buttons to trigger sounds. No programming needed. Sounded good and did the job for quite awhile. I'm sure its discontinued but there are some around for sale.
I kinda miss the simplicity of working like that.

I've been considering adding the same drum machine "in addition" to my arranger....

I always had two of everything and I' m sorry I sold both of mine. Another nice feature was it was velocity sensitive to your keyboard.
I'm sure you'll like it and on the used market it should be cheap so no big investment
Good luck

There is the Alesis SR18... which is a cheep alternative..

However, most people use NI Maschine or the Akai 6MPC stuff, but they all require a computer for soundsource..



This video however shows the best available right now, and despite its age the Boss is still 3rd placed... The elekron looks to be worth a look, its on the number one spot and i remember quite some nice comments on it from NAMM

also if you prefer the arranger way of working with drumloops, you could consider an arranger module, like the Roland BC7 or the Ketron MidJPro or upcomming SD40, however there is not many to choose from...

You could also get a touchscreen windows tablet and run varranger on it... which works just perfectly with styles from all 4 major manufactorers...

If you have an iPad, take a look at the FunkBox app. I really like it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hVLbpfPPcI

While I was using arranger all the time live I would always set up a drum machine on one corner to do some manual fills or at the end of a song to simulate real drummer with some different endings. Again, manually.
Though, I think mow days every TOTL arranger should have those 16 pads freely configurable.

Yes... thats where Casio points everyone in the right direction...

AGREED! I have that app too - love it

but funk box is only for electronic drums ?

Nope ... buy they all sound electronic, to a degree. It's not a substitute for a quality machine, but it's great, nostalgic fun!

hmmm. every video of it I found on YouTube is of 808-type sounding rhythms. nothing acoustic or even hybrid.

The 909, 707 type kits are a bit dated, but somewhat acoustic sounding