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42-563: The TR-909 succeeded the previous Roland drum machine, the TR-808 . It was designed by Tadao Kikumoto , who also designed the Roland TB-303 synthesizer. The chief Roland engineer, Makoto Muroi, credited the software design to Atsushi Hoshiai and the analog and pulse-code modulation voice circuits to "Mr Ou". The 909 was the first Roland drum machine to use samples , for its crash, ride and hi-hat sounds. Hoshiai sampled his own kit for

84-686: A DIN sync port (a precursor to MIDI ) to synchronize with other devices. Its three trigger outputs can synchronize with synthesizers and other equipment. The 808 launched in 1980 with a list price of US$ 1,195 (equivalent to $ 4,419 in 2023). Roland marketed it as an affordable alternative to the Linn LM-1 , manufactured by Linn Electronics , which used samples of real drum kits. The 808 sounded simplistic and synthetic by comparison; electronic music had yet to become mainstream and many musicians and producers wanted realistic-sounding drum machines. According to many reports, one review dismissed

126-612: A cult following among underground musicians and producers, and it became a cornerstone of the developing electronic and hip hop genres. CBC News credited the first use of the 808 to the Japanese electronic group Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1980. The first records to feature the 808 were released the following year: the Yellow Magic Orchestra album BGM and the Monitors single "Nobody Told Me". In 1982,

168-460: A built-in drum machine designed by the Japanese company Ace Tone . Lewis was known for performances using electronic instruments he had modified, decades before the popularization of instrument hacking via circuit bending . He made extensive modifications to the Ace Tone drum machine, creating his own rhythms and wiring it through his organ's expression pedal to accent the percussion. Lewis

210-546: A built-in speaker. Roland released the first official software emulations of the 808 and 909 in 2018. In 2019, Behringer released a recreation of the 808, the Behringer RD-8 Rhythm Designer. Unlike Roland's TR-08 and TR-8S, which use samples and virtual synthesis to recreate the 808 sounds, the RD-8 uses analog circuitry. Derrick May (musician) Too Many Requests If you report this error to

252-488: A language of their own", with sounds recognizable even to listeners who do not know what drum machines are, and so "you also notice when somebody messes with them or uses them in unusual contexts". In 2019, DJMag wrote that it was likely the most used drum machine of the preceding 40 years. The 808 has been described as hip hop's equivalent to the Fender Stratocaster guitar, which dramatically influenced

294-552: A masterpiece. — Robert Henke , musician and co-creator of Ableton Live In the 1960s, drum machines were most often used to accompany home organs . They did not allow users to program rhythms , but instead offered preset patterns such as bossa nova . In 1969, the Hammond Organ Company hired the American musician and engineer Don Lewis to demonstrate its products, including an electronic organ with

336-421: Is a piece of art. It's engineering art, it's so beautifully made. If you have an idea of what is going on in the inside, if you look at the circuit diagram, and you see how the unknown Roland engineer was making the best out of super limited technology, it's unbelievable. You look at the circuit diagram like you look at an orchestral score, you think, how on earth did they come up with this idea? It's brilliant, it's

378-594: The CompuRhythm CR-78 , the first drum machine with which users could write, save and replay their own patterns. With its next machine, the TR-808, Roland aimed to develop a drum machine for the professional market, expecting that it would mainly be used to create demos . The engineers conceived a "drum synthesizer" with which users could program drum sequences and edit parameters such as tuning, decay and level. Though they aimed to emulate real percussion,

420-531: The LinnDrum . Roland ceased production after one year, having built 10,000 units. Roland changed elements of the 909 in later revisions, correcting problems and adjusting sounds. Some users modify their machines to match sounds from earlier revisions. Whereas the TR-808 was important in the development of hip hop , the 909, alongside the 303 synthesizer, influenced dance music such as techno , house and acid . According to Gordon Reid of Sound on Sound , "Like

462-539: The Soulsonic Force and " Sexual Healing " by Marvin Gaye . The 808 was eventually used on more hit records than any other drum machine. Its popularity in hip hop has made it one of the most influential inventions in popular music, comparable to the Fender Stratocaster 's impact on rock . Its sounds are included with music software and modern drum machines and it has inspired unlicensed recreations. The TR-808

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504-410: The Soulsonic Force released their single " Planet Rock ", which used the 808 to create "strange, futuristic" percussion that was popular in clubs. The track influenced the development of electronic and hip hop music and subgenres including Miami bass and Detroit techno , and popularized the 808 as a "fundamental element of futuristic sound". According to Slate , "Planet Rock" "didn't so much put

546-452: The TR-909 in 1983. Over the course of the 1980s, the 808 attracted a cult following among underground musicians for its affordability on the used market, ease of use and idiosyncratic sounds, particularly its deep, booming bass drum . It became a cornerstone of the emerging electronic, dance and hip hop genres, popularized by early hits such as " Planet Rock " by Afrika Bambaataa and

588-443: The 808 as sounding like "marching anteaters", though this likely referred to machines that predated it. Contemporary Keyboard wrote a positive review, predicting that it would become "the standard for rhythm machines of the future". Despite some early adopters, the 808 was a commercial failure and fewer than 12,000 units were sold. Roland ended production in 1983 after semiconductor improvements made it impossible to restock

630-464: The 808 include Damon Albarn , Diplo , Fatboy Slim , David Guetta and New Order . It has been referenced in lyrics by artists including the Beastie Boys, Beck, Outkast , Kelis , TI , Lil Wayne , Britney Spears , Beyoncé , R Kelly and Robbie Williams . Its bass drum has been used as a metaphor for a heartbeat in songs by artists including Madonna , Rihanna and Kesha . The 808

672-424: The 808 is known for its "boomy" bass, the 909 sounds aggressive and "punchy". It has 11 percussion voices and offers sounds for bass drum , snare , toms , rimshot , clap , crash cymbal , ride cymbal and hi-hat (open and closed). It omits the clave , cowbell , maracas , and conga sounds from the 808. The bass has controls for attack and decay . The snare has controls for tone and "snappy", which adjusts

714-457: The 808 on the map so much as reorient an entire world of post-disco dance music around it". The British electronic group 808 State took its name from the 808 and used it extensively. 808 State's Graham Massey said: "The Roland gear began to be a kind of Esperanto in music. The whole world began to be less separated through this technology, and there was a classiness to it—you could transcend your provincial music with this equipment." With

756-422: The 808 was the bedrock of the modern "urban-youth-culture soundtrack", particularly in trap music , and had influenced a new blend of dance and retro hip hop that "embraces and fetishizes ... street music from the past". Artists pushed the limits of the 808's limited pattern storage; according to Slate , "Those eight-bar units became veritable playgrounds for invention and creativity." Artists manipulated

798-512: The 808's defining feature. The 808 was the first drum machine with which users could program a percussion track from beginning to end, complete with breaks and rolls . Users can program up to 32 patterns using the step sequencer , chain up to 768 measures and place accents on individual beats. Users can also set the tempo and time signature , including unusual signatures such as 4 and 8 . The 808 includes volume knobs for each voice, numerous audio outputs and

840-844: The 909 on records by his hip hop group Mantronix and records he produced for other artists, such as Back to the Old School (1986) by Just-Ice . In the early 1990s, the Japanese composer Yuzo Koshiro incorporated samples of the 909 in his soundtracks for the Streets of Rage games. That decade, the 909 was adopted by pop musicians such as Madonna and Pet Shop Boys , and by rock and alternative musicians. Mark Bell used it to create "militaristic" percussion for Björk 's 1997 song " Hunter ", and Radiohead used it on "Videotape", from their 2007 album In Rainbows . Electronic artists such as Kirk Degiorgio and Cristian Vogel created sample libraries by recording their friends' machines. The 909

882-472: The American R&;B artist Marvin Gaye released the first hit single that featured the 808, " Sexual Healing ". Gaye was drawn to 808 because he could use it to create music in isolation, without other musicians or producers. 808 samples are common in music software, and it has inspired numerous unlicensed clones. Flavorwire wrote that the 808 is now so ubiquitous that "its beats are almost

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924-451: The Bronx and Detroit, are part of America's cultural DNA". Even after the 808 fell out of use by East Coast hip hop producers in the 1990s, it remained a staple of Southern hip hop . The rapper Kanye West used the 808 on every track on his 2008 solo album 808s & Heartbreak , which Slate described as "an explicit love letter to the device". The New Yorker wrote in 2015 that

966-529: The TR in TR-808 stands for "transistor rhythm". The sounds do not resemble real percussion, and have been described as "clicky", "robotic", "spacey", "toy-like" and "futuristic". Fact described them as a combination of synthesizer tones and white noise that resemble "bursts coming from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop " more than a real drum kit. In Music Technology , Tim Goodyer described

1008-600: The TR-808 before it, nobody could have predicted the reverence in which the TR-909 would eventually come to be held." The first known commercial use of a 909 is on the EP Remission by the industrial band Skinny Puppy , released months after the 909. In the late 1980s, the 909 was popularized by Chicago house and Detroit techno producers such as Derrick May , Frankie Knuckles and Jeff Mills , who bought second-hand units. DJ Sneak said that "every Chicago producer

1050-414: The addition of MIDI brought the 909 "as up to date as it needs to be". One Two Testing found the 909 "gloriously easy to use", but felt it was overpriced and "still sounds like a drum machine , instead of a machine playing drums ... It lacks the authenticity of real sounds for studio work." The 909 was a commercial failure, as users preferred the more realistic sampled sounds of competing products such as

1092-618: The amount of the snare wire sound. As the clap and snare are generated via the same noise source, they produce a phasing effect when played together. The 909 features a sequencer that can chain up to 96 patterns into songs of up to 896 measures, and offers controls including shuffle and flam . Users can add accents to beats. The 909 was the first Roland drum machine to use MIDI , allowing it to synchronize with other MIDI devices, or to allow sounds to be triggered by an external MIDI controller for wider dynamic range . Older Roland machines can be synchronized via its DIN sync port. The 909

1134-446: The bass drum to produce new sounds, such as on the 1984 single "Set it Off", in which the producer Strafe used it to imitate the sound of an underground nuclear test . The producer Rick Rubin popularized the technique of lengthening the bass drum decay and tuning it to different pitches to create basslines . The Beastie Boys used a reversed recording of an 808 on their 1986 track " Paul Revere ". In 1982, Afrika Bambaataa and

1176-407: The cowbell as "clumsy, clonky and hopelessly underpitched". The 808 is noted for its powerful bass drum sound, built from a sine oscillator, low-pass filter and voltage-controlled amplifier . The bass drum decay control allows users to lengthen the sound, creating uniquely low frequencies that flatten slightly over time, possibly not by design. The New Yorker described the bass drum as

1218-401: The cymbals, using a mismatched pair of Paiste and Zildjian hi-hat cymbals. He sampled them in 6-bit and edited the waveform on a computer with a CP/M-80 operating system. Other sounds are generated with analog synthesis. According to a Roland representative, the engineers felt that samples had some disadvantages and so opted for a combination of sampled and analog sounds. Whereas

1260-516: The development of rock music . It was used by pioneering hip hop acts including Run-DMC , LL Cool J and Public Enemy . The 808 bass drum, in particular, became so essential that Hank Shocklee of the Bomb Squad production group declared that "it's not hip hop without that sound". The New Yorker wrote that the "trembling feeling of [the 808 bass drum], booming down boulevards in Oakland,

1302-456: The domain of a new world of music". According to Slate , it was instrumental in pop music's shift from conventional structure and harmonic progression to "thinking in terms of sequences , discrete passages of sound and time to be repeated and revised ad infinitum ". The Argentine artist Charly García used the 808 for all percussion on his second album, Clics modernos (1983). In the 1984 Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense ,

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1344-444: The faulty transistors essential to its design. Though the 808 was unsuccessful, it was eventually used on more hit records than any other drum machine and became one of the most influential inventions in popular music. By the time Roland discontinued it in 1983, it had become common on the used market, often selling for less than $ 100 (equivalent to $ 306 in 2023). Its ease of use, affordability and idiosyncratic sound earned it

1386-612: The prohibitive cost of memory drove them to design sound-generating hardware instead of using samples (prerecorded sounds). Kakehashi deliberately purchased faulty transistors to create the 808's distinctive sizzling sound. The chief engineer, Makoto Muroi, credited the 808 voice circuit design to "Mr. Nakamura" and the software to "Mr. Matsuoka". The 808 imitates acoustic percussion: the bass drum , snare , toms , conga , rimshot , claves , handclap , maraca , cowbell , cymbal and hi-hat (open and closed). Rather than playing samples, it generates sounds using analog synthesis ;

1428-459: The rise of rave culture , a precursor to acid house , the 808 became a staple sound on British radio. In the early 90s, the Japanese composer Yuzo Koshiro incorporated samples of the 808 in his soundtracks for the Streets of Rage games. The 808 was used extensively in pop. The New Yorker wrote that it triggered "the big bang of pop's great age of disruption, from 1983 to 1986", and that its "defiantly inorganic timbres ... sketched out

1470-434: The singer David Byrne performs " Psycho Killer " accompanied by an 808, stumbling against its "gunshot"-like sounds. The drummer and songwriter Phil Collins found the 808 useful for looping rhythms for long periods, as human drummers would be tempted to add variations and fills . Whitney Houston 's 1987 single " I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) " makes extensive use of the 808. Other artists who have used

1512-414: The time, the more expensive Linn LM-1 , the 808 generates sounds using analog synthesis rather than by playing samples . The 808 was a commercial failure, as electronic music had yet to become mainstream and many producers wanted more realistic drum sounds. After building approximately 12,000 units, Roland discontinued the 808 after its semiconductors became impossible to restock. It was succeeded by

1554-603: Was approached by Ikutaro Kakehashi , the president and founder of Ace Tone, who wanted to know how he had achieved the sounds using the Ace Tone machine. In 1972, Kakehashi formed the Roland Corporation and hired Lewis to help design drum machines. By the late 1970s, microprocessors were appearing in instruments such as the Roland MC-8 Microcomposer , and Kakehashi realized they could be used to program drum machines. In 1978, Roland released

1596-500: Was followed in 1983 by the TR-909 , the first Roland drum machine to use samples. Like the 808, the 909 influenced popular music, including such genres as techno , house and acid . 808 samples were included in ReBirth RB-338 , an early software synthesiser developed by Propellerhead Software . According to Andy Jones of MusicTech , ReBirth was "especially incredible" as the first software emulation of 808 sounds. It

1638-414: Was released in 1983 and retailed for $ 1,195 USD, equivalent to $ 3,656 in 2023. It attracted interest in the industry as the first Roland instrument to use digital sounds. In its review, Electronics & Music Maker found the 909 easier to use than the 808 and felt it offered the best analog drum sounds on the market. It concluded that it offered a good combination of analog and sampled sounds and that

1680-507: Was retired in 2017 as Roland said it infringed on its intellectual property. Roland has included 808 samples in several drum machines, including its Grooveboxes in the 1990s. Its TR-8 and TR-8S drum machines, released in the 2010s, recreate the sounds electronically rather than through sample playback. In 2017, Roland released the TR-08, a miniaturized 808 featuring an LED display, MIDI and USB connections, expanded sequencer control and

1722-581: Was succeeded in 1984 by the TR-707 , which uses samples for all its sounds. In 2017, Roland released the TR-09, a smaller version of the 909 with additional features. TR-808 The Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer , commonly known as the 808 , is a drum machine manufactured by Roland Corporation between 1980 and 1983. It was one of the first drum machines to allow users to program rhythms instead of using preset patterns. Unlike its nearest competitor at

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1764-468: Was using the 909". Mixmag described Mills as the "master" of the 909. Mills said its design made it possible to "play" the 909 rather than just program it, using the tuning controls to imitate the feel of a live drummer. The 909 was used on hip-hop records by acts including Boogie Down Productions , Ultramagnetic MCs , Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince and Public Enemy . Kurtis Mantronik used

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