8 ms·

Ikutaro Kakehashi, founder of Roland, has died

245 points by molecule 10y ago

itazula 10y ago
I'm an idiot. I didn't even realize that Roland is a Japanese company.
- ewmailing 10y ago
  I remember reading a story about how he picked the name "Roland". He wanted a company name that would be pronounced and spelled the same way in any language and country, and escape translation issues. The irony was not lost on him that the Japanese (his home country) have trouble pronouncing the 'R'.
  - microcolonel 10y ago
    It's more the l than the r, the pronunciation is also otherwise completely different in Japanese, because they don't have consonant finals, only nasals. You end up with ro-rahn-doh.
    - gozur88 10y ago
      That's what I was thinking. If he really wanted a name that would be the same in English and Japanese, he would have nixed the "d" at the end and called the company "Rolan".
    - yongjik 10y ago
      I have to wonder if something like this exchange ever occurred: "I named it Roland because I wanted it to sound the same in other languages..." "But, but... English speakers read it as Roland. Japanese speakers read it as rorando." "Yes, exactly. Same thing."
  - rangibaby 10y ago
    To Japanese L and R are the same sound and are interchangeable because they can't hear the difference. Another funny story is the Nikon's single lens reFlex camera, the F: it was called than instead of the Nikon R because of the L-R "problem".
    - bryanlarsen 10y ago
      The Japanese I met didn't have any problems. They get enough exposure as kids to Western media and English in school.
      - Larrikin 10y ago
        You met a very small sample. The stereotype in the West is that Japanese can't do the L sound when it's actually specific versions of the R sound that give people not exposed to it early enough alot of issues
      - khedoros1 10y ago
        In college, I talked to a Japanese friend about it (I was studying Japanese at the time, so differences between the languages were a natural topic). He could tell the difference between "right" and "light" when I enunciated them clearly, one after the other to provide an immediate contrast between them, but couldn't otherwise. In most cases, context was enough to disambiguate the meaning. So, he can (of course) physiologically hear the difference, but he wasn't conditioned to listen for it. There are features like that for me in other languages (tones in Chinese, as one glaring example).
    - Razengan 10y ago
      > they can't hear the difference. There are no humans that "can't" hear the difference between L and R. But there are languages that don't have both sounds. Just like English-speaking people usually being unable – or unwilling – to say the soft T sound in た、て、と but it's not like you can't hear the difference: [0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMYsdjeeC1Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMYsdjeeC1Y
      - 10y ago
ewmailing 10y ago
I first learned about Roland because of their partnership with Sierra On-Line and the MT-32. I remember Scott Murphy (Space Quest co-creator) told a story about the first time Roland came to hear how Sierra was using the MT-32. They were blown away by the full musical scores they sequenced (Space Quest 3). He thinks they were expecting Space Invaders like sound effects.
- ewmailing 10y ago
  A little more context for those who don't know the history of music in PC gaming, Sierra was the first major company to push hard on PC sound cards. They partnered up with Roland and Adlib to promote and sell their cards so they could take advantage of them for their games. Wikipedia citation: King's Quest IV was the first commercially released game for PC compatibles to support sound cards instead of only the standard built-in speaker. Sierra took it seriously and hired professional musicians to kick off their effort. Hollywood composer William Goldstein (Fame) was hired to compose King's Quest IV. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19r6RnReAf4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19r6RnReAf4 Supertramp drummer, Bob Siebenberg, composed the Space Quest III soundtrack. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxEP05TtOfE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxEP05TtOfE
  - Nuzzerino 10y ago
    Wow, and I still remember how captivating the intro cutscene music was in KQIV!
  - jeffwass 10y ago
    Yeah, they really did put a lot of effort in supporting a variety of scattered audio and video options back in those days. Kings quest IV, as well as Hero's Quest I, both specifically supported my Casio keyboard. Multi-channel MIDI output using different instruments which they mapped correctly, and even some of the built-in sound effect channels for effects like flowing water or bird chirps. Same with video, I had a Tandy which had its own proprietary video mode of 320x200 resolution in 16 colours, which was specifically supported you most Sierra games, along with the generic CGA and EGA modes. Tandy also had a proprietary 3-channel sound mode which was supported, though the MIDI via my external keyboard sounded way better.
sneak 10y ago
The TR-808 is basically singularly responsible for the most popular genre of music in the United States today (hiphop), as well as in conjunction with its younger sibling the TR-909 all of modern dance music via house and techno. It's sort of an amazing swath of modern music. A true pioneer.
- acjohnson55 10y ago
  I upvoted you, but I would somewhat correct you saying how the technology helped unlock the creativity of the pioneers of these genres. Although we rightly focus on Kakehashi here, I just want to be careful not to erase the marginalized people that used these tools to actually make the music.
- jdietrich 10y ago
  That's substantially overstating the case. The TR-808 is an iconic drum machine, but you're far more likely to hear a cut-up sample of the Amen Break or the Funky Drummer Break. The importance of the TR-808, TR-909 and TB-303 is largely accidental. These units were a commercial failure and gained cult success largely because they could be bought cheaply. In much the same way, grunge musicians tended to use whatever horrible old guitars were languishing at the back of pawn shops - Fender Jaguars and Jazzmasters, Mosrites, Teiscos and Danelectros. In my opinion, by far the most important work done by Roland was the development of the MIDI standard. Ikutaro Kakehashi and Dave Smith moved mountains to get the industry to agree on a common standard. MIDI was the starting pistol for the modern age of music production. http://www.whosampled.com/The-Winstons/Amen,-Brother/ http://www.whosampled.com/The-Winstons/Amen,-Brother/ http://www.whosampled.com/James-Brown/Funky-Drummer/ http://www.whosampled.com/James-Brown/Funky-Drummer/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac
  - betaby 10y ago
    Frequently amen break and others are replayed and not sampled. Some of those on the link not even amen breaks. Whosampled has tons of the false reports - many of those are not samples but replays, either on 'real' drums or drum machines. Whosampled more accurately is who borrowed
nodesocket 10y ago
808s & Heartbreak. Kanye used a Roland TR-808 heavily for all beats on that album. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/Kanye_West_in_the_Studio.jpg/1920px-Kanye_West_in_the_Studio.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/Ka...
- Larrikin 10y ago
  The 808 was already famous for being used for years and helping create the sound of hip hop.
  - Doctor_Fegg 10y ago
    And before that, electronica - 808 State et al.
    - agumonkey 10y ago
      Funny, wikipedia 808 page led me to the first Roland founder company called Ace Tone :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_Tone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_Tone
  - pimeys 10y ago
    And all kinds of electronic music. 909 and 303 are heavily used in techno and house.
  - bigtimeidiot 10y ago
    Documentary on the history of the 808, complete with a great soundtrack and interview with the inventor: 808themovie.com/
- themodelplumber 10y ago
  I was thinking more "Napoleon Dynamite soundtrack"; guess it depends on your cultural exposure :-)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
acjohnson55 10y ago
Talk about a pioneer of the consumer electronics age. As someone who went to grad school to search for my future in music technology, this hits home. I chose that path inspired by exactly the sort of tech that Kakahashi built with Roland. In particular, it was their BOSS ME-33 multieffect unit [1], which was the first piece of music tech hardware I ever bought. It unlocked an entire universe of sounds for an 18-year-old me, searching for my creative identity. My identity, period, for that matter. To take this in a wildly different direction, since about 2010, I've felt this ever-increasing impression that the world is being handed over from the post-WWII generation to mine. Every living legend that passes crystallizes that feeling. It's on us to take the reigns of this world and steer it, whether it's starting the Roland of this century, or simply effecting the changes to make our existence on this planet sustainable. [1] https://www.boss.info/us/products/me-33/ https://www.boss.info/us/products/me-33/
sneak 10y ago
A short documentary on the TB-303: https://youtu.be/omHUR3R0Qqw https://youtu.be/omHUR3R0Qqw
- phodo 10y ago
  Great documentary. Made me think of art and emergent behaviors on top of technology
  - ryan-allen 10y ago
    The TB-303 is such a strange machine, with such an odd sound, and it's a seminal piece of electronic music history. I nearly bought one a decade ago for 1,000, now they go for 3,000!
anon263626 10y ago
808 down. R.I.P.
minikomi 10y ago
Nothing sounds quite like the 8 0 8
Razengan 10y ago
I still remember the battles between the Adlib, Roland, and Sound Blaster cards for PCs..
- animal531 10y ago
  It was a strange time. We quickly went from PC speakers to far better cards like the Soundblaster/16/AWE32 (one couldn't find the other makes where I lived). But since then the PC audio market has gone rather quiet? Apart from built in you obviously still get Soundblasters and the ASUS Xonar's, but there seems to be very little to no competition and drive left in the field.
  - Razengan 10y ago
    Indeed. And games have stopped flaunting advanced effects like environment-based dynamic reverb and position-based occlusion etc. What the hell happened? I suspect it was Microsoft's push for the dumbed-down XBOX, which also cost us the more advanced DirectInput API in favor of XInput (which, the last time I checked, was missing many features from the older API, like complex force-feedback.)
colanderman 10y ago
Roland made it possible for me to learn to play button accordion. My landlord runs a psychology practice upstairs, and my wife is not fond of loud noises, so I would have very little practice time with an acoustic accordion. So I bought a Roland V-Accordion instead, which has allowed me to practice regularly even at 1 AM (as I just did) without disturbing anyone. The V-Accordion was a personal idea of Mr. Kakehashi's [1], one I'm very glad he was able to usher into this world. I'm musically richer for it. [1] http://www.accordions.com/index/squ/archives/0811/roland/history.htm http://www.accordions.com/index/squ/archives/0811/roland/his...
- agumonkey 10y ago
  Their V-Drums were also probably best in class.
- robotmay 10y ago
  I knew I couldn't be the only techie who took up button accordions (though diatonics in my case). Luckily my flat is very soundproof, so I can get away with it, however I do know of a guy who is one of the main people restoring the English bagpiping tradition who had a similar problem. Rather than getting digital pipes, however, he filled his wardrobe with bedding/duvets/pillows and would practice them by sitting there with the pipes stuck into a wardrobe. Roland do actually make a diatonic model of their accordion, and it's pretty popular, however it doesn't work quite as well as the chromatic models due to the eccentricites of that particular instrument. Edit: Ah ha, as I thought the FR-18 diatonic was in fact discontinued. It's a shame, as it does actually have quite a few fans, but the market is much smaller than for the chromatic models: https://www.roland.com/us/products/fr-18_diatonic/ https://www.roland.com/us/products/fr-18_diatonic/
_Codemonkeyism 10y ago
When I got my first Roland card to play XWing that was a revelation.
n-gauge 10y ago
Very sad. I'm still rocking an EP7 IIe Piano after all these years...
po 10y ago
In some respects I feel like the Teenage Engineering OP-1 and pocket operators are taking over the spirit of the Roland 808. Easy to use but surprisingly deep hardware gear: https://www.teenageengineering.com/products/op-1 https://www.teenageengineering.com/products/op-1
- jupiter90000 10y ago
  Roland Fantom X user here. Those look pretty awesome! I had never heard of these instruments before now, glad you posted this. The OP-1 looks like the type of thing I'd been hoping to find as an affordable synth for a while.
- acomjean 10y ago
  I really like the pocket operators. I have 3. The PO-12 Rhythm is pretty awesome. The push buttons with lights is throwback to the 808 style of inputing rhythm. https://teenage.engineering/products/po https://teenage.engineering/products/po There was a "808 emulator" (don't call it that wink..) for mac version (os 8) now iPad which I don't have. Though it doesn't say anything about roland in the description... You can see the 16 beats in a line with the led button. I will say I disliked the dial as a computer interface (works great physically, with a mouse not as well) and I haven't tried the iOS version.. https://www.propellerheads.se/rebirth https://www.propellerheads.se/rebirth
skrebbel 10y ago
I guess this is as good a thread as any - does anyone know where the TR-909 cymbals came from? The kicks are obviously synthesized, but the open and closed hihats sound suspiciously much like audio waves that are simply played at a higher and lower frequency as you twist the "decay" knob. If they're samples, where do they come from? They're totally unlike any other hihat I've heard, definitely totally different from an actual hihat on a physical drum kit. I guess 90% of dance/techno music in the last 3 decades uses the TR-909 open hihat or a mildly tweaked version of it. Yet it must've been a rather strange, unnatural sound when the 909 was released. What were the motivations of the people who designed or recorded this sound? How was it made? Was it sampled or synthesized and then recorded? Was Kakehashi involved?
- cJ0th 10y ago
  The cymbal was picked by Atushi Hoshiai. Here is a short video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXsMvTSCkuY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXsMvTSCkuY I think part of the reason the hihat sounds so special/unusual is due to the fact that the sample was stored in 6bit.
Neliquat 10y ago
My closet just went up in value. Maybe its time to stop hoarding 80s synths. Not sure if I can part with my MKS-7 though. A sad day.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
shams93 10y ago
My first exposure to Roland was watching Adamski playing live with a 909 drum machine back in 1990. Really mind blowing to see that one person could be the whole band. My first drum machine was a roland 707, by the early 90s their analog gear was hard to find but their digital gear still had the same beautiful approach to user interface design. I learned midi sequencing with a roland jv-80.

245 points by molecule 10y ago

itazula 10y ago

I'm an idiot. I didn't even realize that Roland is a Japanese company.

ewmailing 10y ago
I remember reading a story about how he picked the name "Roland". He wanted a company name that would be pronounced and spelled the same way in any language and country, and escape translation issues. The irony was not lost on him that the Japanese (his home country) have trouble pronouncing the 'R'.
- microcolonel 10y ago
  It's more the l than the r, the pronunciation is also otherwise completely different in Japanese, because they don't have consonant finals, only nasals. You end up with ro-rahn-doh.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    That's what I was thinking. If he really wanted a name that would be the same in English and Japanese, he would have nixed the "d" at the end and called the company "Rolan".
  - yongjik 10y ago
    I have to wonder if something like this exchange ever occurred: "I named it Roland because I wanted it to sound the same in other languages..." "But, but... English speakers read it as Roland. Japanese speakers read it as rorando." "Yes, exactly. Same thing."
- rangibaby 10y ago
  To Japanese L and R are the same sound and are interchangeable because they can't hear the difference. Another funny story is the Nikon's single lens reFlex camera, the F: it was called than instead of the Nikon R because of the L-R "problem".
  - bryanlarsen 10y ago
    The Japanese I met didn't have any problems. They get enough exposure as kids to Western media and English in school.
    - Larrikin 10y ago
      You met a very small sample. The stereotype in the West is that Japanese can't do the L sound when it's actually specific versions of the R sound that give people not exposed to it early enough alot of issues
    - khedoros1 10y ago
      In college, I talked to a Japanese friend about it (I was studying Japanese at the time, so differences between the languages were a natural topic). He could tell the difference between "right" and "light" when I enunciated them clearly, one after the other to provide an immediate contrast between them, but couldn't otherwise. In most cases, context was enough to disambiguate the meaning. So, he can (of course) physiologically hear the difference, but he wasn't conditioned to listen for it. There are features like that for me in other languages (tones in Chinese, as one glaring example).
  - Razengan 10y ago
    > they can't hear the difference. There are no humans that "can't" hear the difference between L and R. But there are languages that don't have both sounds. Just like English-speaking people usually being unable – or unwilling – to say the soft T sound in た、て、と but it's not like you can't hear the difference: [0]. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMYsdjeeC1Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMYsdjeeC1Y
    - 10y ago

ewmailing 10y ago

I first learned about Roland because of their partnership with Sierra On-Line and the MT-32. I remember Scott Murphy (Space Quest co-creator) told a story about the first time Roland came to hear how Sierra was using the MT-32. They were blown away by the full musical scores they sequenced (Space Quest 3). He thinks they were expecting Space Invaders like sound effects.

ewmailing 10y ago
A little more context for those who don't know the history of music in PC gaming, Sierra was the first major company to push hard on PC sound cards. They partnered up with Roland and Adlib to promote and sell their cards so they could take advantage of them for their games. Wikipedia citation: King's Quest IV was the first commercially released game for PC compatibles to support sound cards instead of only the standard built-in speaker. Sierra took it seriously and hired professional musicians to kick off their effort. Hollywood composer William Goldstein (Fame) was hired to compose King's Quest IV. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19r6RnReAf4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19r6RnReAf4 Supertramp drummer, Bob Siebenberg, composed the Space Quest III soundtrack. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxEP05TtOfE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxEP05TtOfE
- Nuzzerino 10y ago
  Wow, and I still remember how captivating the intro cutscene music was in KQIV!
- jeffwass 10y ago
  Yeah, they really did put a lot of effort in supporting a variety of scattered audio and video options back in those days. Kings quest IV, as well as Hero's Quest I, both specifically supported my Casio keyboard. Multi-channel MIDI output using different instruments which they mapped correctly, and even some of the built-in sound effect channels for effects like flowing water or bird chirps. Same with video, I had a Tandy which had its own proprietary video mode of 320x200 resolution in 16 colours, which was specifically supported you most Sierra games, along with the generic CGA and EGA modes. Tandy also had a proprietary 3-channel sound mode which was supported, though the MIDI via my external keyboard sounded way better.

sneak 10y ago

The TR-808 is basically singularly responsible for the most popular genre of music in the United States today (hiphop), as well as in conjunction with its younger sibling the TR-909 all of modern dance music via house and techno. It's sort of an amazing swath of modern music. A true pioneer.

acjohnson55 10y ago
I upvoted you, but I would somewhat correct you saying how the technology helped unlock the creativity of the pioneers of these genres. Although we rightly focus on Kakehashi here, I just want to be careful not to erase the marginalized people that used these tools to actually make the music.
jdietrich 10y ago
That's substantially overstating the case. The TR-808 is an iconic drum machine, but you're far more likely to hear a cut-up sample of the Amen Break or the Funky Drummer Break. The importance of the TR-808, TR-909 and TB-303 is largely accidental. These units were a commercial failure and gained cult success largely because they could be bought cheaply. In much the same way, grunge musicians tended to use whatever horrible old guitars were languishing at the back of pawn shops - Fender Jaguars and Jazzmasters, Mosrites, Teiscos and Danelectros. In my opinion, by far the most important work done by Roland was the development of the MIDI standard. Ikutaro Kakehashi and Dave Smith moved mountains to get the industry to agree on a common standard. MIDI was the starting pistol for the modern age of music production. http://www.whosampled.com/The-Winstons/Amen,-Brother/ http://www.whosampled.com/The-Winstons/Amen,-Brother/ http://www.whosampled.com/James-Brown/Funky-Drummer/ http://www.whosampled.com/James-Brown/Funky-Drummer/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac
- betaby 10y ago
  Frequently amen break and others are replayed and not sampled. Some of those on the link not even amen breaks. Whosampled has tons of the false reports - many of those are not samples but replays, either on 'real' drums or drum machines. Whosampled more accurately is who borrowed

nodesocket 10y ago

808s & Heartbreak. Kanye used a Roland TR-808 heavily for all beats on that album. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/Kanye_West_in_the_Studio.jpg/1920px-Kanye_West_in_the_Studio.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/Ka...

Larrikin 10y ago
The 808 was already famous for being used for years and helping create the sound of hip hop.
- Doctor_Fegg 10y ago
  And before that, electronica - 808 State et al.
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    Funny, wikipedia 808 page led me to the first Roland founder company called Ace Tone :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_Tone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_Tone
- pimeys 10y ago
  And all kinds of electronic music. 909 and 303 are heavily used in techno and house.
- bigtimeidiot 10y ago
  Documentary on the history of the 808, complete with a great soundtrack and interview with the inventor: 808themovie.com/
themodelplumber 10y ago
I was thinking more "Napoleon Dynamite soundtrack"; guess it depends on your cultural exposure :-)
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

acjohnson55 10y ago

Talk about a pioneer of the consumer electronics age. As someone who went to grad school to search for my future in music technology, this hits home. I chose that path inspired by exactly the sort of tech that Kakahashi built with Roland. In particular, it was their BOSS ME-33 multieffect unit [1], which was the first piece of music tech hardware I ever bought. It unlocked an entire universe of sounds for an 18-year-old me, searching for my creative identity. My identity, period, for that matter. To take this in a wildly different direction, since about 2010, I've felt this ever-increasing impression that the world is being handed over from the post-WWII generation to mine. Every living legend that passes crystallizes that feeling. It's on us to take the reigns of this world and steer it, whether it's starting the Roland of this century, or simply effecting the changes to make our existence on this planet sustainable. [1] https://www.boss.info/us/products/me-33/ https://www.boss.info/us/products/me-33/

sneak 10y ago

A short documentary on the TB-303: https://youtu.be/omHUR3R0Qqw https://youtu.be/omHUR3R0Qqw

phodo 10y ago
Great documentary. Made me think of art and emergent behaviors on top of technology
- ryan-allen 10y ago
  The TB-303 is such a strange machine, with such an odd sound, and it's a seminal piece of electronic music history. I nearly bought one a decade ago for 1,000, now they go for 3,000!

anon263626 10y ago

808 down. R.I.P.

minikomi 10y ago

Nothing sounds quite like the 8 0 8

Razengan 10y ago

I still remember the battles between the Adlib, Roland, and Sound Blaster cards for PCs..

animal531 10y ago
It was a strange time. We quickly went from PC speakers to far better cards like the Soundblaster/16/AWE32 (one couldn't find the other makes where I lived). But since then the PC audio market has gone rather quiet? Apart from built in you obviously still get Soundblasters and the ASUS Xonar's, but there seems to be very little to no competition and drive left in the field.
- Razengan 10y ago
  Indeed. And games have stopped flaunting advanced effects like environment-based dynamic reverb and position-based occlusion etc. What the hell happened? I suspect it was Microsoft's push for the dumbed-down XBOX, which also cost us the more advanced DirectInput API in favor of XInput (which, the last time I checked, was missing many features from the older API, like complex force-feedback.)

colanderman 10y ago

Roland made it possible for me to learn to play button accordion. My landlord runs a psychology practice upstairs, and my wife is not fond of loud noises, so I would have very little practice time with an acoustic accordion. So I bought a Roland V-Accordion instead, which has allowed me to practice regularly even at 1 AM (as I just did) without disturbing anyone. The V-Accordion was a personal idea of Mr. Kakehashi's [1], one I'm very glad he was able to usher into this world. I'm musically richer for it. [1] http://www.accordions.com/index/squ/archives/0811/roland/history.htm http://www.accordions.com/index/squ/archives/0811/roland/his...

agumonkey 10y ago
Their V-Drums were also probably best in class.
robotmay 10y ago
I knew I couldn't be the only techie who took up button accordions (though diatonics in my case). Luckily my flat is very soundproof, so I can get away with it, however I do know of a guy who is one of the main people restoring the English bagpiping tradition who had a similar problem. Rather than getting digital pipes, however, he filled his wardrobe with bedding/duvets/pillows and would practice them by sitting there with the pipes stuck into a wardrobe. Roland do actually make a diatonic model of their accordion, and it's pretty popular, however it doesn't work quite as well as the chromatic models due to the eccentricites of that particular instrument. Edit: Ah ha, as I thought the FR-18 diatonic was in fact discontinued. It's a shame, as it does actually have quite a few fans, but the market is much smaller than for the chromatic models: https://www.roland.com/us/products/fr-18_diatonic/ https://www.roland.com/us/products/fr-18_diatonic/

_Codemonkeyism 10y ago

When I got my first Roland card to play XWing that was a revelation.

n-gauge 10y ago

Very sad. I'm still rocking an EP7 IIe Piano after all these years...

po 10y ago

In some respects I feel like the Teenage Engineering OP-1 and pocket operators are taking over the spirit of the Roland 808. Easy to use but surprisingly deep hardware gear: https://www.teenageengineering.com/products/op-1 https://www.teenageengineering.com/products/op-1

jupiter90000 10y ago
Roland Fantom X user here. Those look pretty awesome! I had never heard of these instruments before now, glad you posted this. The OP-1 looks like the type of thing I'd been hoping to find as an affordable synth for a while.
acomjean 10y ago
I really like the pocket operators. I have 3. The PO-12 Rhythm is pretty awesome. The push buttons with lights is throwback to the 808 style of inputing rhythm. https://teenage.engineering/products/po https://teenage.engineering/products/po There was a "808 emulator" (don't call it that wink..) for mac version (os 8) now iPad which I don't have. Though it doesn't say anything about roland in the description... You can see the 16 beats in a line with the led button. I will say I disliked the dial as a computer interface (works great physically, with a mouse not as well) and I haven't tried the iOS version.. https://www.propellerheads.se/rebirth https://www.propellerheads.se/rebirth

skrebbel 10y ago

I guess this is as good a thread as any - does anyone know where the TR-909 cymbals came from? The kicks are obviously synthesized, but the open and closed hihats sound suspiciously much like audio waves that are simply played at a higher and lower frequency as you twist the "decay" knob. If they're samples, where do they come from? They're totally unlike any other hihat I've heard, definitely totally different from an actual hihat on a physical drum kit. I guess 90% of dance/techno music in the last 3 decades uses the TR-909 open hihat or a mildly tweaked version of it. Yet it must've been a rather strange, unnatural sound when the 909 was released. What were the motivations of the people who designed or recorded this sound? How was it made? Was it sampled or synthesized and then recorded? Was Kakehashi involved?

cJ0th 10y ago
The cymbal was picked by Atushi Hoshiai. Here is a short video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXsMvTSCkuY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXsMvTSCkuY I think part of the reason the hihat sounds so special/unusual is due to the fact that the sample was stored in 6bit.

Neliquat 10y ago

My closet just went up in value. Maybe its time to stop hoarding 80s synths. Not sure if I can part with my MKS-7 though. A sad day.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

shams93 10y ago

My first exposure to Roland was watching Adamski playing live with a 909 drum machine back in 1990. Really mind blowing to see that one person could be the whole band. My first drum machine was a roland 707, by the early 90s their analog gear was hard to find but their digital gear still had the same beautiful approach to user interface design. I learned midi sequencing with a roland jv-80.