5 ms·

Nothing obvious about it. That's like saying Roland's shitty bass accompaniment gizmo, the TB-303, was obviously built for Acid House.

by OzzyB 6y ago

csours 6y ago
Obvious in hindsight is very different from obvious at the time. Lots of things are obvious in hindsight, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of hard work behind them.
hinkley 6y ago
I recall in college having several conversations with people who gave up on reading Lord of the Rings because 'it felt derivative'. Trying to politely explain to them that the fiction they had already read was the derivative work, while on the inside I was screaming: Look here, you little shit. I know we bristled at this in school, but I think there is in fact something to the idea of presenting a discipline to people in a Cliff's Notes version of chronological order. Otherwise you may never see the value in the foundational works in that area (or as the case here, artistic medium).
- emmelaich 6y ago
  Well it was derivative :-) of Norse legends.
tomphoolery 6y ago
I mean, of course it's made for acid house! Surely Roland wouldn't have made a bass accompaniment synthesizer sound that unrealistic! /s
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  Roland did that a lot. They produced these generic "bad" synthesizers and drum machines that turned out to be unbelievably funky when abused by the right people. It was a real next-level engineering super-talent. It doesn't even matter if it was deliberate. The fact that it happened so reliably is enough.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
    That's not next-level engineering. It's next-level marketing. The key thing about the [3-digits-here] series was that they were priced right. Not for Detroit ... priced right enough to sell enough of them, so that by the time Detroit (and Chicago) were ready, there were lots of them available second hand for very little money. And thus: techno (and house) and their progeny. OK, more precisely, that's not entirely fair. Early electro-funk (say, NYC 1978-1983) and even early hip hop did use these devices. But they were generally in studios and not widely used by everybody and their friend that just wanted to make a jam. By the time the 90s hit, the used market for 303/909 etc was primed and ready to burst.
    - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
      There were a lot - a lot - of competing units that were also priced right, or even righter than the Roland gear which was never bargain basement. Rattly cheap drum machines were all over the scene in the late 70s and 80s. None of them had the lasting impact of the 808 and 909. There's a reason for that - the same reason that explains why the Jupiter-8 and Juno series synths are legends, while competing synths from Kawai and Korg are mostly forgotten.

Nothing obvious about it. That's like saying Roland's shitty bass accompaniment gizmo, the TB-303, was obviously built for Acid House.

by OzzyB 6y ago

Nothing obvious about it. That's like saying Roland's shitty bass accompaniment gizmo, the TB-303, was obviously built for Acid House.

csours 6y ago

Obvious in hindsight is very different from obvious at the time. Lots of things are obvious in hindsight, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a lot of hard work behind them.

hinkley 6y ago

I recall in college having several conversations with people who gave up on reading Lord of the Rings because 'it felt derivative'. Trying to politely explain to them that the fiction they had already read was the derivative work, while on the inside I was screaming: Look here, you little shit. I know we bristled at this in school, but I think there is in fact something to the idea of presenting a discipline to people in a Cliff's Notes version of chronological order. Otherwise you may never see the value in the foundational works in that area (or as the case here, artistic medium).

emmelaich 6y ago
Well it was derivative :-) of Norse legends.

tomphoolery 6y ago

I mean, of course it's made for acid house! Surely Roland wouldn't have made a bass accompaniment synthesizer sound that unrealistic! /s

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
Roland did that a lot. They produced these generic "bad" synthesizers and drum machines that turned out to be unbelievably funky when abused by the right people. It was a real next-level engineering super-talent. It doesn't even matter if it was deliberate. The fact that it happened so reliably is enough.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
  That's not next-level engineering. It's next-level marketing. The key thing about the [3-digits-here] series was that they were priced right. Not for Detroit ... priced right enough to sell enough of them, so that by the time Detroit (and Chicago) were ready, there were lots of them available second hand for very little money. And thus: techno (and house) and their progeny. OK, more precisely, that's not entirely fair. Early electro-funk (say, NYC 1978-1983) and even early hip hop did use these devices. But they were generally in studios and not widely used by everybody and their friend that just wanted to make a jam. By the time the 90s hit, the used market for 303/909 etc was primed and ready to burst.
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    There were a lot - a lot - of competing units that were also priced right, or even righter than the Roland gear which was never bargain basement. Rattly cheap drum machines were all over the scene in the late 70s and 80s. None of them had the lasting impact of the 808 and 909. There's a reason for that - the same reason that explains why the Jupiter-8 and Juno series synths are legends, while competing synths from Kawai and Korg are mostly forgotten.