
The mysterious heart of the Roland TR-808 drum machine - souterrain
http://secretlifeofsynthesizers.com/the-strange-heart-of-the-roland-tr-808/
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sdenton4
It's been said that if humanity ever masters full-universe simulation, the
inventor will be the Roland corporation, ending its quest to create an exact
reproduction of the sound of Run DMC's 808 during a 1983 live performance in a
Brooklyn dive bar.

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dschuetz
That's a good one xD

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S_A_P
I’ve owned 3 tr-808s in my life. I currently own one. I can confirm that each
one sounds different. I’ve samples from each one. The first 2 I owned were
from later in the production run. There are 2 distinct revisions of tr-808s.
The early models had a shorter higher pitched snare sound and later models
were a lower pitch deeper snare. My current 808 is an early revision with the
high pitched snare. My current 808 has the weakest clap of the three I’ve
owned.

I mention all of this to make a few points. 1- I don’t doubt that these
rejects contribute to the sound in a very specific way. But I don’t think it
is impossible to build an 808 that would not fool even the most seasoned
experts.

2- the 808 was not exactly a hit product. The “we ran out of parts” line
sounds to me like a great way to revise what the real truth of the matter is-
it wasn’t selling since sampled drum drum machines like the Lynndrum/Oberheim
DX/sequential drumtraks were in far greater demand. Most people at the time
thought the 808 was terrible sounding. It soon was widely available at thrift
shops and used gear racks for 10-20% of its original 1000$ price. Ad rock of
Beastie Boys fame mentions in an interview that he went to Rogue Music in NYC
to get a rickenbacker guitar but instead found a used 808 for 250 bucks around
1984 or 1985. Since the tr909 was released in 84 or so with a focus on
sounding more realistic, I don’t think parts availability is the real reason.

3- there are solid clones available that are 100% analog and approach if not
hit 100% accuracy in the sound. The Yocto kit when assembled competently is
pretty much a 1:1 copy. Behringer has a forthcoming rd-808 that is analog and
from the videos sounds the business.

4- the modeled 808 in the Tr08/tr8/Roland cloud 808 is in the ballpark but the
cymbals snare and clap are the weakest parts of the modeling. I would say
those pass the 5 minute quick listen test but once you spend time with them
you realize it’s not right in an annoying way. If anyone wants to read more
about the tr-808 a me Robin Whittle has done some amazing work documenting the
circuits, explaining how they work and gives instructions on modifying them.
Now that these machines are 30 years old, I hope people don’t mod them and
focus on preserving them at this point- especially considering that there will
soon be cheap Behringer copies to mod.

Finally just want to say it’s great to see this kind of stuff on hn. I could
write long winded comments on this stuff all day long.

Edit- adding link to RWs 808 mods/info
[http://machines.hyperreal.org/manufacturers/Roland/TR-808/mo...](http://machines.hyperreal.org/manufacturers/Roland/TR-808/mods/)

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pimlottc
> But I don’t think it is impossible to build an 808 that would not fool even
> the most seasoned experts.

This sentence hurt my head...

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pasta
Imho it should be:

But I don’t think it is impossible to build an 808 that would fool even the
most seasoned experts.

Because there are synts with built in imperfections that are very good.

I also believe some synths synthesize the electronic components instead of the
sound.

~~~
Angostura
Cancelling out, we get

‘I think it should be possible to build an 808...’

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Rjevski
I am surprised that Roland would use such an unconventional method for
generating noise.

Sourcing and testing those bad transistors had to be more expensive than just
buying good parts, and surely they must’ve known that their supply of bad
parts wouldn’t last forever?

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rectang
I worked in a recording studio for a few years, and my impression is that for
pop production, a lot of sound experiments are not reproducible. There are
certainly fundamentals (e.g. understanding microphone design and placement
techniques) but the random factors loom large.

Success depends less on applying principles in a straightforward way and more
on being able to recognize when something is compelling and doggedly
experimenting until something clicks. The story of the TR-808's design feels
familiar.

~~~
puzzle
You're right. The guitar sound in Dire Straits' Money for nothing is an
experiment that couldn't be reproduced in another studio in NYC, even when
placing microphones and speakers in the same random locations:

[https://www.soundonsound.com/people/classic-tracks-dire-
stra...](https://www.soundonsound.com/people/classic-tracks-dire-straits-
money-nothing)

And Phil Collins' gated reverb drums, one of THE sounds of the 80's, were
discovered through another random placement of microphones, although
(un)luckily this time it was easy to reproduce:

[https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/8/18/16162440/recording-
stud...](https://www.vox.com/videos/2017/8/18/16162440/recording-studio-
mishap-shaped-80s-music)

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noddy1
its amazing how prevalent the 808 sound is in modern music... probably 80% of
current rap music is based on sounds derived from the 808 kit. The combination
of smoothness, "bassiness" and chattering hats and static snare really is
infectious.

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hrnnnnnn
Here's a good look at the then-current top twenty, versus the same week in
1998.

808s everywhere.

[https://youtu.be/rn85sCVEGOw](https://youtu.be/rn85sCVEGOw)

~~~
ChrisArchitect
ha, that's a good one. Speaks to the lack of diversity in current hip hop and
also hip hop's dominance of pop music currently. Also tho, in '98 there is all
kinds of transition happening in pop ...boy/girl bands in and out of
popularity, dance music resurging but moving away from the euro thing, hip hop
itself coming out of a golden era early 90's beat, and transitioning to pop
centric and about to be super super influenced by the beats of Timbaland..that
style..which of course, is more 808 based than what was before and dominated
for years and years until finally the minimal 808 sound took over with I dunno
kanye and stuff in the mid 00's? No where else to go with beats and it's lucky
it has survived without much innovation. Meanwhile outside of the U.S. in
places like UK influences of underground dance created innovative beats in the
grime scenes and you hear things that are more
creative/dancey/electronic/tribal even....which only those different producers
singled out in this video of the current crop seem to be delving into. This is
America beat? much closer to grime/drum'n'bass style out of the UK than
mainstream U.S. production....

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cpeterso
There is a fun documentary called "808" (available on Amazon Prime) about the
history and impact of the TR-808. It's mostly interviews with musicians and
only a little technical information.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/808_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/808_\(film\))

[https://amzn.com/B06XT8M3TV](https://amzn.com/B06XT8M3TV)

~~~
uxp
It's mentioned in the article.

> How exactly Mr Kakehashi found these specific parts is not known, [...] but
> you can hear him tell some of the story himself right at the end of the
> excellent 2015 documentary movie “808”.

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dschuetz
How ironic that an engineering mistake which produced a unique "bad" batch of
transistors also produced another engineering mistake. It's bad practice to
make use of not reproducible parts, especially as such a unique noise source
which basicaly defines a musical instrument. One of the most iconic electronic
musical instruments ever created was born by engineering mistakes!

But, is there even a way to produce and reproduce a consistent physical noise
source that generates the _same_ noise with each physical copy?

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ur-whale
I wish they had actually explained how they did the noise modeling and the
actual result.

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CamperBob2
Assuming the noise is stationary (meaning its probability distribution doesn't
vary over time), it can be characterized entirely by its power spectrum,
recorded over a time window that's long enough to represent the lowest
frequencies of interest. The amplitude-versus-frequency response curve will
exhibit various slopes at different frequencies, and it's these slopes that
define the noise's "color" properties.

Once the spectrum is known, synthesizing the same sound is really just a
matter of starting with white noise and shaping it with various lowpass,
highpass, and/or bandpass filters whose skirts match the original slopes. It
sounds like the 909 took that approach, generating noise by sending the output
of a maximal-length shift register through some analog filters.

If the noise isn't stationary -- for instance, if its frequency content varies
noticeably as the envelope progresses through its various phases, as the
instrument warms up, or simply as it ages -- then it's no longer so easy to
model and reproduce the sound. That's the sort of thing that can easily happen
when the design relies on defective transistors.

