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the Roland TR-808

The Roland TR-808. Photo Brandon Daniel, cropped by Clusternote, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Roland TR-808

17 traced influences · 6 sources

dig the Roland TR-808

What it took directly

  1. statedRoland TR-808 took from the Roland CR-78 CompuRhythm, the machine the project started from"We started the project based on the Roland CR-78." Tadao Kikumoto, central to the Roland R&D team that built the 808, to Paul McCabe, Roland Articles (August 1, 2020)
  2. statedRoland TR-808 took from a brief from Ikutaro Kakehashi (Roland's founder) and the musician Don Lewis: a cheap drum machine that sounded like real drums"The request of Mr. K and Don Lewis [editor’s note: pioneering electronic musician and longtime friend of Roland] was an inexpensive, realistic-sounding drum machine." Tadao Kikumoto, to Paul McCabe, Roland Articles (August 1, 2020)
  3. statedthe TR-808's crash cymbal took from tea spilled into Tadao Kikumoto's breadboard prototype in Roland's Tokyo office, late 1970s"he sort of bumped up against the breadboard and spilled some tea in there and all of a sudden he turned it on and got this pssh sound" Don Lewis's memory of the visit, to Trent Wolbe, The Verge (January 30, 2013). One witness's account; the scholar Kurt Werner cites this article as an example of the 808's accidental-discovery stories
  4. documentedthe TR-808's sizzle took from defective transistors Kakehashi says he chose for the sound circuits, which could not be bought again once production improved"He claims that the 808’s distinctive sizzle was produced by the faulty transistors that he chose for the sound generator." Chris Norris, The New Yorker (August 13, 2015), reporting what Kakehashi says in Alex Dunn's documentary '808'. A second origin story for the same sound; neither is verified

What it learned to do

  1. statedRoland TR-808 learned from analog drum synthesis, which Kikumoto proposed instead of an expensive sample-playback (PCM) machine"I proposed creating a Drum Synthesizer, instead of an expensive PCM [editor’s note: Pulse-Code Modulation, a sample-based format] machine." Tadao Kikumoto, to Paul McCabe, Roland Articles (August 1, 2020)
  2. statedthe TR-808's expandable Decay knob comes from Kikumoto's own intention, which at the time only Kakehashi supported"but the expandable Decay knob of the TR-808 was my intention. I was very glad to hear that because the idea was basically not supported at the time, except by Mr. K." Tadao Kikumoto, to Paul McCabe, Roland Articles (August 1, 2020)
  3. documentedthe long 808 kick drum heard in hip-hop learned from Rick Rubin, who stretched its decay on T La Rock's "It's Yours" in his NYU dorm room"The twenty-year-old Rick Rubin tried to replicate the experience of a hip-hop club on the T La Rock single “It’s Yours” by using an 808 in his NYU dorm room. He tweaked the bass-drum setting to widen the tone and stretch the decay, creating a new reference point for 808 users ever since." Chris Norris, The New Yorker (August 13, 2015); Kikumoto also remembers "a hip-hop producer—perhaps Rick Rubin" extending the decay (Roland Articles, 2020)
  4. statedIkutaro Kakehashi learned from Don Lewis's rewired Ace Tone rhythm box, which Lewis played on Hammond's stand at the 1969 NAMM show"I had modified my Ace Tone to death, changed all the rhythms because none of them fit my style of playing." Don Lewis, to Trent Wolbe, The Verge (January 30, 2013)
  5. documentedRoland's CR-68 and TR-808 learned from Don Lewis, whom Kakehashi hired after Lewis spent years asking him for a programmable rhythm unit"In 1972 Kakehashi formed Roland Corporation and hired Don to work on projects that eventually became the CompuRhythm CR-68, and in 1980, the iconic TR-808" Trent Wolbe, The Verge (January 30, 2013), from Lewis's account
  6. documentedDon Lewis learned from his years as an engineer in the Air Force"Don had learned the ins and outs of electronics during his time as an engineer in the Air Force" Trent Wolbe, The Verge (January 30, 2013)
  7. inferredRoland TR-808 learned from the Roland R&D team Roland calls the "Analog Mafia": Jun-ichi Kadoya, Hisanori Matsuoka, Kiyokazu Fujiwara, Tadao Kikumoto and Yoshiro O-e"The Analog Mafia: (left to right) Jun-ichi Kadoya, Hisanori Matsuoka, Kiyokazu Fujiwara,Tadao Kikumoto, Yoshiro O-e" inferred: Roland's article says Kikumoto was central to the R&D team behind the TR-808, and captions a photo of these five engineers "The Analog Mafia". It does not say who did what on the 808

The tradition it sits in

  1. documentedRoland TR-808 comes from Roland's push to get rhythm machines out of the "preset bossa nova" organ-accompaniment role and into professional studios"Suddenly there was a move to make rhythm machines that could be used in the professional market, to break away from this preset bossa nova thing" Sean Montgomery, a Roland product manager, to Ben Beaumont-Thomas, The Guardian (March 6, 2014)
  2. documentedRoland TR-808 comes from the organ-top rhythm boxes it was built to surpass: the Wurlitzer Sideman and Roland's own TR-33/55/77"earlier drum machines whose form factor paired them with electric/electronic organ playing, such as the early Wurlitzer Sideman and the Roland TR-33/55/77 line." Kurt James Werner (Stanford CCRMA), Ethnomusicology Review (November 29, 2015), reading Keyboard magazine's 1982 review in context
  3. documentedRoland TR-808 comes from the first generation of programmable drum machines, with the CR-78 and the PAiA Programmable Drum Set"The 808 was not known for its sounds in the early 80s, but rather for being—along with its cousin the Roland CR-78 CompuRhythm, the PAiA Programmable Drum Set, and a few others—one of the first programmable drum machines." Kurt James Werner, Ethnomusicology Review (November 29, 2015)
  4. documentedRoland TR-808 comes from Ace Tone's FR1 Rhythm Ace (1967), the machine Kakehashi built before he founded Roland"Indeed, the FR1 is the precursor of all Roland's great analogue rhythm machines." Gordon Reid, "The History Of Roland: Part 1", Sound On Sound (November 2004)
  5. inferredthe TR-808's step programming comes from the 'diode matrix' Kakehashi's Ace Electronics team invented to place each drum in a repeating pattern"Kakehashi and his colleagues overcame them by inventing a 'diode matrix' that determined the position of each instrument in a pattern." inferred: Sound On Sound describes the diode matrix in the Rhythm Ace; no source here traces the 808's sequencer back to it directly

Where the whole form comes from

  1. documentedthe Ace Electronics R1 Rhythm Ace (1964), Kakehashi's first rhythm machine comes from the Wurlitzer Sideman and other early electro-mechanical percussion instruments that intrigued him"Kakehashi was intrigued by early electro-mechanical percussion instruments such as the Wurlitzer Sideman. So, in 1964, he developed the Ace Electronics R1 Rhythm Ace" Gordon Reid, "The History Of Roland: Part 1", Sound On Sound (November 2004)

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