Joined: 25 Jun 2008
Posts: 909
Location: Bristol, UK
As it's my 909th post, I thought I'd do a little tribute to one of the best drum machine's ever to have existed on this planet - our old friend the Roland TR-909 Rhythm Composer.
The Roland TR-909 Rhythm Composer is a partially analog, partially sample-based drum machine built by the Japanese Roland Corporation in 1984. The brainchild of Tadao Kikumoto, the engineer behind the Roland TB-303, it features a 16-step step sequencer and a drum kit that, at that time, aimed for realism and cost-effectiveness. It is fully-programmable, and like its predecessor, the TR-808, it can store entire songs with multiple sections, as opposed to simply storing patterns. Only around 10,000 units were produced.
Quite simply one of the defining sounds for so much modern electronic music and a huge influence on me personally.
http://www.vintagesynth.com/roland/909.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_TR-909
I have never been lucky enough to actually own a 909, but I have lived with one and had access to many in various studios and frankly there's nothing quite like it. Hours (days? weeks? months?) of my life have been spent grooving away with these boxes.
But to really see the 909 used to its full potential you gotta check out Jeff Mills in action:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XKeVmmfeSPI - part 1
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=E7MS1OK1XEw - part 2
For those of you who don't have a 909, but want the sounds (I've managed a pretty good impression of one using an MPC), here's a link to a full set of free, legal 909 samples:
http://machines.hyperreal.org/manufactu ... 909all.zip
(though I'm pretty sure you'd have to have been living under a rock on the moon with your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears not to have some 909 samples in your library!)
These days, since I'm mostly digital I use d16 group's excellent Drumazon plugin - without a doubt the best 909 emulation I've found:
If you're looking for that classic 909 shuffle, it's great!
Demos here:
http://www.d16.pl/pub/demo/Drumazon-demo-1.0.3.exe - win
http://www.d16.pl/pub/demo/Drumazon-demo-1.0.3.dmg - mac
So there it is - my tribute to one of my favourite boxes.
