Nelson George’s All Hail The Beat offers a short history of the Roland TR-808:
The sounds of the Roland TR-808 drum machine inspire musicians around the world, even though the device hasn’t been made since 1984 and most of its avid users have never actually seen one.
The Roland TR-808 was introduced in 1980 and was produced for four years.
Stuff you might not know about the Roland TR-808:
- It was originally designed for musicians to create demos.
- The TR stands for ‘Transistor Rhythm’.
- The first band to use the Roland TR-808 was Yellow Magic Orchestra.
- In a review, Keyboard Magazine suggested that the TR-808 sounded ‘like marching anteaters’.
- The 808 sound went on to be used on more hit records than any other drum machine.
via variety of sound , wikipedia
Funk and rap have huge place in the history of the synthesizer. I love Gary Wright and “Dreamweaver,” but I was shocked when I learned how funk and rap and hip-hop artists embraced technology so much more passionately than the “mainstream.” There is a very strange but interesting book that goes into the story. It’s very strangely written, but great fun to read (once) for a look back on parts of techno history that don’t always make the mainstream press:
“How to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop, The Machine Speaks,” by Dave Tompkins
Thanks for the rec on that book. I just downloaded it. 🙂
Thanks for the heads up on the book.
I’ll keep looking. I’ve been wanting one of these drum machines for a long time. For the bass drums and the toms, it used sine waves, and noise waveforms were used for the rest of the drums.