My alarm clock informed me this morning that it’s the 8th of August or, as we would write in short form, 8-08. Which kind of looks like 808. Which just happens to be the name of one of Roland’s better known analog drum machines, the TR-808.

Unfortunately I didn’t have the idea of celebrating random bits of musical history before 3-03, or 6-06 (which also correspond to the names of Roland’s classic bass and drum sequencers) – but we still have 9-09 to come yet.

Interestingly, the reason why it’s better known at all seems to be mainly due its de-facto inclusion into the standard MIDI drum set collection that was also introduced by Roland. As a result, most MIDI devices (i.e keyboards) with built-in drum sounds have samples based on this machine built-in.

It’s got a definitive sound to it – highly reminiscent of the 80s, and often responsible for creating hugely infectious beats – and although pretty much every sound has made its way into the public’s sub-conscious via pretty much any genre that electronic music has touched, a few defining characteristics were:

• a kick drum with awesome sub-bass, which has been employed pretty much everywhere
• really snappy snares
• a rather odd melodic sounding cowbell
• pretty much the definitive electronic handclap sound

Due to its use of analog synthesis (instead of samples), the sounds were substantially tweak-able.

Unfortunately, to get the sound of the 808 most of us have to make do with samples, and many people have done impressive work of attempting to capture the nuances of the numerous possibilities offered for each sound (see below). That being said, it’s still a long way from making a perfect representation of the characteristics of an analog device such as this.

Further reading:

• Wikipedia’s article on the TR-808
• Vintage Synth’s write-up
• A full set of TR-808 samples on Roland Clan