Roland TR-808

Working in the studio alongside Horn and talented classical musicians like Ann Dudley and Gary Langen, McLaren wanted to fuse traditional folk melodies with this new New York Street aesthetic.

He chose Buffalo Gals, a traditional 19th century American square dance song and decided to overlay it with electronic scratching and a heavy Roland TR-808 drum machine beat.

However, the recording sessions were anything but smooth.

When Trevor Horn suggested that the world-famous Supreme Team rap the traditional square dance lyrics over the modern beat, the hip-hop duo flatly refused.

Just pulling that from the dome.

Miami bass, also known as booty bass, a subgenre of hip hop that became popular in the 80s and 90s using drums from the Roland TR-808, sustained kick drum, heavy bass, raised damp tempos, and frequently sexually explicit lyrical content differentiated it from other hip hop genres.

This is, you're describing Kill for the Steel?

I am.

The pioneers of this sound were DJ Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, and Afrika Bambaataa.

This is from 1982, which brings some heavy beats from a Roland TR-808 drum machine together with samples of Kraftwerk's Trans-Europe Express.

It's called Planet Rock.

Rock, rock to the planet rock.

No.

TR 808.

Yeah.

Anyway.

Billboard chart and not reach the U.K. charts at all.

Bernard Lloyd had said the album was recorded using equipment such as a Roland TR-808 and a Linn LM-1 drum machine, a Roland System 100M, an ARP string ensemble, and a Roland SD-200 digital delay machine.

The album was recorded on TASCAM 8-track tapes and used a Friendship SRC machine to synchronize all the tracks.

Beyond the core three members of the band, a number of additional musicians were employed for bass, additional keyboards, drums, backing vocals, and orchestral string section.

The column points to specific electronic instruments to prove this.

If you hear the deep, chest-rattling boom of a Roland TR-808 drum machine or the bizarre, squelchy wobble of a TB-303 bass synthesizer, your brain instantly, within milliseconds, signals an era.

It's immediate.

But the wild part is the mechanics of how that music is made today.

The same way The Griefs recreated the '60s with their song Whenever You're Around, from episode 170, Villa Nah perfectly capture the minimalist synth wave of the '80s.

The drum sound here is more than likely a Roland TR-808.

Yeah, so what's your relationship been like with drum machine patterns? Not as a way to, say, like mimic real drums, but as its own thing.

Lots of bands use them.

Think of tracks like Shannon's Let the Music Play or early Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam.

Sonically, it relies on heavy syncopated drum machine patterns, usually the Roland TR-808.

Yeah, the classic 808 sound.

Exactly, and it's paired with very emotional, almost dramatic pop vocals.

He discovers acid house and early techno, and this completely hijacks his trajectory.

He gets his hands on an Akai S1000 sampler and the legendary Roland TR-808 and 909 drum machines.

And those specific drum machines were the literal engines of the rave scene.

I mean, they dictated the sound of the entire era.

Well, jazz relies on swing, right? That microscopic human delay or rush in hitting a note.

Mm-hmm.

But a TR-808 drum machine is a rigid, unyielding mathematical grid.

Oh, absolutely.