Roland • TR-909 Rhythm Composer
The TR-909 is an awesome analog drum machine! THE standard House and Techno beatbox. Sounds include kick, snare, hand clap, open and closed hi hats, low mid and hi toms, rim shot, ride and crash cymbals. Sounds are tweakable - attack, tone, tuning, decay, snap and accent. This machine does not sound like true acoustic drums, and we don't want it to. It has a unique and very loveable analog sound that's all its own!
Extremely popular today, especially for dance, it is used by 808 State, Air, Bushflange, Future Sound of London, Moby, Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim), Orbital, Hardfloor, Überzone, Underworld, The Prodigy, Faithless, ATB, Eat Static, Jimmy Edgar, Sense Datum, Richie Hawtin, A Guy Called Gerald, Astral Projection, Josh Wink, Freddy Fresh, Jean-Michel Jarre, Luke Vibert, the Chemical Brothers, and many more! It is armed with Roland's DIN Sync and MIDI, individual outputs, external memory cartridges, and an essential shuffle & flam for great grooves. Use it as a sound module or program patterns, songs and beats into it...either way you'll be in analog drum heaven with the 909!
And they are great.
its not about money my friend. the only reason why this machine is highly regarded is because its unique . just like modular synths . i bet 99% of the population would consider 29000 dollars for some strange glitches madness ...
radiohead are one of those 1% mad people . its called taste
Also they do make good use of the 909, but a lot of the stuff was actually done on an RS Intergrator (Y)