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!
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!
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!
- Demos & Media
-
Video 1 - Roland TR-909 Drum Machine demo
Video 2 - A close up look at the Roland TR-909 part 1
Video 3 - A close up look at the Roland TR-909 part 2Audio Clip 1 - A pretty standard beat. However this 909 is running through a RAT distortion pedal which will fade in and out heavy distortion, making this seemingly shy drum loop more and more hardcore!
Audio Clip 2 - A busy 909 pattern. Typical 4-on-the-floor! It's short and sweet but gets the point across.
Manual - Roland has made manuals for most of their products available as free PDF downloads.
- Specifications
- Polyphony - 12 voices
- Sounds - Kick, Snare, Low/Mid/Hi Toms, Rimshot, Hand clap, Cymbal, Open hihat, Closed hihat, Accents
- Controls - Individual level, tuning, attack, decay, and tone controls for some sounds
- Patterns - 96
- Songs - 8
- Arpeg/Seq - Sequencer
- Keyboard - none
- Control - Midi In/Out & DIN Sync In
- Date Produced - 1984-85
- Websites of Interest
- Resources & Credits
Images from Perfect Circuit Audio.
Errors or Corrections? Send them here.
Nice for composing and educational as pattern building and recording for me. Learning beats. Also great with Jupiters and Junos for making futuristic music.