=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Michael Fischer

of T E C H N O P O L I S =-=-=-=-=-=-
=-=-=-=-= Pr esents...Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer S ound S ample S et 1.0.0
(09/08/94) The Roland TR-808 (popular ly known as the "808") is, per haps, the most
popular analogue electr onic dr um machine of all time. S ince its debutin 1982, it
has been the dr um machine used the most by dance, pop, r ap,and r hythm and blues
ar tists to pr oduce the dr um r hythm tr acks f or their songs. (The f amous cowbell
sound at the beginning of Whitney Houston's"I Wanna' Dance with S omebody", or the
f amous bass dr um sound thatvibr ates the gr ound when a car playing loud r ap music
dr ives by) Withouta doubt, the Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer is a "classic beat
box".In r ecent year s, many electr onic musical instr ument companies (Rolandand many
other s...) and studio engineer types have attempted to captur eits timeless sound
thr ough the use of sampling. This has however ,pr oven to be an of ten disappointing
endeavour , due the the analoguenatur e of the "808". Because the "808" is a tr uly
"analogue" dr ummachine, with ver y many (22 to be exact) knobs f or the settings f or
itsdr um sounds, sampling the unit of ten yields sample sets which ar e toodiscr ete
(i.e. too "static" and too "limited" in var iation) and simplydo not do justice to
the wide sound r ange the "808" can pr oduce. As ar esult, people still, to this day,
ar e in hot pur suit of r eal "808"'s,and its U.S . dollar r esale value today ($250 -
$1,000) is of ten not toof ar of f f r om its U.S . dollar r etail pr ice at its
intr oduction mor e thana decade ago ($1,000) .I sincer ely believe I have made major
pr ogr ess in nar r owing thedif f er ence between owning a r eal "808" and owning samples
of one. Whenput to pr oper use, these samples can be consider ed better than using a
r eal "808". Unlike a r eal "808", with these samples one can have thecer tain dr um
sounds playing simultaneously that cannot do so on a r eal"808", (Hand Claps and
Mar acas, f or example.) as well as scale thevelocities of the sounds, and even apply
gr ooves and timing to the beatin a manner much mor e sophisticated and clear ly
beyond the capabilitiesof a r eal "808". With the r ight sampler , these "808"
samples can, f or all pr actical pur poses, make a r eal "808" obsolete. I f eel these
samplesar e of higher quality than those f ound in cur r ent commer cial dr ummachines.
I f eel these "808" samples ar e of higher quality than anycur r ently of f er ed by
commer cial sample vendor s. Quite f r ankly, I f eelthis is the best over all sound
sample set of the TR-808 to date. Andbest of all, and ver y unlike many of the
"competiting" samples, thesesamples ar e ABS OLUTELY FREE! What I have attempted to do
is cr eate a high quality sound sample set of the "808" that is so compr ehensive in
sample r ange, that even the"analogue pur ist" (the types who ar e actively pur sing
r eal "808"'s stilltoday...) would be satisf ied. I have, thr ough ver y time
consuming,painstaking sampling and sample editing wor k, using pr of essional gr ade
equipment, sampled the "808" at f ive (see "FILENAME INFO" near the endof this text
f ile...) unif or mly spaced positions f or each sound modif ier knob. ("LEVEL" being the
only exception---as I always kept "LEVEL" atf ull to maintain the best signal to
noise r atio.) As a r esult, thisr ather compr ehensive "808" sound sample set has the
f ollowing : 25 Bass Dr um sounds25 S nar e Dr um sounds5 Low Tom sounds5 Mid Tom sounds5
Hi Tom sounds5 Low Conga sounds5 Mid Conga sounds5 Hi Conga sounds1 Rim S hot sound1
Claves sound1 Hand Clap sound1 Mar acas sound1 Cow Bell sound25 Cymbal sounds5 Open
Hi Hat sounds1 Closed Hi Hat sound...making f or a gr and total of 116 sound samples
of the Roland TR-808Rhythm Composer ! These samples wer e taken _DIRECTLY_ f r om a
Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer (S ERIAL NO. 103852) . They ar e _NOT_ samples of
samples (i.e. sampledf r om a r ecent dr um machine, such as the Boss DR-660, Roland R-
8,R-8MkII, etc...) In other wor ds, these samples wer e taken f r om a REALTR-808.
All samples wer e r ecor ded f r om the individual sound outputs (Idid NOT use the "HI"
or "LO" "LEVEL" "MAS TER OUT"puts! ) . While beingr ecor ded, each sound (on the TR-
808) was at highest volume level (withall other volume levels set to the lowest
possible setting) , and themaster volume (on the TR-808) was always at the lowest
setting. Allsamples wer e made using S oundEdit 16 1.0.0 on a Macintosh Quadr a
660AV.EACH and EVERY sample is at 16-Bit, 44.1kHz r esolution and was CAREFULLY
gener ated, sampled, selected (I r ecor ded many hits of the samesound, and picked the
one that I f elt best r epr esented the aver age of that par ticular sound) and edited.
Please enjoy this timeless sample set, and f eel f r ee to send me your comments
(positive or negative) .Most S incer ely,Michael Fischer Technopolis(810) 650-6396
f ischer 1@student.msu.edu=-=-=-=-=-=-=FILENAME INFO=-=-=-=-=-=-=Bass Dr um sounds
star t with "BD".S nar e Dr um sounds star t with "S D".Low Tom sounds star t with "LT".
Mid Tom sounds star t with "MT".Hi Tom sounds star t with "HT".Low Conga sounds star t
with "LC".Mid Conga sounds star t with "MC".Hi Conga sounds star t with "HC".Rim S hot
sound star ts with "RS ".Claves sounds star ts with "CL".Hand Clap sound star ts with
"CP".Mar acas sound star ts with "MA".Cowbell sound star ts with "CB".Cymbal sounds
star t with "CY".Open Hi Hat sounds star t with "OH".Closed Hi Hat sound star ts with
"CH".These two letter abbr eviations which deter mine what the f ilename beginswith
ar e the exact ones used to abbr eviate the sound names on the actualTR-808
instr ument select dial.The "LEVEL" knob does not count as a knob in f ilenames, as
itwas always at the maximum setting (to maintain the highest signal tonoise r atio.)
On the TR-808, each knob involved in thecomposition/gener ation/synthesis of a
par ticular dr um sound has 11unif or mly spaced position mar ks on it (the positions on
the dials ar enot number ed, however ...and hopef ully the synthesis var iable they
contr ol is linear ly distr ibuted with r espect to the knob position! ) Iconsider
these 11 mar ks to be "0" thr ough "10". Due to the f act thatthe "0" position and
the "10" position ar e the minimum (mostcounter -clockwise) and maximum (most
clockwise) positions, one mayconsider "0" to be the minimum setting and "10" to be
the maximumsetting. I decided to use dial positions "0" (minimum) , "2.5", "5.0"
(middle) , "7.5" and "10.0" (maximum) f or my samples. As a r esult, Idecided upon
the f ollowing naming convention : "<f ilename>00.<f ile extension>" would be a f ile
whose f ir st (and only,in this case) knob was set to 0.0 (or the minimum position) .
"<f ilename>25.<f ile extension>" would be a f ile whose f ir st (and only,in this case)
knob was set to 2.5."<f ilename>50.<f ile extension>" would be a f ile whose f ir st
(and only,in this case) knob was set to 5.0 (or the middle position) .
"<f ilename>75.<f ile extension>" would be a f ile whose f ir st (and only,in this case)
knob was set to 7.5."<f ilename>10.<f ile extension>" would be a f ile whose f ir st
(and only,in this case) knob was set to 10.0 (or the maximum position) . It doesNOT
mean the knob was set to 1.0! Example : Low Tom with "TUNING" knob set to middle
position would be"LT50.<f ile extension>". If the f ile happened to be a ".WAV"
("WAVE") f ile, the name would be "LT50.WAV".For sounds which had TWO knobs, such as
the Bass Dr um, S nar e Dr um, andCymbal...The naming convention is the same, but with
two additional settingposition number s af ter the f ir st two...Example : Bass Dr um
with "TUNING" knob set between the minimum andmiddle position and "DECAY" set
half way between the middle and maximumposition would be "BD2575.<f ile extension>".
If the f ile happened to bea ".WAV" ("WAVE") f ile, the name would be "BD2575.WAV".
Once again, this naming convention was used f or ALL the samples.Of impor tance is
the f ollowing : * In f ilenames, "TONE" and "TUNING" come bef or e "DECAY" and
"S NAPPY".Once again, please enjoy, and please do send me f eedback on what youthink
of these samples.S incer ely,Michael Fischer Technopolis(810) 650-6396
f ischer 1@student.msu.edu