Had to give the Machinedrum the props it deserves in this article I wrote for Mixdown Mag. What do you think of my list? I actually also wrote an ‘Honorable Mentions’ to add to the end but my editor wants to save that for a separate piece. Before you kill me, AR was top of the honorable mentions!
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Nice write up! Roland R8 deserves a look in your honourable mentions, the drums in Xtal by Afx that you have linked there are from the R8 with one of the expansion cards that had 808 sounds on it, the R8 is all over lots of early 90s ambient techno, Autechre etc, really lovely machine 
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Oh wow I’ve wanted a R8 for a while but I’m yet to snatch one up! I did have a play on its younger sibling the R5 and def felt some potential. Good to know about Xtal - ill let the mag know tomorrow so they can update it. Thanks for that!
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I’m sure you’ve heard this already but this track is worth a listen if not, R8 at its best
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Yes this EP is absolute fire. Also hoping to cop a FZ1/10/20 sometime too!
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so pure sample based?
what made the r8 special? the sequencing? or did it colour the samples in a specific way?
I’ve not used one myself but it’s all over a lot of my favourite early 90s records and sounds great there. People I’ve talked to who have one all rate the sequencer. Also 808/909s weren’t so easy to come by even in the early 90s so the R8 was an accessible way to get all those good sounds with a nice sequencer. I seem to recall there’s more to the sound engine than just static samples and you could tweak the sounds more than you could if you’d just sampled an 808/909 but I might be thinking of something else there so apologies if that’s wrong
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