Honestly, Roland blew it again, the TB3 sounds like plastic shit, again. The TR8 at least has some decent sounds but nothing that gets any owner of a Novation Drumstation overly excited. And besides leaving out all Trigger/Sync greatness that made the originals stand out they stood true to the original by only giving it 16 patterns total. WTF? Anyway, the System-1 lacks the sequencer, etc… etc… and the sound… ACB wut?
Given all those omissions not even the price sounds good anymore.
The words ’ shame, can’t, unfortunately, no, aren’t & missing’, from the SS review pretty much sum it up for me!
To be fair it’s cheap ‘n’ cheerful if that’s what you want but erm… I don’t
A side note: that Scatter feature is going to be the new ‘Stairway’’ !!!
Sales staff are gonna be smacking up in storerooms across the globe just to get some relief
Just realised the bully boy tactics there using too… A mate of a mate of mine seen a guy called Gerald using them in Manchester at the weekend… Now said mate thinks there the best thing since well the x0x… I don’t like that!! Roland flashing there corporate muscle to get these high profile stars to sell there products whilst everyone els does it the fair way by simply being good or shit. They may as well sell em in asda.
These artist are probably flattered by the free gear not to mention anything els?! so it doesn’t mean anything to me that these guys use em.
That said the Berlin sessions where made on Reason I believe tho correct me if I’m wrong I don’t remember where I read/heard that…? If your after VSTs in a box this is what you want.
If you want to be hardfloor by em up. I imagine people will!!
Judging from comments in the general media, cheap price and all the tr-legacy chaching, they are going to sell a load of the 08 at least. And to be fair the 08 does pretty much sound like it’s supposed to. The feature set is disappointing, but that’s probably just because it’s not for me. It’s for people who want instant 808, and those people are gonna buy a butt-tonne of them. The other 2 I’m not so sure will be as popular. People across all genres want the 808 sound, particularly hiphopist seem to be drooling over the 08, whilst the 303 is way more niche. Plus it sounds a bit crappy in the demos I’ve heard.
Playability looks really great for these instruments. If you want to adjust the snare, you just reach and change it. No need to select a voice/track, squint at a small screen, select a page of parameters, double check screen, and then finally turn a knob. Multitrack audio via USB seems a very practical sort of solution too.
I’m curious whether the 4 voices is a limitation of the machine or a design choice. Obviously the 101 should be mono but if they model the 60 / 106 or Jupiter 6 / 8, then I’d hope it could at least match the original polyphony.
16 user patterns ? in 2014 really ?
Its a VA dammit, not an analogue drum machine from the 80.
I don’t understand the limitation …
8 user memory for the synth , no velocity … retarded really .
I guess its me but i see no use for those new things from Roland.
Could have been great for live use but too limited imo.
I think this will appeal to people looking to getting some hardware into their studio for the first time. The drumazon plugin alone is $150. I wonder why they didn’t include 606/707 sounds as well.
Playability looks really great for these instruments. If you want to adjust the snare, you just reach and change it. No need to select a voice/track, squint at a small screen, select a page of parameters, double check screen, and then finally turn a knob.
I’ll go along with that. tbh it’s the one thing that worries me about the incoming AR : if 'it’s anything like the A4 - the endless rotary encoder turning that doesn’t respond in a natural feeling way at all then I’ll have to think seriously. I just couldn’t get on with programming the A4 because of this ( & because ultimately I didn’t like the somewhat woolly Osc sound - but that’s just pure personal opinion before anyone gets too jumpy )
The best thing about the old Roland beatboxes was that super-rapid tweak your sounds on the fly thing - the TR-8 certainly seems to have this nailed.
As for the TB-3 : well from some of the demos I’d say it doesn’t at all sound ‘plastic’ or ‘fake’ - there are some soundcloud clips ( can’t remember which review it was from, sorry ) where I couldn’t tell the difference from a real 303 on both wave shape settings …
It probably takes someone far more deep-dipped in acid like Daren Ager to seriously comment though…& ultimately perhaps you’ve actually got to hear one in the flesh than rely on a t’interweb demo…?
hahaha i want the vocal transformer, looks like fun.
I’m sure someone will make good use of them, they aren’t really for me but I think they’ll hit a wide audience young and old due to price point and the aesthetics.
They look inviting, a bit too “glossy” looking for my taste but they will stand out on the shelf. A clear departure from other brands which I appreciate.
Yeah, it’d be odd for them to claim it can replicate something like a Juno 60 if it’s only 4 voices. The spec sheet seems to mention “Maximum Polyphony: 4 voices (SYSTEM-1 Mode)”, so at this point it’s only certain that its own sound engine has such a limited polyphony.
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