Roland TR-8S

Do you have a syntakt midi track triggering the notes?

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Oh yes, and that brings up a good point.

If you use track 8, it glitches.

You need to use track 7, then the midi track can have trig conditions for note.

Also, the sequencer needs to have a trigless trig to get the effects block enabled.

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On the st? Thats odd. they’re identical tracks afaik…

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Yeah. It’s a known issue I found out when asking on here.

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Super. thanks for the info

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Yeah, I just tried to find where we talked about it but too many threads came up.

By the way, just to get this back on topic, the same can be done with the TR8S, and may work better.

Plus, when you run the external audio in you can side chain!

Edit. Actually, this may be really dope.

Think about getting some delay going, and sidechaining, getting the SubH all crunchy for some French House action!

I’m going to set this up later today. I’ll post my results here just to show off the versatility of the TR8S

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After the whole day sitting with the machine I think I nailed it ! Super happy ! Its a bit more modern sound in comparison to be driven bei a analog mixer, but yeah. It bangs.

Kit level on 130 didn’t do it for me, but the saturator ! Besides the drive a -12db dip at 200hz helped with the kick. Also the compressor is really good on this thing. Did also route out the toms and back into the input to sidechain duck them. Big step forward.

Here two Testrecrodings with the new live setup, who is interested. Tr8s and Modular into Octatrack and behind that a Focusrite Compounder.

https://soundcloud.com/peterkunze/first-jam-new-livesetup-testsoundcheck/s-ExqRZHhvilk?si=39483bf16f71409a8fbf36c43a2b16f0&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

https://soundcloud.com/peterkunze/first-jam-new-livesetup-part-ii-testsoundcheck/s-3lHcsjeKQy0?si=39483bf16f71409a8fbf36c43a2b16f0&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

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Good kit, i used to have one

You need to dig deep and prepare your kits. Editor helps. But than its amazing. Best drummachine Interface ever.

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Finally got everything set up. Tracks all running as individual outs to Logic via USB, and SubH is slaved to the TR8S via MIDI.

Space

Edit:

Not really pulling off the French House vibe.

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Just Wow. What a sesh.

The only thing I dont think I can do is send pitch changes to the Osc on the SubH, like I can with the Syntakt having a dedicated MIDI channel for the SubH.

But thats why we buy all the gear… to use the tools at hand.

This was dope… and I’m spreading this to a couple threads.

Gets real good after 3:30

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And Another One

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That setup looks like a ton of fun!

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It is…

But there is a caveat… I like being able to change the pitch of the sequence on the SubH or it get a bit too repetitive, and that was just a couch setup, so I only have a little table… so a Syntakt has better functionality…

the TR8S is a way better fit if you use the SP 404 in place of the SubH… You can trigger a pattern at every run stop, and really craft a great drum track, rather than using the sequencer on the 404, which is limiting to using smaller loops so you don’t have to wait on the playhead, which you dont control… so no scrubbing the middle of a long loop trying to get a part right.

The best thing this ā€œexperimentā€ taught me or rather gave me is… I got a template in logic set up for all the individual outs… and I dialed all the reverb down and delay, and only had it dialed up all the way to the Ext In track, with the intention of going in Logic, and setting up some light reverb on the snare or hats…

But on the TR8S, the effects are only applied to the full mix out, and not the individual Ext in tracks in logic… so it defeats the purpose of having individual outs, and the tempo sync of the delay is lost…

So you have to just use post processing for the effects, or apply them in the TR8S as you go… which is tricky if you use post processing for mastering… (Im trying to learn fabfilter)… sometimes the gain on a certain instrument s off if you master just the mix out, and its printed in the mix… and this isn’t ideal on analog gear like the SubH which you cant recreate the performance like you can if you sequence on the 404…

Sorry for the long post… just wanted to give my breakdown of the process to see if anyone gan get some value out of it… or add to it at all… I’m all for have convo about real world production techniques based on the gear that the thread is dedicated to.

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I took inspiration from you and tried the compressor… which I think is shared with the SP404…

What settings do you go with? did you adjust the threshold? I tried tweaking some of the settings, and i could hear differences… but it is sooooo subtle… I think I kept it on default and adjust just to my ear, which is rather arbitrary…

Thanks!

Also, love the test tracks… I left a comment on one… I love how you, I guess open up the filter decay? and great use of the delay…

The one thing I grew tired of, and was the main reason for getting a MC101, was trying to make melodic stuff on the TR8S… getting the pitch right by just using course tune… at thats the better option than the regulat tune… and both needs a chart to see what the note values are… sometimes you may be dialed in… but its sharp or flat from the semitone… which doesn’t really matter I guess…

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Roland really needs to add a playable chromatic mode already! Man would that ever take the tr-8S to the next level

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That would be a cool feature, that I’m sure many people would enjoy, but it’s also fun to motion record the tuning, even if is more unpredictable and less precise.

Got a chance to play with a tr-8 way back when it was fairly new, and have been lusting over it ever since. But for various reasons bought and sold other drum machines.
Even got the roland 08, and tried the cloud versions but that only made gas worse…

I recently stumbled upon a good deal on a used 8s and finally went for it. Had my first session with it yesterday and it’s just so tactile, fun and great sounding. Should’ve gotten it sooner! :slight_smile:

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Hey TR-8S buddies, I have a question.

Sorry if that’s been covered before, I couldn’t find a complete answer.

I order a S-1 and while it has MIDI sync, I’d rather sync it via the sync in, seems more reliable to me (given how MIDI sync is often a problem in my experience).

It seems a trigger output from the TR could be used. I wonder though, any of you uses such a trigger output for sync? Does it mean that I have to write a sequence to send pulses out?

Without having used an S1, I expect you’ll be using the time-honoured method of sending a sequenced trigger from the 8S sequencer to advance the S1 sequence by one step. The 8S has a dedicated trigger out track, so you don’t have to make any sacrifices to do this, and it opens up a lot of creative scope for shifting sequences, in advance or on the fly. You might want MIDI in certain situations, but trigger sync is one of life’s natural pleasures and should be embraced whenever the opportunity arises (especially with anything based on the 101)

In the simplest scenario you’d just go into the trigger out track and sweep a finger across all 16 steps, job done (at least on the 8S, you’ll probably need to set the S1 up in some way too).

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