What’s going on here?
I’m a big fan of those classic Roland drum sounds.
I employ 606, and 707 in my setup, and then with my TD-12 I fire up 808, and 909 patterns. Was hoping the TR-8 would eat up those 3 machines in a tighter live setup.
But yeah, every week there is a mint tr8 on CL?
Any owner’s out there got any insights on this?
Who knows, but think of it as an opportunity to pick up a mint one for a great price! I’d get one if I didn’t have drum machines up the yin-yang.
We’ll see. Once I hsve a spare $500 to spend on beats, I think I’d rather save up the other 1500 and grab AR.
i have one and love it. i got it on pre-order the moment they came out. it’s lived up to every expectation i have. i have yet to install the 707/727 kits. i think $95 is a little much for basically a firmware upgrade. but i get it. i need to pay to keep supporting the development. i already have a 707 so that’s really why i haven’t pony’d up yet.
it’s great for 808 and 909 sounds. easy to program. even live. really easy to play. the fx’s suck. and the scatter fx are even worse. but the naked 808 and 909 sounds are REALLY good. and to me, the swing/feel of the beasts are there.
i hate the black/green color scheme though. ha!
i even wanted to like the system 1m but much like the tr8 it is not my cup of tea appearance or build quality wise.
they sound great, someone just needs to make a nice all metal after market enclosure for it 
as an also tr-808 owner i must say i really like the tr-8…ok for comparison the hihats are a bit too sharp…not silky as on my 808…and the rimshot is also too spikey…but 909 and 707/727 plus 808 is a really nice combo in one machine…but the design is something i don’t know what to say…blurb…anyway cool machine and hopefully stuffed with some other tr-vintage in near future…for that price…a no brainer
what i really don’t understand is…tr-808 has an A-1-2 plus B 1-2 part…so 64 steps to build a beat…i miss that on the tr-8
http://www.roland.com/products/syr-e84/
System 1-m fits in here nicely.
While it is an eyesore, I quite like the sound. It sits nicely in the mix. It’s not perfect and there’s some annoying things about it but it works. If you find one at a decent price it would certainly be a good replacement for live shows.
Most people I know who bought and sold theirs found the lack of physical multi-outs to be annoying in their setup, the design to be gaudy, or generally preferred to use samplers/plugins/loops instead.
For me at least, the TR8 remains one of the few pieces of gear I’ve bought twice. I originally sold it to fund my AR, but I quickly realized that I just don’t like the hats on the AR. Bought another TR8 for $380 with the 707/727 expansion, love what it brings to the table and it compliments the AR nicely in my opinion.
As far as visual design goes: I think it’s absolutely ugly as shit, but frankly I don’t buy gear based on how it looks. Either way it’s super easy to take apart and I plan on doing a custom paint job it then purchasing an overlay. When they are touched up, they look way sharper.
Would’ve been nice if they enabled an option to simply turn off the fader LEDs in favor of using brightly colored fader caps for visual aid purposes instead, but eh whatever.
Anyhow, it has a very immediate nature to its workflow and coupled with its great “meat-and-potato” sounds, the TR8 always finds a way to contribute something to most tracks I work on despite owning an AR and Tempest. For some people, it could just boil down to rather or not it contributed to your general sound.
They’ve sold TONS of TR-8’s. Pretty much everyone (at least over here) who makes HW techno owns one. So, rather obviously, there’s loads of them for sale as well, rather than some more exotic drum machines.
The same way, there are more Toyotas for sale than there are Ferrari Daytonas. That doesn’t mean a Toyota wouldn’t get it’s intented job done.
They’ve sold TONS of TR-8’s. Pretty much everyone (at least over here) who makes HW techno owns one. So, rather obviously, there’s loads of them for sale as well, rather than some more exotic drum machines.
The same way, there are more Toyotas for sale than there are Ferrari Daytonas. That doesn’t mean a Toyota wouldn’t get it’s intented job done.
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Got to agree that this is a huge contributing factor: everyone and their grandma who does tehcno/house bought one of these, so there are a ton of them on the market now by shear volumetrics.
Always loved the 808/909 sounds. Even if I spent lots of time coming up with original sounds on Microtonic, Vermona DRM1, Mbase, etc. I always seem to like the classic 808/909 sounds just as good, if not better.
808/909 samples usually suited me just fine. But I wanted to get a bit more hands-on. Resisted for quite a while because of the absolutely atrocious visual design, imo. If they had just not put the damn green on it. I could live with the weird angular shape, but that green glowing mess? Reminded me of friends in high school who would put those cheesy neon lights underneath their cars. Wow.
But, I saw one on sale and figured I’d give it a go. So, I bought a TR-8 new for around $440. Was fun for a while. But does it provide any great advantage over samples - for studio use? Not really. Not for me at least. If I played live I could definitely see the benefit of having one of these.
Put my TR-8 on Craigslist for months for like $350. Mint! All original materials. Not one inquiry. Put it on ebay for $400 plus shipping. Sold in one day.
I’m curious if they will rework the visual design in a mkII aira series? Surely they read some of these music forums?
I wanted to by tr-8, but noticed on mfb-522, because it has analog engine and moe compact. I’ve found that tr-8 sounds as plastic - far from analog.
Now I’m waiting for analog rytm…
Its the MC-303 of today.
Desirable but with incomprehensible limitations
It fits in nicely with this Japanese sub-culture.
(And dont be surprised at what those well paid Roland designers are into)
Yup, that’s the deal breaker for me. It’s cool that it sounds great, but at a certain point, I don’t care how awesome something is supposed to be (even if it was free)… if I can’t bear the sight of it.
I used to feel so bad for being that way, but then again, life is too short for a black/green color scheme straight out of a direct-to-video 90s cyber fantasy…[/quote]
But I would buy the uglyest instrument on the planet if it sounds good.
I never tried it but from what I’ve read the memory is much to small to be interesting and I’m the type " let analog be analog " .
mfb-522! love mine
There’s talk of a Boutique version so the TR-8 may be about to be superseded.
Big fan of all them outputs on a TR-707.
Yup, that’s the deal breaker for me. It’s cool that it sounds great, but at a certain point, I don’t care how awesome something is supposed to be (even if it was free)… if I can’t bear the sight of it.
I used to feel so bad for being that way, but then again, life is too short for a black/green color scheme straight out of a direct-to-video 90s cyber fantasy…[/quote]
+1 to all of that. IMHO Roland got it wrong with the Aira line.
One of the tenants of good design is that the particular design is necessary. That neon green border serves no purpose, and the LED color scheme just follows that poor choice to an even worse conclusion.
I can get by with the low count of assignable outputs. But between it being something I don’t want to look at (and therefore use to compose music), and the limited 16 pattern memory, I just doubt I’d enjoy owning it.
There was a time where I was going to pay $400 for a used TR-8 with 7x7 kit and then put in the effort to make it look the way I wanted but ultimately it isn’t worth it.
Does it make me shallow that I like my tools to have an aesthetic?
I don’t think it does. My workflow and instrument selection are products of design just as my own compositions are. Choosing the pen with which to write is a part of the creative process. The ink it leaves on the medium isn’t any more important than how it feels in the hand. Great care is taken for thoughtful process and there is no room for Tron rip-offs, even if they sound 95% just like $5000 worth of classic drum machines.
I have different feelings about TR8. The sounds are great, if you are looking for the oldschool drum sound and the maschine is really hands on! It´s super easy to programm patterns live when you playing live, tweak all the parametes, have some fun with the build in delay … for me this is, why it´s called "live act ".
But when I listened to the recordings of the live sets, I found the hihats, rides and clap (and even the transients of the bassdrum) are really bright. They cut well through the mix … but for my taste to much … and there is no way to filter or eq when you are using the TR8 with main outs only. And here it comes to the down side for me … 20 or 30 years ago ROLAND made such full powerfull maschines, defining the sound of the future ^^ … but the TR8 in 2015?? Come on ROLAND we have 2015 and there are still only these old sounds in the drum maschine. Why not implement a user sample engine? Some filters? Kit per pattern? Some futuristic drum sounds???
So 909 hihats on the TR8 sounds way better (especially the closed hihats) than using 909 samples on the AR … but I find it really boring to have 808/909/707 hihats only. Same as with bassdrum, tom, ride, rim …