Today is August 8, and you know what that means: it's the music tech world's annual excuse to sing the praises of history's most iconic drum machine. This year, the legendary Roland TR-808 turns 45, ...

Often used as either a kick, a bass, or a combined kick-and-bass in many genres, the TR-808 bass drum is undoubtedly the most recognisable electronic kick sound of all time. During an era where kick ...

Often used as either a kick, a bass, or a combined kick-and-bass in many genres, the TR-808 bass drum is undoubtedly the most recognisable (and possibly overused) electronic kick sound of all time.

If you know the history of drum machines, the first thing you want to do with the TR-8S is load up the 808 kick drum. It's a deep, satisfying boom that's been an important part of everything from ...

These days, few new electronic instruments have an identifiable "sound". We buy them on the understanding that they'll have thousands of preset configurations that will let us emulate sounds we've ...

Even if you've never heard of the Roland TR-808 drum machine, you've definitely heard it. Developed in Japan as a user-friendly way to produce an electronic drum beat, the 808 grew into one of the ...

The sequencer on the 808, a row of 16 color-coded buttons, offered artists a way to store beats they programmed. Courtesy of Roland Even if you don't know the Roland TR-808 drum machine by name, ...

If you're a fan of 1980s music, then there's a very good chance that you'll already be familiar with the electronic beats provided by what's widely regarded as the drum machine that started it all, ...

I thought I had already written about the bass (‘kick’) drum synthesiser in the Roland TR808 but, searching the Electronics Weekly archive, I can’t find it. Hearing of the death of its inventor, ...