TR-808By ’83, me and John were burning thru drummers endlessly. We were in Barrington, not in the city, and the available musicians generally were not into what we were into. We got sick of constantly auditioning new drummers, so we figured we’d use a drum machine, which was something new we’d heard about. We got a TR-808 and tried using it, but the sound was synthetic. Also, switching to playing with a drum machine from a loose, sloppy, raw band was a challenging transition. I soaked up the manual, understood the machine, saw the possibilities. The band took a break, and a year after I bought the TR-808, I sold it for a Martin acoustic to take with me on my long Europe trip. When I got back, I moved to the city and started working with Sequential and Oberheim drum machines. The MIDI spec arrived linking tape decks, drum machines, samplers, and synths together. Suddenly everyone had great, new tools. It was a revolution.
Comments
