subscribed! This was a very cool video. I have the tr8-vt3 and tb3 so it was cool to hear your remarks on the inside of these boxes. happy to see more and more videos of these boxes appearing. i have had all of these boxes since they were released to the public.
Yes, the sliders aren’t very robust and must be replaced after some time, in my case 3 years of use they lasted. However, after all these years since it was released I still love my TR8
Having replaced my fair share of faders throughout my life as a musician I can tell you it does happen. Those linear pots do wear out but it takes a decently long time. If it's anywhere near the quality of other Roland instruments, those should last a good 20 years or more with consistent use. More like 50 if you don't use it often. I don't use anything from the TR series myself as i mostly stick to keyboards and MPCs. My personal favorite is the Native Instruments Maschine MkII so far though both Akai and Roland make a decent one too. Then again, so does Korg. It's just personal preference mind you as I find Maschine to be the most intuitive for me.
Thanx for the look inside these machines and sharing it with us:) As i´ve got some real vintage drum gear, i know the difference between new and old. As i got some old (and cheap), really old, newer and new here side by side. The vermona ER9 is analog and old, the Ace Tone Rhythm Ace FR-2L is even older. It´s from a company that was later called ROLAND ;) It´s based on germanium transistors. And it got a punch that no digital unit comes close, thanx to its free running VCOs. The RX-5 is a good example of first generation true digital sample based DM, the RY-10 is cool when it comes to emulation of 808/909 as yamaha done a really good sample job.The MR10 (Yamaha) is a very underrated DM, It´s a digital drummer with an old DM look and feel. It´ll produce some digital noise when setting the pots fully CW or CCW - not intended i think, but nice;) If you put a 808 or 909 side by side with your new TR, sync them and let them play together, the TR will sound flat and just ordinary digital, trust me... If you got an ipad just get a copy of the the ReBirth 338 (i338) you can do the same it sounds more like the 808/909/303 and it´s syncable via midi.... But if you like the TR/TB just have some fun with them, as you got them and the lightshow is awesome anyway....:)
"trust me". Have you done it? Compared the two? You know that all analog xox drum machines will sound different, unit to unit, so expecting the TR-8 to sound identical to any one of them is unrealistic. However, they shot for a happy medium, and there are many side by side test videos, blind tests where career producers were not able to distinguish between the two. When coming to these conclusions, that "no digital unit comes close" you truly have to consider your own confirmation bias. You own and love vintage gear, you don't want the TR-8 to compare, but the general consensus is, its punchy as hell and most often quoted as being 95% true to the originals. I would truly love to see you take a blind test with someone else's TR-808 vs the TR-8. Its ok for non analog things to sound great you know. It takes nothing away from you or your vintage gear.
I´ve serviced so many 808/909 machines over the years...i really know what i´m talking about. That´s why i have no 808/909 anymore. the FR-2L still has it all when it comes to the 808 sound and it was damn dirt cheap, when i got it. the 909 is hybrid anyway...I also re-build the 808 Bassdrum circuit myself. No one use the plain audio out of any 808/909 these days anyway. they´re running though countless compressors/filters/distortion effects... The original 808 bassdrum, for example, plain uneffected output has a dynamic range of around 40dB with a very fast attack as well. i doubt you ever heard that.... If you want punch you need to cut that attack down, clip it and flatten the top, as there is what everyone calls "punch" and that is what a compressor does if it´s set up right. All trax have a procesed 808 on it...only early electro tracks have the pure 808 sound. C.O.D."in the bottle" - instrumental is a classic for a nearly none post-pro 808 sound. and also the a-side in comparisson for any usual slight post-pro 808 bassdrum. Today we´re talking about a compressor chain, with lots of EQ and stereo image post-pro. but this is in no way "the" 808" sound. and this is what the TR-8 does.... I also think that roland now got the idea, by releasing these "boutique" series. small, portable, rather in-expensive and also with the looks...
OK, so that's all pretty interesting, but didn't really address what I said or the questions I asked. Are you dismissing the TR-8 due to some time spent with it, and based on blind tests against the analog units, or are you making an assumption based purely on the fact it's digital?
Good video:) thx! I actualy remember for the first report, or let say behind the scenes video about this new TR Tb serie. The old engineers love the work with the new japanies programmers. One of the old guy almost cry when the Roland invite them. They just wondered about the new asic or dsp computing capacity. The other said, so now we can desing new instruments on a old fashion way, then the dsp will do whatever we draw on paper? The young workers just smile and say, well.... To be countiuned :))) The Roland has a great team allways, this is what You feel on their instruments. if You touch ever JP8080 or Jupiter 8 or the new 80, or D50, or MC 303, 909... I find allways great engineering inside. and interesting solutions.
managed to put an old procco rat distortion pedal inside (well the board anyway) and put a switch on the back to knock it on and off took some fiddling wiring wire from the output board to the rat board then fit 2 extra mix sockets on 6.3mm works well and drilled a few holes in bk of the unit for the rat controls took about 6 hours to mod but its 1 of a kind
Just seen there will be a 707 and 727 download for sale from Roland for the TR-8 . . . does anyone know if this will be downloadable directly to the TR-8 unit or will it have to go through a DAW. as I still cannot install the SH-101 on my System-1 yet. I hope Roland get around to sorting this out as Im sure Everyone out there does not have up to date VST3 Daws.
+markusfuller DAW compability list to plugout to system-1 can be found here: roland.com/support/article/?q=confirmation&p=PG%2DSH101&id=63196233 Example: Ableton Lite 9, that you get for free with system-1, only works with 32-bit not 64-bit
I know it, tb3 is just little board with single arm chip :D was about to open my tb but then I looked here and you already done it;) nice one Just shows how much money Roland gained from this probably worth £70 and that includes profits:D
Hi Mark, thanks for this I enjoy your work. Would electrical insulation tape be suitable to dull the LED lights? example cutting out squares and sticking over the white row of blocks at the bottom of the board shown around 7:23
Thanks SoloStuff. I just cannot wait to take things apart. always been a curious kid taking things to pieces and sometimes putting them back together again. :-)
For 19:09 (yes it contains the 909 ;) It is not imperfection in first place, it free running, not synced, not sample based sound generation. If you trigger an analog drum VCO, it is not starting at the same point of the wave cycle every time you start it. It depends on the where the waveform is, at the time you hit the DrumPad. So repeated triggering will start the VCO at different states of the waveform and it will sound different. While sample based VCOs will be sound the same (=machine gun effect). The done a work around by modulating the sample startpoint via velocity or time or both, but the sample remains the same. while the analog VCO is running free only triggered by a voltage. You never know where it is when you hit the pad. Some more complex analog drum circutis uses real (but simple) VCAs, here you have a total free running VCO. This is true for the whole 808 and 909 analog voices. As the 909 contains samples for cymbals, crashes and hi-hats.
Do you know what kind of contact did they use for the start/stop button? Mine has just died in the TR-6S and its very similar.. It is not a standard microswitch is it? It seems to me that its a sort of piezo contact. Any tips on how to bring that start/stop button to life? Cheers!
hi mark thank you for all very informative videos i was wondering if it's not to hard to change the faders on the mc 707 or the tr8s for someone who is a newbie working in electronic repairs do you think these faders will stand the test of time thank you seb
I was thinking to buy the TR-8, it sounds the same as the TR-808-909, it is more durable and reasonably priced. No way is a tr-909 worth $3,000 when you can buy one of these. If I buy one though, I won't be taking it apart so this video is interesting.
any ideea if we could do an optical ADAT conversion on the tr8 with the necessary boards and stuff ? would be massive to send all the channels via an optical cable on a proper DAC without the latency of usb...
It's a shame they didn't make it 'analog' the joy of buying such a thing would be the warmth, good thing I have my TR 505, it's probably digital even if it was made in 1984.
Hey mate I'm hoping you could help me with my TR-8 as some of the individual drum/sequencer buttons (1-16) on my unit stopped working. Every 4th button doesn't work! (4, 8, 12, 16). This is after the first 4 buttons not working, I took it apart and cleaned the PCB/Squiggly line - put it back together and then 4,8,12,16 stopped working. I can't even get it to switch by "shorting" the squiggly line/track like I can with the rest of the buttons? (although with one I can and it seems to trigger another button at the same time, I've not been able to repeat this - it looked like if I shorted the track in different parts of the same button it would change though) As you can imagine not being able to use every 4th beat is a bit frustrating!
Thanks for the video Markus - really interesting to see inside! I imagine the filter knobs on the TB will need replacing after a bit as they become more & more abused... I wonder if they are standard value pots? Anyway - thank you!
Modern digital/DSP doesn't require a lot of hardware. Those Roland chips presumably have all the DSP silicon and then everything else is support. Most/all of the new Rolands probably have the same primary processing board or a slight variation on it. The MIDI isolators are unusual packages. Curious if they went with one of the newer non-optical isolators. Did you get a part number? Would be good to know if a proper synth company has gone that route.
Hi Pete, Sorry i did not get the chip number of the midi coupler. yes it looks incredibly small if that was the actual midi isolator chip. I will run through the video on the camera. it should be 1080p so i may get a look. I have set the thing up in my music room now and keep playing it. best wishes from Markus
hello friend, I wanted to ask if you know anything about the encoding used by roland in tr.8, I was repairing mine, changing the fuse , fader and cleaning. When I reassembled on power up it swiped and displayed characters, all for 3 seconds. I saw that the voltage of 3.3 from the memories - 1.7 ( no idea ) and one of -15 I think dropped down to zero . I found a small tin bead in what I think is a regulator or something similar. But knowing what is U20 or U18 is very difficult.
Hello Perker Red. I am real sorry but I do not own the TR-8 or TB-3, I sold them a long time ago and do not know what the component U20 or U18 will be. very sorry there is no way I can check for you as I do not have them here.
Really enjoyed this teardown. I'm interested in how much memory have on the TR-8. Is that 3 x 256mb? Seems a lot for a machine that claims to not use samples... On the QC front my TR arrived 4 days ago. Unfortunately I had to send it back as the side-chain knob was non functioning. This doesn't bode well for the future for us knob twiddlers. However I was impressed with the sound, how ever it's generated.
Hi Michael. Yes it seems there are 3x256Mb memory on board. yes it looks plenty more than is required. maybe there are updates on the way when the sales start to fall to attract new buyers. we will see I guess.
Nice vid & presentation, subbed :) ...& yeah yeah im an oldschool purist too, its not the real thing, but when u on the road for 12y with 150 kg of gear every week...i tell ya i wish we had those in the '90s would have saved money AND a hernia :) the crowd on the floor cant tell the difference from an CR78 to a TR909 anyway, let alone digital from analogue... hell u become best DJ with your hands in the air these days....so its cool, only 20y too late Roland i mean when was the last time you saw somebody on the dancefloor screaming ACIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID?
Thanks for the teardown. For all Roland's work, it does NOT sound like the original for some reason. Maybe there was some magic inside that they cannot duplicate.
Hi. No it does not sound exactly the same as the 808 or 909 but its pretty close considering that it is vastly different circuitry, and yes when i say in the video that it is better I am talking about the extras - effects sections and scatter etc. and i do like the sliders.
I've recently purchased a cheap faulty tr8 from eBay and apparently the internal fuse is bust. Would you know where to locate they fuse at all? Brilliant videos my friend! Sam
Hi Sam I sold my tr8 a long time ago so cannot check mine for you. however look where the power jack is on the board and you may find a very tiny component with the letter F on it or it may be screen printed onto the board next to the component as F1 . the fuse will be a very small rectangle shape only a few millimeters in size and looks nothing like the older glass fuses that we normally know. I just looked on google for you and cannot get a good image of the board near the power socket but it will be very close to that area. good luck.
@@markusfuller also I don't supose you could link me the exact f1 fuse I would need, I'm guessing it's very similar to the one you find in a Nintendo ds
Samus Ordicus Hi Samus . I do not know what it looks like as i have not got my unit now. however you may find the fuse on rs-electronics or mouser of farnell websites. i guess there may even be someone on ebay that will sell them also. look for any numbers on the fuse as that will tell you the fuse rating. It will be very tiny so you may need to measure it as best as you can to get a replacement to sit on the copper pads on the board correctly. If i still had mine i would have opened it up and checked for you but mine went a long time ago. sorry about that.
@@markusfuller thank you for your information, any is good! Really really appreciate it buddy! I'll have a look about, I'll figure it out from here I'm sure :) Bless you
Hi I just set the thing up to show it working and the video is about whats inside. I did not have enough time make several patterns and demonstrate sounds etc as there are many very good videos on youtube already demonstrating the audio.
These videos are always great! I would be interested what you would do with an RC 505 Looper. (There is a Micro SD card inside which can be replaced by a card reader.)
Hi Mark, Can you tell me how you removed the main board? I removed all screws, including those on the two smaller boards, but the main board feels stuck to the front face plate.
Hi I did the american DJ unit in another video. there is a technics sl1210 with problems on the way to me soon. if I get my hands on some more DJ gear then I will certainly make videos for them. many thanks
For 12:47 and up, did they have a final quality check at the roland fab, i think no...i just done a real *lol* when i just seen this;) Do you really believe in the "buzz" roland (and others too) put out when they claim to "emulate" analog circuits? Are you amiliar with spice? This is an accepted tool when it comes to serious simulating of analog components and their behavior. And when you do some serious simulations, it took seconds up to minutes to simulate just a bunch of OpAmps and transistors on a good up to date workstation, not PCs they need 2-4 times the time;) I have done some DSP work, when the motorola DSP56002 was famous (the nord modular synth is based on this DSP for ex.) as well as some guys on "DIY-Synth mailing list" done the same. And some came up with really cool code for oscillators and filters. And imagine what happened, some companies simply took these code tweak it a little and use them in their own products...
Well I hope you get the chance to pick up the "Volca Beats". Its very fun and the best modern reiteration of an old 808 in my opinion. By the way, I really enjoy your videos and the way you teach in a light hearted manner. I hope to see more!
I feel like it's not very satisfying to circuit bend these digital machines if you can get an old anologue / semi-analogue instrument and have easier access to the parts that actually create the sound.
Hi Marcus, nice video....but.... Sorry, these two may going vintage some day, but not famous.Ok they do thier jobs but nothing fancy here. I checked them out as well here @ "Musikmesse Frankfurt" this year and found them ok but not mre. Korg with their volcas is much more valuable and sounding more "in your face" as they use true analog circuits for some sounds (=volca beats). As Roland is too late, while others (as jomox, cyclone, elektron, korg....) have cutted in and leading the scene. Roland is more or less becomming a "me too" in electronic music gear. The good days gone since the V-synth went out of production.
Hi TubiCal. yes these will be Vintage one day though I don't think they will sell for several times their original price as the 808 does. I still think that they could have made the thing actually analog at not much more cost.
Hi Markus, would you be willing to have a crack at replicating some of the circuits in the 808? www.ericarcher.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/808-svc-man.pdf
fkthewhat Hi. I would love to replicate the circuits but I just do not have enough spare time. theres too much other work i have to do and not enough time for things i want to do.
what you forget is that "made in china" means nothing anymore since its made in china by machines, the same machines that would make it in your country if it was done there
Paul is right. I'm against Chinese working conditions, and the Chinese government in general, but the reality is that the manufacture of these devices is highly automated. Yes, the Chinese still use a load of people in packaging, delivery etc. but all the boards are put together with world-class component picking machines, etc. The other reality is that if these devices were made in Japan, the cost would be much higher, simply due to the very large difference in labour rates. And the cost would be astronomical if keyboards were made in the UK, France, Germany, Australia etc. Also, let's remember that in a modern synth, almost all of the functionality is in software. Those DSPs and ROMs hold the efforts of hundreds of expensive (non-Chinese) programmers, engineers and musicians.
Roland's ACB (Analog Circuit Behavior) is pure marketing bullshit. Roland's fancy name for something that's been around since the early 2000: analog modelling. Simply put, it mathematically reproduce, or should I say tries to reproduce, the waveform output of those classic machines that they're trying to mimic (sometimes badly). It's the same thing with their previous COSM (Composite Object Sound Modelling) technology, another marketing bullshit that failed to deliver. This TR8 has nothing to do with a real TR-808 or 909. No life at all. They could have at least programmed a little randomness into their modelling algorithms, to try to recreate the subtle variations of real analog ? But no. And with today's SMT electronic technology, coupled with Roland's massive industrial design power, there's no reason why they couldn't remake a genuinely analog machine that combines both TR-808 and TR-909 in one box for the same price as this. Every other company is doing real analog stuff, even Korg with their MS-20 re-edition and their Volca series. Why not Roland ? Why ? Simply because they don't get it. Either that, or they're all deaf. Anyway, thanks for this teardown.
Roland in general are doing sloppy jobs in hardware design in the last few years... This thing is pure marketing, all they did was try to shut up their customers before someone else does (you want a 808/909 reissue ? here have this eventhough we could've just released an upgraded 707 this is something more shiny ...) If I want something even close i'd buy an acidlab miami or a jomox xbase (09/888/999) The TB3 failed just because why a digital thing when there are plenty of X0XBoxes available ? The only promising product of the aira range might be the plugout synth
I own a TR-8 and an 808 and I have to say that TR-8 is better! Yes its digital etc etc but it sounds so dam close and gives me the same smile as the 808. My 808 has hiss on output, my TR-8 does not. I can integrate my TR-8 in to my DAW, short of messing with sync I can't do this with the 808 - as for sound the TR-8 retains the character of the 808 and does an amazing job; anyone who says it is lifeless is talking from the hole in their arse and not the one in the mouth. In fact I've put my 808 in to storage since buying the tr-8 and am even thinking about selling it...
