Roland TR-707: Going Back In Time With Bill Holland

[fender1000100]

Good machine but a Yanaha RX11 has more punch and a better bass drum and clap. For less bucks.

[teknofon]

the 909s have some sampled sounds like the crash and hi hats!

and by the way you can tap in the patterns on the 707

and also you can change the pattern length on the 707

do you know anything about the 707?

[POLCAPI458]

The best drum machine ever!

[dubadoobie]

how do you clear the patterns?



[dusp2k]

@dubadoobie With the clear button?

[funkocoriko]

The "shuffle" function on the tr707 is DOPE.

[smackyjack]

I remember hating Roland for making these. I still do.

[theepastajoe]

Great Video...very helpful. Was reading through your comments, and sorry to see there are people just trying to prove everyone wrong. I thought EVERYTHING you said was helpful. Thanks for posting!

[PHAEDRIDER]

i bought one of these last week, i didnt "need " it because i have a drumtraks, BUT the brain OOOH the brain on this sucker. within a few minutes i had it clocking the arppegiator on my juno 60 in wonderful ways. and theres still midi AND dinsynch in case i wind up with an 808 i can slave it or ( more realistically a 606 or dr 110) to midi. best part is is was cheap . i walked out with it for 186 at a pawnshop . ohh. and it has sounds in it too.

[djkikis]

can u change the pattern as it is playing? and can u save and then select different patterns in succession? making a live electronic band :)

[gudmundurThor96Nr2]

The 909 was a digital and analog drum machine

[pomfrit93]

TR 909 isent a purely analog drumachine! it has samples as well!

[andy92811]

Can the TR-707 play open and closed hi-hats at the same time?

[dusp2k]

@andy92811 No

[subclonk]

The 909 is not purely analogue - the hats and cymbals are 6-bit samples. Not that that matters one bit cos it still sounds amazing.

[andy92811]

What's a good price (now) for one of these? Thanks.

[darklorddisco]

This was extremely helpful, thanks so much!

[ratatat99]

Thanks for creating this video. It helped me get started! I have a Roland SH-101. Do you know how to connect the two?

[aceyage]

Nobody wanted to have a 909 in the 80s. The 707 came out because people wanted their drum machines to sound real. Both the 909 and the 707 where massive failures becuase they didn't sound real. Roland first got that right with the R8 which came out in 1988.

[OctaveRange]

Putting an Accent on every step kind of defeats the purpose of having an Accent - Just turn the volume up a bit if you want everything louder!

[TR0jAX]

i had one but i was actually dissapointed about the sound quality, sounds really harsh and flat. i bought a esx instead with vintage drummachine samples

[8golftango]

this was my first piece of kit in the 90s techno days, ill never sell it. still hate that snare though

[MADPEDEN]

HOLA GHOST!

[sikdelphi303]

u wanna get a tempo knob mate, there pretty cheap

[delightfuldennis]

how many patches can this hold?

[delightfuldennis]

sorry i meant how many patterns?

[G1R0T3CH]

1,2 Bass drum

3,4 Snare drum

5 low tom

6mid tom

7hi tom

8,9 rimshot cowbell

10, 11 hand clap

12,13,14 hi hat

15 crash

16 ride

[snolan1990]

@delightfuldennis

64 Patterns but with the tape out put (which you could hook up to your PC) it's pretty easy to make backups of your patterns

[Drogles]

Rubbish!!! The 707 has a great tap function, where you ,unlike the 808, can tap in all the instruments of a beat in just one go. Assuming that you are a tight enough tapper!!! Just pres shift and pop it from STEP WRITE to TAP WRITE.!

[Intosia]

The 909 is not fully analog, but partialy pcm ;)

[ivanski28]

Yo dude, I'm pretty sure some of the hat and cymbal sounds on the 909 were sampled!

[CleverDjembe]

Needs more cowbell!!

[snolan1990]

Nice demo

I am going to try to get a 707 & a 626 the sounds are very 80s but also very good in a finished House track

thanks

[foraxx]

"unlike the 808 they don't have a tap function"

"i'm going to hold shift and hit pattern step / TAP"

[gearwire]

thanks for that. I figured that out after borrowing it. I never get enough time with the gear before we demo.

[SPAZZOID100]

@gearwire

The 909 was NOT purely analog, as the cymbals and crash were digital samples.

Do you guys do ANY research at all?

[lych14]

can you sequence more than 1 measure? if not can you save several patterns and play them in the order as you want?

Great demo anyway thanx!

[gearwire]

64 patterns can be stored, but I forget the number of measures per pattern.

[carocafella]

awsome stuff, i have a 909 808, really like the cleanliness of some of these sounds though

[acidchild]

#5. Pattern length can be altered via the "Last Step" option. It has nothing to do with the length of the drum samples. Don't know where that came from.

#6. What's weird about the tempo? You turn the Tempo knob, it changes tempo. What's weird about that?

Once again, gearwire offers up more misinformation.

[gearwire]

5. I was talking about the release on the drum...i'm more used to using samplers as drum machines. I did not demo "last step" because the button on this particular model was acting up.

6. The tempo knob is not very accurate, so I would most likely slave it to a midi sequencer of some kind.

Thanks for catching a few of those. I hope this clears the other up.

-Bill

[acidchild]

Oh let me count the errors...

#1. TR-909 was not an all analogue drum machine. The hi-hats, cymbals and crash are 8 bit samples.

#2. You can program the 707 in real time.

#3. Lay down a "bass line'? Not on the 707.

#4. There are actually 2 levels of Accent on the 707.

[gearwire]

#1. you are in fact correct, although I was always given the impression from other producers that it was in fact analog. It seems to be a common misnomer.

#2. Can you? I asked the owner of this model and looked around online, but could not find a way to "tap" in beats.

#3. I meant bass kick. pardon that.

#4. I know that now, and if I had more time to play with the 707 ( i had it for two days) I probably would have figured that out.

[djhijinx]

8 bit samples passed through an analog filter.