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The Roland tr909

The Roland tr909. The classic drumcomputer that gave housemusic its sound. The distinct kick, cymbals and snares are heard on the majority of records in housemusic. From classic, to the latest future house releases. The tr909. A updated version of the tr808 analog drummer from 81. But this had a hybrid soundengine that also featured samples in the cymbalsection.

They weren't soldout in the stores, instead they were often found below their standard price elsewhere. Dj's and producers started buying them for cheap, and with more records it was heard on the more popular it became.

Electronic drumcomputers were common in the 80's, almost every genre had synthetic drums.
The 808 was marketed as the future drummachine, the computer controlled sequencer with analog sound synthesis. So when the 909 came along the musicians quickly adopted it in their future sound palette. Its accent function boosts certain sounds in the steps from the sequencer wile the unaccented steps remains in lower gain. Then with its flexibility to program steps by pressing the desired 16-keys, in realtime or in offmode, helps builds the pattern very easily. Each drumpart had a dedicated knob for attack, release, tune and volume.

The tr909 was discontinued before it became successful in the musicscene. Almost 40 years after, the sound is still being heard on records. With DAW's, producers can use samples of the classic drummachine,  still having almost any other sound available to use. Back in the day a producer was forced to work with 1 drummachine. This were the drumsounds he had.

Before DAW's you had samplers, and midisequencers, Samplers helped the musician record any desired sound. Still this drummer dominated the drumkits.  its the main go to sound for music for the dancefloor.

In 2017, Roland made the boutique series, with the tr09. A small version of the tr909 emulating the sound. The unit was limited and sold out quickly.

The tr909 is a synthesizer with multiple drumparts, its easy to use, each part have a dedicated output, it has midi. It doesn't sound like a synthesized version of a drumkit, it has a unique sound. You can shape the sounds with compressors, reverbs eq's, tune it after the bassline and still make the kickdrum sound good. Its pleasing, not too harsh sounding, any musician can use it. Then it has a evergoing legacy of records its been featured on.
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