The TR-09 ships with the DK-01 Boutique Dock into which it clips neatly. This is a more substantial box than its 308 x 130 x 51 mm dimensions might suggest its cold metal panel rests on a plastic base and its knobs are small and crammed closely together, a far cry from the friendly spacing of the TR-909 (or, indeed, the TR-8). To progress the review I therefore had to borrow a micro-USB adapter/charger from another piece of gear. This petite drum machine is initially powered from four AA batteries (supplied), but as it had been well exercised before reaching me, they didn’t last much beyond a first exploratory session. While still taking stock, I realised there is no connector for a conventional power adapter, just a micro-USB port. I looked around for the main volume control, only to find it on the rear panel - as an even tinier control.
ROLAND SPD 20 CHARGER PLUS
There’s a mini-jack headphone socket too, plus a Mix input capable of handling stereo signals from another Boutique, iPad, etc. The TR-09’s main output is a stereo mini-jack and without any individual outputs at all, that pan control quickly feels essential. All of which presents wider scope for experimentation than the original machine. The hidden parameters are: the gain and pan of every instrument, the tuning of specific drums (rim shot, clap and hi-hats) and the decay of others (rim, clap, crash and ride cymbals). As such, they are always live, but in some cases extra parameters are available too - hidden in a menu system complete with a four-character display and data entry encoder. Each drum voice has dedicated controls to match those of a TR-909. The rest are much smaller and divided into those having an integral red LED and those in clear plastic, able to light or flash. TR-09īeginning with the dove grey (my wife reckons) TR-09, there are a couple of regular-sized buttons - Start and Stop/Continue.
Could it be that these ultra-portable versions mark Roland’s last word on the subject? We can only wonder. On this occasion, the look is very clearly based on the originals and the Aira green is but a memory. Even so, it was something of a surprise to hear the range had been expanded to include a Boutique TR-909 and TB-303.
ROLAND SPD 20 CHARGER SOFTWARE
Next, the Boutique range delivered new software impressions of classic synths, but cut down in scale and polyphony. The TB-3 and TR-8 (which incorporated TR-808 and TR-909 kits) didn’t look much like their illustrious predecessors, but thanks to the magic of Analogue Circuit Behaviour they sure managed to sound like them.Īfter the release of those two fine machines, Roland might have planned to move on to pastures new, but not so. Are Roland’s recreations the last word on these classic instruments?Ī few years ago, Roland finally responded to the requests of many devotees by bringing back some of their legendary instruments, albeit using software modelling techniques rather than analogue circuitry.
0 kommentar(er)
