There is one company, one man, that has influenced and effected the direction of music more than any other. By happenstance, by mistake, through failings and constraints this company has made a greater impact on music technology than any other. That man is Ikutaro Kakehashi, his company? The Roland corporation. Well, strictly speaking his first company was Ace Electronics Industries, manufacturing organs and drum machines until funding failed and a return to the drawing board. Ikutaro reached for a phone book in 1972 and arbitrarily selected the name Roland because it seemed like an easily pronounceable and innocuous western name.
The story of Roland deserves more than a stub like this but it is one of both innovation, of miscalculation, of shrewd business practises leading to unexpected outcomes. The slightly (but cheaper) batch of faulty chips that went into the 808, giving it’s kick drum the most heard electronic pulse in the history of sound. But also limiting it’s initial run because the faulty chips ran out. It’s successor the 909 furnishing our dance floors with the most played recorded moment in time – of all time! It’s eponymous (and in my opinion horrific) choked open hi hat.
Whilst these two drum machines, the 808 and 909 have defined what became EDM, taking the world by storm, making legends out of countless nerdy bedroom producers. It was the utter failing of a bass synth counterpart to these drum machines that defined a new era in music.
Launched in 1981, the TB303 was a drum machine that played bass notes. With an aim of making all bass players look for new forms of employment using a clock that synchronised to Roland’s drum machines. It was destined to do with bass what the 808 did with drums, and as Ikutaro hoped, fly off the shelves.
There were two problems with it however.
- It was totally impossible to use.
- It wasn’t very bassy.
With poor build quality and a toy-like feel. This McGuffin failed to take the world by bass-storm and failed to fly off shelves. As a consequence it was discontinued in 1984 with 10,000 unwanted units languishing in bargain bins in music (and pawn) shops around the world.
The rise of the bedroom producer, the crate digging DJ on the search for breaks. Led to a culture of foraging for ways of putting tracks together and producing them without the need for expensive recording studios. Enter the band “Phuture” who had bought a cheap TB303. Confounded by its use. Namely that producing anything but a one bar pattern seemed beyond anyone without an engineering degree led to them fiddling around with it to make that one bar hold interest. Twiddling with it’s small bargain-basement knobs led them to the discover of the “liquid” squelchy effect of the cut off and resonant encoders being rotated. It’s effect was unexpected and hypnotic. This featured on what is argued to be the world’s first house track “Acid Tracks” in 1987. The rest is as they say history.
So we thought we’d capture our own little beast (these second hand relics now fetch well in excess of $2000 second hand) to share in it’s historical value to the world of music.
Tip though, don’t be fooled by the “bass” promise, it will not deliver any there. But plenty of squelchy electronic repetition will take you all the way back to that Summer Of Love.