Roland TR8S

[(o)(o)]

(split out from the Behringer thread)

[RiK] How you lking the TR8S... I notice you picked one up (YT)

[RiK]

How you lking the TR8S... I notice you picked one up (YT)

Short verdict: It’s great
A worthy upgrade for the TR8. Some good factory examples to show off the potential.

Looks much more ‘grown up’ than the TR8, nice feel to the knobs etc.

Most definitely not to be compared with the Elektron boxes, different mind-set, but this is going to be a very welcome addition to my studio.

The immediacy of the TR style editing, instant access to the mute/volume/ctrl for every instrument etc. will make this perfect for a quick jam, especially when you consider the potential available from the pattern variant chains and the auto fill feature. Will be great to just kick it off on a long pattern with an auto fill every 8 bars and just jam with the other gear.

[RiK]

Here’s a quick video of a couple of factory patterns which show the benefit of the pattern chains and auto fills…



Apologies for the repeat of one clip… that’ll teach me to edit on the iPhone!


Ha, it’s dead easy to spot the sample patterns that Craig Blundell* did, the first one here is a dead giveaway.



Of course with all such devices, the factory presets are just useful as demos of what it can do. You’re not going to actually use them in a track, but they’re handy as a quick tour to find your way around in the first couple of days eh?







* My friend Craig is an astounding drummer, on tour with Stephen Wilson at the moment, but for years now he’s been a demo guy and involved with Roland on the drum side. He does a lot of product development and sound design work for them on their V-Drums and other projects. I can tell instantly he had a hand in that particular preset as it’s just like one of his ‘Dr Oktopus’ tracks…

[WiteWulf]

Nice, and I didn't realise Blunders had been called up to the Wilson Mothership now!

[RiK]

Nice, and I didn't realise Blunders had been called up to the Wilson Mothership now!

Where've you been dude? He's been SW's sticks man for a couple of years now..

[WiteWulf]

Livin' in the past...not got to see Wilson do any of his solo stuff live. In my mind he's still got Gav on drums (even though I've seen him with KC ) and Blunders is still busy doing Jon's stuff (which is were I still see most mention of him on Twitter).

That last Lonely Robot album was lovely and I'm all sorts of excited about a new Kino album.

[RiK]

In my mind he's still got Gav on drums

So you missed the whole Marco Minneman phase between Gavin and Craig then?

[RiK]

and Blunders is still busy doing Jon's stuff

Last time I spoke to Craig he said he'd played on nearly 50 different projects last year aside from the SW stuff...

[WiteWulf]

So you missed the whole Marco Minneman phase between Gavin and Craig then?

I didn't think much of the early Wilson solo stuff, The Raven..., Grace For Drowning and Insurgentes left me cold, but I loved Hand.Cannot.Erase (didn't like The Incident, either, for that matter, actually). Consequently didn't pay much attention to band personnel. I the stuff he did with Mickael Akkerfeldt(sp?) straight around the end of PT was much more interesting.

[(o)(o)]

This seems a LOT more exciting for performance to the TR8. (I actually like that african/tribal preset someone moaned about on one of your videos!) I had quite a play with the TR8 and it was OK, fine, but a bit limited, not enough to play around with. The standout feature was scatter, does this have that?

[gravy]

A minor thing but it's a lot more solidly made, probably the most pro feeling bit of kit in the aira range

[RiK]

The standout feature was scatter, does this have that?

Yes it does, as one of the fill options.

You now also have the ability to record a couple of dedicated fills, they're just like any other pattern but only used as fills. You can also select any of the 8 pattern variants as a fill, or scatter mode, which operates exactly as it did on the original TR8 other than having a dedicated rotary for it. Now you just hold down the manual fill button and rotate the value knob to select the scatter depth.

If you select from the original TR8 ACB kits, you can do everything you did on the TR8. They've slightly modified the way side chaining works on the external in, in that now you select which track you want as the SC input rather than a dedicated sequence, but that's fine as generally it's going to be the kick anyway.

[RiK]

A minor thing but it's a lot more solidly made, probably the most pro feeling bit of kit in the aira range

I think it's mainly just the fact it's flat instead of the previous wedge shape and they've lost that grotty Aira green..
The knobs and most of the buttons are a bit nicer with the rubberised feel too.

My only real gripe, and I'm not sure if it's a problem with mine until I get a chance to try another one is the sensitivity of the one velocity sensitive pad. You have to hit it really hard to get a response and I have a feeling I may have a bit of a dodgy one there. Going to pop into PMT and try one in there before I consider getting mine swapped..

[(o)(o)]

Thanks for that.

It's a bit disco-ball (at least you can change the colours, right?), but otherwiseI'm liking everything I see/hear about TR-8S...

I want one. Oh dear..