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Freak the Sound: Talking TR-1000 with Peter Brown
Roland's First Analog Drum Machine in 40 Years
From club floors to dark basements, across the festival lawn and into the headphones of countless commuters, a familiar collection of sounds continue to move us. The drum machine, once a nexus point of musical tradition reshaped by the temporary autonomous zone of technological advancement, is now as naturalized to music making as any orchestral instrument, perhaps even more so. Crystallized in clear form, the drum machine has emerged as the primary engine which propels the musical movements of life, and though iterated and reimagined, remains strongly entangled and informed by the legendary sounds that first demanded their place in musical history.
Across these decades of development, one name still reigns supreme. Roland, despite plenty of competition from new and unique designs, continues to be the go-to source for rhythmic material in electronic music genres far and wide. Of course, this is in large part due to the incredible staying power of their most widely beloved and influential instruments, the 808 and 909 in particular, which are elementally essential for many electronic genres. These sounds, as well as the analog circuits dutifully designed to produce them, continue to inspire us towards new musical moves, all the while placing our efforts in a long tradition of musical experimentation and discovery.
Yet, the cultural practice of drum design has grown multiplicitous over the years, moving beyond analog circuits and heavily incorporating sampling, digital synthesis, and other means for generating and arranging captivating percussive sounds. Through it all, Roland has kept up with these developments, producing their first hybrid drum machine in the 909 with its characterful cymbal samples, leading the charge of sample-based beat making with legendary devices like the SP-404, and in recent years, giving us a streamlined synthesis of these techniques in units like the TR-8S.
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Today, the next generation of Roland drum machines emerges in the TR-1000. Bold, brash, and beautiful, the instrument is a love letter to the storied history of artists who reshaped their musical landscape with these powerful electronic tools. Returning to the foreground are analog circuits for the first time in decades, featuring careful refinements to both 808 and 909 designs. This alone would be enough to titillate even the most stoic and begrudged gear-heads, but the TR-1000 doesn't stop there. A full complement of circuit-bent digital drum voices using Roland's advanced ACB analog modeling engine, deep sampling capabilities on par with their dedicated samplers, powerful per-step parameter sequencing, and an immensely flexible interface designed for creative, real-time control of all these possibilities are only starting to scratch the surface of the TR-1000's expansive potential.
Slackjawed in awe of Roland's new testament to their refined rhythmic revelry, we simply had to know more. In this interview, we sit down with the TR-1000's product development leader, Peter Brown, and explore the towering capabilities of this uniquely awesome machine, tracing its inspirations and goals to better understand where Roland is coming from, and where it's going. While the story of the drum machine is far from finished, we're certain this next chapter will inspire new musical moves of rhythmic revolution, synthesizing the sounds of cultural memory with new modalities of interaction, and paving a path for creative constructions yet unheard. Read the full interview below!
An Interview with Peter Brown of Roland
Perfect Circuit: The TR-1000 is the first Roland drum machine to feature analog circuits in over 40 years. Why did it take 40 years for analog circuits to come back, and why now?
Peter Brown: There’s still huge demand for the classic TR-808 and TR-909 tones, but today’s workflow is very different. TR-1000 brings back the most iconic analog voices and extends them with modern controls like wider tuning, decay, and velocity response. Musicians can now blend, layer, and customize these sounds alongside samples and digital models to create unique kits tailored to modern production and performance. For this project, we were less interested in replicating or reissuing classic drum machines and more interested in seeing how we can evolve the sounds to fit a modern instrument.
PC: The analog circuits in TR-1000 aim to capture the authentic sounds of the 808 and 909, carefully crafting a faithful recreation with an even wider range of flexibility in sound design. What sort of decisions went into designing the sound of these voices, especially considering the subtle variations in 808 and 909 vintage units?
PB: A lot of trial and error, testing a variety of original and modified TR-808 and 909s, even ones considered “wonky”. It’s a bit like trying to hit a moving target—you’re never going to come up with a sound that encompasses every 808’s nuance out there, they are far too different from each other. But we focused more on the general “sonic signature” of each sound, testing it with every new or expanded parameter to make sure it captured the spirit of the originals. There’s also the matter of practicality - which circuits contained enough opportunity to enhance something in some way without compromising the stability of the sound or creating a board that becomes impractically large.
PC: In addition to the analog 808 and 909 voices, the TR-1000 includes a number of "circuit bent" models of these and other circuits that take these classic sounds even further with new ways to manipulate them. How do these voices differ from the original analog implementations, and are there any personal favorites you've found among them?
PB: ACB provided the perfect opportunity to go around the limitations of analog and get very experimental. ACB’s component modeling is inherently modular, which makes it possible to start breaking and modifying connections in a fast and fluid way. We were able to experiment and develop dozens of parameters, which were then tested internally and with artists. Some parameters were a bit too “out-there”, but a lot were left in to give users the opportunity to push these sounds into new sonic territories. There are ways to remove the guard-rails and redefine what people consider 808 or 909 sounds.
My favorite modifications are those made to the 909 Rim Shot (9X RS) - the sound itself is three layers, and through ACB we were able to build connections to control the pitch and decay of those layers independently, along with cross modulation. The 808 Bass Drum (8X BD) is also heavily modified. That thing can go wild under the right set of circumstances.
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PC: The TR-1000 incorporates classic Roland drum machine workflows with powerful sampling capabilities that take it far beyond the typical Roland drum machine. When exploring the sampling engines in the TR-1000, I can feel some influence from Roland's sampling staple the SP-404. Were there other samplers on your mind during the design process, from Roland or otherwise, that influenced the sampling engine?
PB: Vintage Roland samplers outside of the SP’s are criminally slept on. The “S” series samplers have a great, crunchy fidelity to them, but also the VP-9000 with its time stretching. We also looked outside of Roland for inspiration. The “Classic” time stretching algorithm sounds great with drum breaks and can be a cool sound design tool when stretched or pitched to the extreme. I hear younger artists making music that sounds reminiscent of 90s Jungle and DnB all the time, so I feel the sound of the time stretch aligns nicely.
PC: The TR-1000 also includes a number of Roland's general-purpose synth engines. What prompted the choice to lean into these synth voices in an otherwise percussion-focused instrument?
PB: I would consider this more of a “rhythm-focused” instrument. It excels at creating the rhythmic backbone of a track, which consists of percussion, but also bass and other tonal elements. It is not a groovebox and does not purport to be an “all-in-one” solution, but instead a specialized tool for building rock-solid rhythms. It is not something to reach for if you need 128 voices of a MIDI piano. Though depending on what genre you are making, that is more than enough.
PC: I understand the TR-1000 was developed with close insight from multiple celebrated musical artists, for whom the classic Roland TR machines have been a staple in their work. What sort of feedback did you get from these drum machine dignitaries, and how did that feedback shape the direction of the TR-1000?
PB: We received a lot of early feedback which set the tone for design and UI direction. Especially in Detroit, we kept hearing artists saying the same phrase of wanting to “freak the sound!” We translated that sentiment to our approach of developing the sound engine. We also had extensive reviews with artists in Japan, New York, Berlin, and London. The Japan sessions were always a pleasure to be involved in. The engineers would review every single new parameter with the artists and take diligent notes on how to improve the sound or feeling. The sessions in Europe and the US were much more open-format.
[Above: pictures from a listening session conducted during the TR-1000's development.]
PC: On each track of the TR-1000, the control knobs are completely mappable to up to four parameters, allowing the user to set up completely customizable control while keeping the knob-per-function feel. What about this openly configurable workflow for hands-on control was important to the design focus of the TR-1000?
PB: Our TR-8S customers were pretty vocal about wanting all knobs assignable. With all of the new parameters in the TR-1000, having not just all macro knobs, but multiple assignments with custom ranges was crucial.
PC: As the first TR-series drum machine with microtiming capabilities, the TR-1000 opens up a huge range of musical possibilities beyond strict, on-the-grid rhythms. How have you found these new options enhance or transcend the established TR-style sequencing vocabulary?
PB: The off-grid sequencing and how it is implemented is a huge step forward for our drum machines. Being able to build your own pocket or shuffle adds a huge amount of life to patterns. It can make even the dullest of sounds more evocative. I think one artist put it in a funny way - they said something to the effect of “it’s like we’ve been digging a deep hole with a spoon and someone hands you a shovel”.
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PC: In the first four tracks of the TR-1000, two independent voices can be layered together in a number of ways, perfect for crafting complex drum voices, switching between two sounds on a single track, and more. Are there any fun tricks in using these layer tracks you've found particularly useful or rewarding?
PB: When our content creators started digging in, it was great to see how each approached the feature a bit differently. Some decided to put a bass drum on layer A, and a bass synth on layer B. Others experimented with using samples that muted each other. Some even went so far as to use the phase inversion and sample delay for some interesting results.
PC: Let's talk about the Morph Slider—this lateral fader allows the user to map macro controls for any of the mappable track control knobs, and applies an offset to their value to create smooth shifts between disparate sound worlds. What was the inspiration behind this goldmine of performance control, and how do you see it being used by musicians in live settings?
PB: Its placement and orientation is meant to be ergonomic - close to the user and not overlapping any of the step keys. It’s implemented in a way to take advantage of our design philosophy by connecting itself to any combination of the panel knobs. There are also hidden use-cases for it as an editing tool, which I’ll leave up to the users to discover on their own.
PC: Snapshot mode allows you to set independent settings for a track voice on each step button, enabling you to program or record dramatic changes in a sequence on a per-step basis. Similarly, each mappable knob can be sequenced per-step and motion recorded for complex and expressive sequences. How have you found these deep parameter sequencing features extend the range of studio and stage possibilities with the TR-1000, and do you have any favorite tricks using them?
PB: I designed the snapshot system to take advantage of the macro-control approach to the track knobs. The macro knobs alone contain a wealth of sound design potential. By saving the knob positions and deploying them in realtime, it’s like you’ve saved up to 16 variations of a sound per track. It’s an excellent way to make one instrument sound more dynamic and alive.
PC: The analog voices in the TR-1000 aren't the only analog magic in the design, featuring a wonderful analog effects section with a great multimode filter and stereo saturation. With the long legacy of Roland analog filters and amplifiers to consider, how did you arrive at the particular designs we find in the TR-1000?
PB: We used a classic Roland State Variable OTA design for our filter. This gave us the benefit of having multiple filter modes. The filter has some nice input saturation depending on if it’s 12dB or 24dB. The noise floor increases when it’s set to 24dB, but we decided we liked the character of the sound and embraced the dirtiness of it - after all, you can have a perfectly clean filter through digital means by using the MFX. The drive is designed to sound best over full-mixes and groups of instruments. We added the offset control to add a degree of asymmetry to the distortion, giving it a nice organic character. There is gain staging between the filter and distortion, so users can play around with the character and response.
Fun fact, there is a dedicated CV input to control the analog filter, so you can take advantage of audio-rate modulation or snappy envelopes from your modular system.
PC: The physical design of the TR-1000 is built like an absolute techno-tank, with an all-metal enclosure, a nice size and form factor reminiscent of the 909, and a sleek, dark-gray finish. What were your goals in designing the physical feel and look of the instrument, and how do they contribute to its overall character and user experience?
PB: The elemental design approach was inspired by the spirit of discussions in Detroit and Berlin, but also a desire to make something that felt a kindred spirit to our vintage gear. There is something appealing about the heft of older pieces. The form factor is also inspired by the 909 as both a personal preference and a nod to the TR-909 being our first hybrid drum machine.
PC: This drum machine already feels incredibly comprehensive, with an exhaustive list of tools for drum design and sequencing, going far beyond standard "drum machine" sounds. And yet, given Roland's history of updates and expansions to its instruments, are there more features planned down the road in firmware updates?
PB: While I can’t confirm anything now, we will be paying close attention to how customers use the instrument.
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