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Originally Posted by 7161  well thats just a matter of opinion anyways, i'd completely disagree, what makes them so 'good' to you?
i'm going on this premise; that they arent in any way 'realistic', and yet also they dont offer much creativity if looked at in terms of them a non realistic unit but which can make plenty of sounds with layering and detuning etc
i do however concede that yes they were quite a decent 'realistic' step up from a 606 or some of the more obscure boom-tish boxes of that era which were affordable, and i think it's that which gave them the rep they had at the time but which now is overated |
If you better understood the context of the early-mid 80s you'd already know that companies were trying to sound as realistic as possible, including the Rolands. The Rolands were trying to sound like the real thing but fell short thanks to the limitations of the technology they were using, not because of any effort to deliberately create the reverse-chic cheesy sounds that have since become ubiquitous. Most musicians weren't initially buying Japanese drum machines of any brand because they wanted to, but because the Linns and Oberheims were out of price range.
The Linn did and still does do some of the best sounds out there; all through the 80s some of the sounds were considered better than most efforts at milking real drums. Any rhetoric now about the Linn's sounds has almost entirely to do with "sounding 80s", not much to do with the sounds themselves.
The Rolands on the other hand never came close to the real thing, became popular due to affordability initially, and then later during their rennaisance when reverse chic came in, became in bizarre fashion desirable. Because everyone was using one, not because they sounded better than other machines.
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realism was important? what are you talking about? nobody used linns to sound realistic back then, the styles in vogue were not in anyway trying to sound realistic (although yes i realise MARKETTING at that time tried to pitch the new breed of drum machines around a 'realism' slant), but nobody was actualy using drum machines then to sound like real drums that i can remember |
Realism was quite important when it came to drum machines in the early-mid 80s. It was only when affordable drum machines became part of the revolt against over-production that better machines were subjugated, as part of the lo-fi "grunge" sound that spread through various musical niches. Unlike you, i was there, watched and heard the change. Quite dramatic and part of why vintage synths and drum machines were dumped on the market in the mid/late 80s at low prices. Nothing to do with merit, rather there was a paradigm shift that you seem to have slept thru.
If there were more onus on sounding realistic over the last 20 years instead of sounding like a cheesy Roland, the entire production aesthetic of the last 20 years would be quite different in various musical genres. The Rolands were for the most part a fashion statement, not a musical step forward