That Classic TR 808 Booooooom kick!

[Dirty Halo]

Hey guys,

Sorry, I know this isn't exactly the right forum for this, but this is where I get all my best advice so... I have an actual Roland TR 808 and am trying get not just that deep 808 kick, but the Boooooooooom kick that we all hear sometimes, long sustain. No, I have set the decay as long as it goes, but I still don't gt the super looooong boom.

I need it to sustain over 2 bars at 140bpm (doesn't have to b precise, but to give you an idea of the boooom) and don't want to time-stretch or do anything that would compromise the itegrity of that wonderful analogue sound.

Any advice, tips, tricks? Am I overlooking a function?

Thank you for your help,

Andrews

DIRTY HALO www.diryhalo.com

[XHipHop]

Well, if you're using a DAW can't you cut off part of the end and then past it so it gives you your desired length and then add a little crossfade in there so you can't hear the edit?

That's how a lazy person like myself would do it.

[paultools]

I can't explain why, but my experience was that certain 808s had longer sustain than others....
It's common to use another synth (or even a keyed oscillator) to produce a sine wave to extend the boom, along with the afore-mentioned compression tricks.
60HZ is good, 40 HZ REALLY rattles the trunk (and neighbor's teeth).

[max cooper]

I've used the PT plugin Recti-Fi to make an acoustic kick sound like an 808. I have a setting I call 'Jeep Drums' because you can tweak the mix slider until an acoustic kit sounds like an 808.

You have to turn the toms down relative to the rest of the kit because they really go ape-spit.

If you want the preset, I'll email it to you.

[blakbeltjonez]

Originally Posted by Dirty Halo

Hey guys,

Sorry, I know this isn't exactly the right forum for this, but this is where I get all my best advice so... I have an actual Roland TR 808 and am trying get not just that deep 808 kick, but the Boooooooooom kick that we all hear sometimes, long sustain. No, I have set the decay as long as it goes, but I still don't gt the super looooong boom.

I need it to sustain over 2 bars at 140bpm (doesn't have to b precise, but to give you an idea of the boooom) and don't want to time-stretch or do anything that would compromise the itegrity of that wonderful analogue sound.

Any advice, tips, tricks? Am I overlooking a function?

Thank you for your help,

Andrews


DIRTY HALO www.diryhalo.com

i'm guessing that you make breaks or electro, something along those lines...

nearly all of the times you hear a really long sub bass it's not a real deal TR-808....a sample of the 808 BD perhaps, but it's been looped to make a sustaining bass tone for exactly the reason you need it to - the original only has 1.5 to 2 seconds of decay at most, even on the early TR-808's that had a slightly longer decay time than the later ones (they were made from '81 through '83).

have a TR-808 too that i've had for years and it's great but for what you need it to do you need to loop the BD and make a tone out of it and play it back via a sampler (or softsampler, whatever ). that way you can adjust the length of the decay, pitch it up and down, etc... just make sure the sub is played back as a mono voice (i.e., playing another note will retrigger sample and cut off sustain of previous note) or you will have a big sloppy mess in the low end.

[bjornson]

Get yourself an old R8 with the electronic cartridge.
The "roll" key is worth the price of admission by itself.

[blakbeltjonez]

Originally Posted by paultools

I can't explain why, but my experience was that certain 808s had longer sustain than others....
It's common to use another synth (or even a keyed oscillator) to produce a sine wave to extend the boom, along with the afore-mentioned compression tricks.
60HZ is good, 40 HZ REALLY rattles the trunk (and neighbor's teeth).

the earlier 808's had a longer decay time, i guess Roland decided at one point that the decay was a bit too radical for most people using it and so it was shortened. i think it's mentioned in the service manual which 808's have it via serial number, at least that's where i remember seeing that info.

[MissionDifficult]

You could mod your machine pretty easily. I believe adding one resistor is all that needs to be done to give you a longer decay.
Here is a site with basic instructions on how to do this.

[Flymax]

Make a send from the kick track going to a free bus. Set up an aux with a signal generator making a sine wav around 50hz. Gate the sine wave and key it's opening from the bus. It should now let out that boooooooom when the kick hits. You can time the hold and release times w/ the track....