The BD808 is Roland's TR-808 bass drum sound generator adapted for modular
synthesizer use. The front panel contains all of the controls found on the original TR-808
drum machine, allowing you full control over the bass drum timbres, volume levels to
mix with other drums, and accent levels. The module itself is very simple and
straightforward to operate; however, we highly encourage you to read this manual as it
contains useful information that will help you get much more out of the BD808. These
electronic drums are the heart and soul of our electronic music generation and learning
how to use them correctly will open up a world of organic analog beats and sounds for
you to utilize in your own music.
About the Making of the BD808.
The BD808 is a one-to-one clone of the original circuit found in Roland's TR-808 drum
machine. During the design phase, we created additional features only whe
implementation would not compromise the original signature sound, add excessive
costs, or sacrifice panel space. Cloning a circuit that was designed and produced in the
early 80's was not an easy task. A variety of obstacles including availability of the
original parts, the modern SMT manufacturing process, the dierences in +/-12V
Eurorack power versus the +/-15V of the original 808, and far many more were
addressed in the creation of this module. The BD808 has gone through several design
revisions and was tested and built with components from many dierent suppliers and
various design techniques until the sound came out just right.
One of the main problems we faced while creating this module was that each of the
original 808's we were using for testing and comparing sounded dierent from each
other…so which one sounded right? The 808 machines were built from 1980 to 1984,
making the parts in them 30+ years old and the aging of each machine makes them
sound dierent now than when they were first made. Additionally, the fact that the
original machines were using 5% resistors and other parts with wide tolerances made
each 808 sound dierent from one another, even when they were new. The answer
lied in the schematics and the math representing these circuits. These defined
a precisely tuned circuit aimed at producing a very specific sound in mind. With
the BD808, we followed this design and created an 808 bass drum generator
which, to the best of our knowledge, sounded like the ones that were rolling
out of the assembly lines in the 80's.
