Event (English)

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RC-808 “Drum Rap” Contest

Make an original "Drum Rap" data and take part in the contest!

Details to be announced on 909 Day, stay tuned!!!

Welcome to Drum Rap Contest

A half century ago, Mr. Kakehashi met Don Lewis who was playing an organ with specially attached expression pedal in order to give Accent to the drum sound at the NAMM show.
It was the first Groove expression on the simple Rhythm box in the music world, we believe.

TR-808, the first Drum machine for Studio use equipped a controller to expand the decay time of Kick Drum which was laughed cold first. But a creative DJ used the controller to make a Rhyme, in rhythm.
Moreover, Rick Rubin sampled long decay of the sound, and changed the pitch to play for bass sound. The deep bass begun to Flow the drum, Kikumoto think.

When the new music tide was emerging, without knowing that, he was designing a electronic musical instruments communication system with computer which become prototype of the MIDI later.

He wondered why onboard drum machines do not have pitch nor duration parameters. Because they are non-tuned percussion? But then synths can provide frequency and envelope curves to match your needs and tastes. Isn’t this lack of these parameters result of prejudices or stereo types that still confines the drum sound expressions to a certain notion only?
He proposed them to utilize the scheme to new drum machines later, they did not laugh but looked confused.

In 2019, we launched software based 808 to overcome analog limitation, RC-808 enable you to create new sound starting from origin and criterion of the TR-808. Also, RC-808 enables you to create new rhythm patterns by using any drum instruments which equip virtual foot pedal just like Hi-Hat, Now, you can use open/closed Kick drums, Snare and so on. That was the scheme Kikumoto abandoned to install in TR-909. Unfortunately, the concept was not accepted well. because we did not explain that with the demosong enough.

How the contest holding happened and the background

In 2021, We decided to hold a contest of new drum patterns using the open/closed drum instruments.
Kikumoto asked Chang Jiang, a member of Analog Mafia who consist of retired engineers from Roland to make the demo songs.
He looked confused first by such a funny request. By chance, Kikumoto was investigating Hip Hop article in the web. He came up with an idea to apply a Rap concept to drum patterns as a metaphor, lyrics, rhyme, flow between Instruments, Open/Close and Pitch. He advised Chang Jiang to think of analogy between Rap and Articulation of drum pattern. Chang Jiang might be inspired immediately, He created ten piece of music which was more than we expected. We are so lucky that the talented person is a member of Analog mafia.

However, Chang Jian is not a specialist of Hip Hop nor Rap, we wondered if we created something laughing. In fact, Kikumoto think he created a lot of laughing matter in Roland history of technology. So they send the piece of music to Ken Fujimoto and Hisashi Saito asking if the piece was something new or stupid.

They were both very positive. H,Saito encouraged us saying the Drum Rap would be a good challenge for musicians. Then Kikumoto asked if H.Saito could stand on our side of provocateur. He agreed to join us on his credit. That was not flatter but serious, we believe.
Purpose of Drum Rap contest is not a promotion of unfinished RC-808. We would like to provoke musicians to challenge to create new music MEME.

Scheme of drum rap

Drum Rap is not a particular scheme. RC-808 synthesizer provides all instruments which equip virtual foot pedal which control the decay time of the sound like a Hi-Hat.
You can create new rhythm pattern on any instruments like a Hi-Hat work.
Analog mafia provide a number of drum kits, Open(long) Normal(mid) and Closed(short) sound of instruments. Some kit includes several same instruments with different pitch, The instruments are assigned to the Note Number on the track or Channel of the sequencer. You can use piano roll sequencer of RC-808 Standalone.
You may use RC-808 PLG edition with DAW for accurate and complex control. Sorry but instruments assign is not so simple. You can challenge to create your drum kit by adjusting drum kit provided by analog mafia. It would be a hard work. Sorry but we cannot support you for that.

Details of the participation requirements of this contest will be announced here, so please check here from time to time 🙂

How You Participate with Your Own Drum Rap

Details to be announced on 909 Day.

Reference sound track

Reference sound track will be updated.

DJ Saito Demo Track specially made for this contest!!! Bi-g THANKS to DJ Saito!!!

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Analog Mafia’s Chang Jian Demo Track

Present