Now Roland’s 303 and 808 are just a browser tab away, in a beautiful online recreation – and A Guy Called Gerald is here to teach everyone how to use them.
Roland partnered with designer Yuri Suzuki to make 808303.studio as an “educational music creation platform” for The Design Museum in Kensington, London. That institution is right now showing “‘Electronic: From Kraftwerk to the Chemical Brothers.” The original TR-808 and TB-303 are in the exhibition, but “hands-on” is not a good way to do education in the middle of a pandemic. So they turned to designer and sound artist Yuri Suzuki (now at the legendary agency Pentagram), who has collaborated with many instrument makers in the industry and seen his work in MOMA. (That includes everyone from Jeff Mills to Teenage Engineering.)
Mr. Suzuki’s creation is like one of those stylish posters showing 303 and 808 patterns came to life. It’s a beautiful representation of some familiar instruments.
And if you’re in a down mood, you can now tap together a groove in a matter of clicks. So stop doomscrolling and open up a tab for some acid.
Plus, I mean, it’s not bad to have A Guy Called Gerald do your tutorial:
These are pretty stunning recreations of the instruments – remember when browsers couldn’t do this? – with some nice extra features like artificial intelligence-powered variations, randomization, and a record function. Try it out:
