It’s finally happened.
The 808 is now a tab in your browser.
And it’s brought friends. Sure, they’re called “hip hop, house, electro, techno, and acoustic” but – you’re not fooling anyone. (Least of all because some of those genres use the other machines.) That’s an acoustic kit, plus the Roland TR-808 and TR-909, Elektron Machinedrum, and Roger Linn’s Linndrum.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen drum machines emulated in a browser. But coding for the rich Web, and browsers in general, have each gotten a lot better, so the experience has improved. And, crucially, this isn’t just a time waster. You can export loops as WAV files.
Or, edit — this is a time waster for your employer, if you have a day job. It’s just an investment for your life as a producer. I do hope people make actual music with this.
Apparently, this is just the first of more things to come. There’s absolutely no information from the creators – like who they are, for instance, so do chime in. But he/she/them/it/the Collective/some entity want us know that more fun stuff is coming soon if you like their page. So there you have it, Like them or the terrorists win.
Clap your drum machines, say yeah.
https://www.facebook.com/html5drummachine
Update: Yes, the man with the plan is none other than Jamie Thomson of the UK (thanks for the tip-off on that, Charles!)