It’s 909 Day again, and a moment to reflect on the beauty of Tadao Kikumoto and team’s rhythm composer masterpiece. HAND CLAP. Let’s RIDE.
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Free twisted 909
Let’s start with something free. Our friend Leonard de Leonard has this just utterly warped and wonderful set of 909 one-shots which he’s dropping for free on his Patreon — even on the free tier. Invariably, I have some hardware or other that I need to test out with some samples, and I find I always come back to something unique so you get something inspiring right away. This one might make the cut.
It’s just the thing if you want some 909 cake for today, and your budget is zero. (I feel you!) Fire this up, all 135 one-shots worth.
You know how normally paging through a bunch of one-shots is what happens when you’re out of ideas and stuck? This time it almost sounds like a track.
🎁 909 Twisted Vol. 1 – Free Sample Pack for 909 Day
Roland’s software 909 on sale — new patches, no subscription needed
I don’t know much about this “Roland” company, but I feel like they have a Future. (One they design, you might say.)
Roland Cloud’s TR-909 has a lot of competition, but it could be worth adding to your arsenal, especially at this price. In addition to solid, accurate modeling, it has a few features going for it:
- Drag-and-drop patterns to your DAW.
- Use a TR-8S or TR-09 as a controller, pre-mapped.
- Load patterns to and from the TR-8S, making this a great prep device.
- Get a bunch of unique artist patch and pattern content from Roland.
That content is available with the Lifetime Key, so if you’re allergic to subscriptions, see below.
And it sounds really good:
Robert Babicz—aka Rob Acid–is the latest to program some exclusive content for Roland, launching today. One of the things I like about Roland’s 909 is the way it saturates as you push the onboard mixer, so if it’s sounding vanilla, here’s one of the times where we can say confidently, go ahead and red-line it.
TR-909 Rob Acid Patch Collection
Following the 808 last month, now the 909 is on a deep discount that turns it into more of an impulse buy for that Lifetime Key. Available via Plugin Boutique:
Check some classic patterns
Throwback video here, but I find sometimes transcribing patterns is a great way to learn — just like any musical transcription. I mean, it’s a throwback from Synth Mania, but then they’re all still classics.
Via Samuel Wa on BlueSky, here’s another great set of patterns as a way of recounting history:
Incidentally, I took some of this transcription approach — riffing freely on some of the patterns — for the Baby Audio Tekno patterns I put together last week. It’s stuff that seems so simple, but it’s nice to stop and actually transcribe it, and then think about messing with it. (The Tekno is more 808 than 909, plus a mix of quite a lot of other stuff, but it’s definitely got some TR DNA in it, because how can you not at this point?)
Of course, our 909 fitness instructor is absolutely Jeff frakkin Mills.
D16 Drumazon on sale
This remains my favorite 909. Yeah, I go to Roland’s when I need bread and butter, but here’s the one where you get all the fixin’s.
I could say more, but read my detailed review:
And here are some tips on routing and setting it up:
Best of all, D16 is also at the same price point as Roland now. On sale, about as low as it gets:
Dive into Roland history and get your Bjook for free
Today only (909) you get free eBook access to the epic Roland book INSPIRE THE MUSIC, plus if you crave the hardcover edition, 25% off that. And if you’re into this sort of thing, check out the Bjook subscription, PATCH & TWEAK Club.
Here’s that two-page spread on the 909:
Find everything here:
Let’s party with people in Japan (virtually)
Part of why I love 909 Day, 808 Day, and the lot is that we get a ton of cool extras and workouts from our friends in Japan, who really seem to take these “holidays” seriously. And these gems are just fantastic:
Did we miss anything? Got something planned for, erm, 1010 Day? (I can devote a whole day to the JV-1010. Watch me.) Let us know!