I always wanted a real one and finally got a vintage Roland TR-808! So now I want to ask what suggestions you guys have for a processing chain that I will use in Ableton Live. I make classic vocal House music ((duh)), be it 80's, 90's early 2000's, so you can get an idea of the sound I hope to achieve. I will eventually buy some hardware, but right now I can only afford plugins. I am thinking EQ + compressor + tape, but then most of those classic records were recorded through mixing boards, so maybe a saturator or some other type of mixing board emu could be good? For those who know the 808 and style of music, I would really appreciate your experienced thoughts on and ideas for this setup!
How are you going to record it?Directly into line in or some preamp etc.? Raw 808 is pretty "raw".. Congratz btw ;)
When i think about good analog sounding 808 drums the first thing that comes in mind is an API preamp. If you record em through analog gear a digital colorless SSL style Channel Strip plugin (Like Native SSL Channel Strip plugin, or Brainworx with low to none THD)would put you in that ballpark. If you want to get crunchier the 4000 E from brainworx is a solid option. I wouldn't record anything that i want 'vibe' through SSL preamps BTW. But this combo of recording through API and mixing on SSL sounds amazing on 808's and it's the state of art of the sound.
aside from the 808,909, and 303; the most common pieces of gear to all those late 80's-2000's house records are the MPC60,3000, and 2000.
Seri is the first to share tips on how to use compression and the pitch envelope in Simpler to create full, crisp 808 sounds without a kick drum. In the next video, DECAP covers three different techniques for making 808 basslines move in Live using pitch bend, glissando, and modulation. Incorporating the powerful overtones of an 808 into your mix can be tricky. With helpful mixing and sound design tricks, Guido from Catandbeats reveals the secret to a powerful 808.
btw 808 was the hiphop machine, 909 was the house machine, together with 707 (claps) and 626 (hats). But it's still cool to have an 808.
A budget friendly hardware option is to get a mixer from the Boss BX-Series (like BX-800, BX-16 etc.) They have a vintage 90s feel and saturate very quickly, which brought them into the reputation of being "techno mixers" Maybe worth a try, they are dirty and cheap
Less expensive still is Airwindows Mackity which saturates, may I dare say, sweetly and almost the same as the the Mackey 32.4 I had before this century was a thing. I like it a lot and use it to beef up a bass. https://www.airwindows.com/mackity/
the dbx160 was the nicest compressor available to many house producers, because it still was reasonable prices. All the famous vintage compressors were already expensive. Most house music was not produced in big expensive studios. The very first plugin I would acquire would be Soundtoys Decapitator for saturation. It's not authentic to the period, but can certainly sound like it. Just go easy with it. I'd also add U-He Satin and Presswerk. One of the Plugin Alliance SSL channel strips would be fine, and a G compressor would come in handy too. You'd probably also want some bit reduction and dither plugins, and I would probably start with TAL-DAC and Elysia Phil's Cascade. None of this stuff has really changed that much. Eq, compression, saturation, tape emulation, reverb/delay, bit reduction for emulation of old Akai samplers like the S900-S1000, multiband limiter (pro-MB), channel strip and there is your basic recipe.
I am going to test every way possible. Ideally, and im not sure this describes the sound accurately, but looking for extremely subtle saturation, punch and smack but retaining some warmth and overall cleanliness. Then later I can parallel compress, add FX to taste or whatever fits the song best. That is the idea anyway. The classic vocal House music sound. Chicago, NYC sort of vibes, with some west coast 2000's flavors I guess. That was my very first drum machine, which my parents gave me for Christmas about 10 years ago! I use it everyday and will never sell it! The idea is to use both for the best bits Of course I want all of them, and maybe someday I will, but you know, I still need to eat and pay rent if I want somewhere to plug them in! Thanks for the ideas. I do have a Roland S760, which I really like, but right now its on the bench because I have to bring it into the 21st century to replace the floppy with something modern and get a new backlight for it Can some of you recommend specific plugins by name? Like with the API emulation suggestion, I am not sure which ones are worth even trying?
909 is more of a main House drum machine than 808, but yes - people used the combination of the two and 606, 727 - for those awful but nicely "dancy" percussion, and even 707 and 626. Roland drum machines of that time were really awesome... the only problem was syncing them properly. You have to really beat the crap (compress-saturate-distort-overdrive-EQ) out of 808 and 606 to get really awesome results. Many people used Boss pedals, mainly overdrive and distortion ones, for that.
The UAD API Vision Channel strip and the 2500 bus compressor are very nice, but I do not have the 550/560 from them. All of the Lindell plugins are nice and you can get them in a Lindell bundle or in the Plugin Alliance everything bundles. I'm not the biggest Waves or Acustica user, but that isn't because they are bad plugins. It's more related to hard disk space for Waves, and CPU for Acustica. I don't think you could really go wrong with testing any of those. You'll probably have your own favorites.
None of these videos are really relevant to op's question. These are all focused on the 808 kick. Modern 808 stuff, not the 808 drum machine as the basis of a house song. While yes, the 909 was the house drum machine, the 808 was still used, especially in certain sub-genres. 100% this. Get the airwindows consolidated plugin. Free, so many options. As Lois Lane pointed out, airwindows mackity. If you ever want to invest in something analog that won't completely break the bank, and you have some soldering skill, check out Colour Duo from DiY RE. I have two of them. They have swappable modules, where the modules emulate different classic consoles, preamps, lofi compressors etc. Its honestly amazing. Its a stereo processor, but you can have three modules per channel, that you can stack, blend and tweak, giving you everything from subtle color to all out disgusting saturation.
hehe, a friend just sold his for € 6000. the 808 is probably the only machine where it makes a difference if it is the real one or a modern low budget clone.
