Old 05-25-2017, 01:58 PM   #1
zeekat
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Default trve 80s drum machine jam

It's this time of the year. Took my ironic 1989 Yamaha RX8 drum machine off the bookshelf to check if it's still alive. It boots up and still saves stuff to its onboard memory, it's a miracle for a device that I'm pretty sure still uses its factory battery. Probably should check it for gamma radiation.



So made a guitarey jam with it, adding to the previous ones. Used sample layering, using both bearable snares it has at once. It also lets the user type which pattern will play next, hence all the Unableton-live style exciting button pushing. Stuff's totes, like, live and in single takes. Turned out sort of thrashy-punky for some reason, so added obligatory synth pads everywhere.

EDIT: old jam obsolete, replaced with a new one:



https://soundcloud.com/zeekat/rollback
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Old 05-25-2017, 02:54 PM   #2
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...

It boots up and still saves stuff to its onboard memory, it's a miracle for a device that I'm pretty sure still uses its factory battery. Probably should check it for gamma radiation.

...
What did you expect? Its from Yamaha. I had the RX5 that a friend of mine now have. Still runs like on the first day. I still have have an QY10 (If someone wants that, he has to take it from my cold dead hands... ), bought it in 1992 I think, and in 1998 there was an issue with it. Yamaha did a repair for free!! And the buffer battery still works. Unbelievable.

I once saw a guy coming into a shop, took a 4.500,- € Yamaha keyboard in its original sealed boxing, took the money out of his pocket and laid it on the counter. The salesperson asked, if he didnt want to first try it out. Dude said: "No, its a Yamaha!" and left the store.

I am a real big, big fan of Yamaha. Top quality products in everything they make. Although the kitchens are extremely pricey, and so are the submarines.
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Old 05-25-2017, 11:34 PM   #3
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What did you expect? Its from Yamaha. I had the RX5 that a friend of mine now have. Still runs like on the first day. I still have have an QY10 (If someone wants that, he has to take it from my cold dead hands... ), bought it in 1992 I think, and in 1998 there was an issue with it. Yamaha did a repair for free!! And the buffer battery still works. Unbelievable.
Yeah, it's well made indeed. It was bought like a 20 years ago from some dude who apparenly used it pretty hard, power supply is holding in one piece by tape. It came with a jury rigged DB9 socket for a clunky DIY footswitch, for switching patterns up/down live I think (never plugged it). But it works fully, and converters are surprisingly clean for a cheap piece of 80s tech, samples are 16 bit and there's barely any noise even if you bring it really loud. 32k RAM card works too, eats batteries oddly fast though. Probably should've change internal battery, but didn't expect to keep it (tried to sell it but there were no takers).

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I am a real big, big fan of Yamaha. Top quality products in everything they make. Although the kitchens are extremely pricey, and so are the submarines.
Wow, so they make more that one kind of a sub . Yeah, it's good stuff, had two of their basses, one visible in OP and a cheapo Attitude plus which was perfecly constructed and all around nice precision-like. They always had reputation of extremely consistent quality even in super entry level stuff.
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Old 05-26-2017, 03:46 PM   #4
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It sounds very crispy and contemporary, I would have expected more of an 80s' feel. Kick and snare are pretty cool. I don't know why but I find double bass with vintage drum machines very interesting, good weird.
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Old 05-27-2017, 04:23 AM   #5
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Yeah it has one surprisingly metal and mixable kick sound, plus couple of okay snares. Rest of the kicks is pretty flabby tho, one of the few descriptions of the machine on the internet uses the fitting expression "wet farts".

Found the pic of its glorious DIY footswitch I found in the cellar



If only it could talk. It'd probably tell tales of underground blackened industrial scene in central Poland. Or a very disappointing wedding band.
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Old 09-07-2017, 12:43 PM   #6
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Self-bump. Remade the OP because original was garbage, which had semi good sounding bit only at the end. Managed to do a semi good sounding bit right at the start now, then it's all downhill. There's more (like 3) keyboard pads now, because I can't carry anything on my guitar skillz alone.

Features inverted keyboard break and a dual recifier sim loaded in dual tone mode, which makes it a dual dual rectifier sim I guess. Single takes no edits because I'm still trying to find out if I can play guitar (amount of attempts taken to complete a take sez no).



I'm done with dicking around with ol beatbox, put all the shit I cranked out of it into a very short playlist, opened by the tune above in a double-guitared, sample-enriched version:

https://soundcloud.com/zeekat/rollback

Now I have to find a door to stop with RX8.
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Old 09-09-2017, 07:01 AM   #7
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The closest I came to owning one was an old Boss DR5 that I recently gave to a kid of a friend. And he'll probably never use. I should have kept it for "prosperity."
The irony with the song is that the RX is the feature, but I could hardly hear it in spots.
So you played all the parts by hand? Or does the RX save patterns, then you string them together?
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Old 09-09-2017, 10:24 AM   #8
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The irony with the song is that the RX is the feature, but I could hardly hear it in spots.
So you played all the parts by hand? Or does the RX save patterns, then you string them together?
Well IMO this isn't sound quality you want to hear well in the mix, tried to hide the crapness of single velocity 80's samples in reverb and not very loud levels. Programmed patterns into RX and arranged them on the fly by typing their numbers, if I'd program the whole song the bottom left part of the screen would be too static, you can't let that free youtube bandwith go to waste!
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Old 09-20-2017, 02:55 AM   #9
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Took a step back from overmixing induced deafness, rechecked the drum track is barely there indeed and remixed it with drums like +2.5dB. Can't have the finest made in Japan single velocity 16 bit drum hits buried. Links updated.
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Old 09-20-2017, 05:17 AM   #10
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Sounds great! This make me want to try to fire up my Yamaha GEP-50 from 1988 and see if it still works.
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Old 09-20-2017, 05:24 AM   #11
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There it is! And from what I hear, you didn't need to hide it at all. It gave a "character."
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Old 09-30-2017, 11:16 AM   #12
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Pretty cool old drum machine and video. I had Sequential Circuits Drumtraks, and Tom drum machines back in the 80s, but traded them off for other gear long ago.
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