[HN Gopher] Roland TR-808 Cowbell Rebuild
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Roland TR-808 Cowbell Rebuild
Author : herendin
Score : 156 points
Date : 2022-05-07 11:21 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.frisnit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.frisnit.com)
| the_only_law wrote:
| always loved this sound. Too bad the obnoxiously caricaturized
| underground Memphis/phonk revival abused it a bit much.
| spacemadness wrote:
| Cool project, fun writeup, and more cowbell. Personal pet peeve
| warning--the components and wiring on the breadboard could use
| some love. It's a bit of a mess with the long leads jammed into
| the board. Clipping the leads down would clean it up a lot.
| chriscjcj wrote:
| It's difficult to overstate how pervasive the 808 cowbell was in
| early hip-hop, funk, and R&B music during the 80's. To this day
| it's a sound that pleasantly nostalgic and takes me right back to
| my younger days.
|
| Something I always wondered about: it seemed like not all 808
| cowbells were exactly the same. Some seemed to nail a very in-
| tune perfect fifth. While others were just shy of a perfect
| fifth, giving more of a sour sound which I think was more common.
|
| In Bar-Kays' "Sexomatic," the 808 cowbell's pitch raised up a
| whole step to match the song's key, but it also sounds like a
| very in-tune perfect fifth: (3:55)
| https://youtu.be/rqWfERqQlk4?t=235
|
| In 2 Live Crew's "Mr. Mixx On The Mix!!" the 808 cowbell has the
| more sour sound: (3:19) https://youtu.be/yNiAYpd1f84?t=199
|
| The bread board project was producing an interval that was just
| shy of a perfect fifth, making it closer to 2 Live Crew's 808 in
| my ears.
|
| I always wondered if slight variations and and manufacturing
| anomalies in the analog components accounted for this difference
| or if something else going on. If OP is in this thread, I'd love
| to hear your opinion and conjecture on this. (And I'd also like
| to thank you for the GREAT write-up and YouTube clip. LOVED
| this.)
| tiahura wrote:
| I think yours may be the first HN post linking The 2 Live Crew.
| And, indeed, Mr. Mixx is way way under appreciated.
| tlb wrote:
| The schematic in the article shows trimpots controlling the 2
| frequencies, so it was probably adjustable with a screwdriver.
| chriscjcj wrote:
| You are right!
|
| 4:52
|
| https://youtu.be/rPOqYHMpvqY?t=292
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Some of the 808's instruments/parts have trimmers, as mentioned
| below.
|
| But generally for analog, component tolerances are either 1, 5,
| or 10%. 1% is pretty audible on oscillators, and 10% is pretty
| audible on filters.
|
| So each instance of an untrimmed analog synth and drum machine
| will sound slightly different, even if they're coming off the
| same production line and using the same circuitry.
|
| Component values also drift over time, so a contemporary 808 is
| not going to sound the same as it did when it was shipped in
| the 80s.
|
| Basically analog's inaccuracies add character, detail, and
| interesting distortion. You can emulate them digitally, but
| emulating _all_ of them accurately and convincingly is really
| quite hard.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I understand temperature affects the frequency of some
| oscillators as well. Is that a possible explanation as well?
| (I assume for crystal-based oscillators that would not be the
| case, but for musical/analog oscillators I assume these are
| not crystal derived).
| stephlow wrote:
| This is correct. I have a couple of analog oscillators in
| my modular rack and the case needs to heat up for a couple
| of minutes before they generate a stable pitch. Not
| familiar with the exact reasons to be honest.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Basically all components have temperature dependent
| values
| dylan604 wrote:
| TVs and CRT monitors were common to change the shape and
| color of the picture as it got to temp. You never made
| critical color decisions on a monitor that hadn't been on
| for at least 15 minutes, preferably 30.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Higher quality equipment that needs a stable timebase
| will use ovenized oscillators with an integrated heater
| and a control loop to maintain a stable temperature.
| These are all inaccurate before they are up to operating
| temperature.
| kennywinker wrote:
| Most analog gear has SOME type of temperature control.
| Tempco resistors (low resistance change with temperature),
| thermisters (couple a positive response to a negative
| response to cancel out) or other techniques (e.g. heaters -
| get the circuit up to max temp asap and keep it there).
|
| But none of that prevents temperature differences, they
| just control for them. And you wouldn't use temp control
| everywhere - just where it'd effect the sound dramatically
| i.e. keeping your main voice oscillators in tune, not
| keeping your cowbell at a precise frequency
| S_A_P wrote:
| I've owned a few 808s and sampled all of them. They were indeed
| all different sounding. The cowbells are one exception and
| sounded more like the 2 Live Crew example. Most of the
| variation was in the hi hat and cymbals. Which IIRC is 6 square
| waves and a noise source.
| chriscjcj wrote:
| Very interesting! Thank you! I did a little looking and found
| this FWIW...
|
| I noticed in OP's post that the two frequencies for the
| cowbell are 540hz and 800hz (although I don't see where this
| is denoted on the original schematics.) But we'll assume
| they're accurate numbers.
|
| While a perfect fifth is a difference of 7 semitones, this
| produces a difference of only 6.804 semitones. It would seem
| that its designers didn't have a perfect fifth in mind.
|
| Also, 540Hz is C#5 -45 cents and 800Hz is G5 +35 cents. So
| neither note seems intended to correspond to any natural key.
| smoyer wrote:
| In the original circuit,the same RC network is used for
| both the attack and decay so that circuit will indeed
| produce a 1:1 mark:space ratio.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Curious about the term "1:1 mark:space ratio" since it
| was also in the article. I would have used the term "50%
| duty cycle".
| smoyer wrote:
| I purposely repeated the OP's wording but since we're
| talking about an astable multivibrator,frequency and duty
| cycle (in percent) makes sense. I did a lot of circuit
| design for communications systems and I associate the
| words mark and space with ones and zeroes in a
| frame/word.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I wondered if it was an English (not American) phrasing.
| dahart wrote:
| > While a perfect fifth is a difference of 7 semitones,
| this produces a difference of only 6.804 semitones. It
| would seem that its designers didn't have a perfect fifth
| in mind.
|
| Remember that 7 semitones is not a _perfect_ fifth. (Note
| this depends on your definition of perfect fifth, some
| people allow for being close, since equal temperament is so
| common.)
|
| While a perfect fifth is a 3:2 ratio of frequency, seven
| semitones isn't exactly 1.5, it's more like 1.498.
|
| 800/540 is ~ 1.48, so I definitely agree the designers
| weren't going for a fifth, very likely they wanted some
| beat interference to give it a nice metallic warble.
| max-m wrote:
| One of the diagrams shows the frequencies as 1.85ms and
| 1.25ms, 540.5 and 800 Hz respectively.
| Bjartr wrote:
| The 808 in particular has an additional twist. The transistors
| used in it were out-of-spec rejected parts as a cost savings
| measure. So recreations and repairs can have difficulty
| recapturing the signature sound if they go only by part number.
|
| https://secretlifeofsynthesizers.com/the-strange-heart-of-th...
| maxekman wrote:
| The CB808 eurorack module from Tiptop Audio is almost a perfect
| replica I believe: https://tiptopaudio.com/808-2/#cb808
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I love these deep-dive hardware projects ... best when they are
| on a small thing like this one (so I'm not too overwhelmed).
|
| Electronics + audio has always been my gateway like programming +
| graphics (and lighting up an LED is "Hello World").
|
| I don't imagine you could change the pitch of the cowbell on the
| TR-808, but it sounds a little high pitched to my ear. I guess
| though that in the era of the TR-808 people were pretty jazzed by
| electronic percussive instruments that were even close.
| martingoodson wrote:
| Another 808 cowbell recreation and a lot more here:
| https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/synthesizing-cowbell....
|
| The whole series is a valuable guide to analog synthesis.
| chriscjcj wrote:
| It was really interesting to see how someone just used an
| analog synth to recreate the 808 cowbell. Why not, right? In
| the other post I made in this thread, I talk about differences
| in 808 cowbells from song to song and wondered if
| "manufacturing anomalies in the analog components accounted for
| this difference."
|
| It's quite possible that some producers weren't using an 808 at
| all, but rather by using the methods described in your link,
| created their own specially-tweaked 808 cowbells in order to
| give it the exact sound they wanted.
| hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
| I'd argue that the 808 kick drum is the most iconic sound with
| the cowbell being a close second. I do love that cowbell, though!
| mrob wrote:
| I think the kick is most iconic with producers and people into
| electronic music, but the cowbell is most iconic with the
| general public.
| boredemployee wrote:
| Marcellus Pittman - Chicago Nights
| davidbarker wrote:
| The cowbell instantly makes me think of Whitney Houston's "I
| Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)".
|
| https://soundcloud.com/40noisesthatbuiltpop/31-808-cowbell-w.
| ..
| uncletammy wrote:
| After hearing the tone, I immediately thought the same
| thing! Such a great song.
| netik wrote:
| great article but I would strongly argue the 808 Kick is more
| distinctive than more cowbell.
| the_only_law wrote:
| More popular sure, but I'm not sure about distinctive. Almost
| any trap song I listen to has the 808 kick but a cowbell
| signifies a very specific subgenre/period (or at least and
| attempt to replicate it) to me.
| Lammy wrote:
| > a cowbell signifies a very specific subgenre
|
| The TR-909 kick carries this distinction as well as the basis
| of gabber/hardstyle/etc: BAWHM BAWHM BAWHM BAWHM
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLv5x-yduHA
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