I somewhat impulse bought a Roland TR-6S last week. It all started with a quest to get something that could provide some 909 toms and hihats in my improvised acid streams. I'd wanted a Roland Boutique TR-09 for a long time, but they're quite sought after these days, and despite one coming up on ebay around the time that my desire peaked, I just couldn't justify spending $700AU on one.

The Behringer RD-9 was a possibility; it looks and sounds pretty great, but after reading about the feel of the sequencer buttons being horribly unsatisfying (they look like they'd be nice mechanical keys but are actually silicon buttons with plastic caps), and after testing one in store and confirming that yes, they're horrible, I decided against it. It's a shame really, since with individual physical outs and a few other interesting features, it could have been a cool machine.

I considered the TR-8, which can be found for pretty cheap, and sounds great! But, it's so ugly with all that green everywhere. Plus, much like the RD-9, it's a bit huge for something that would ultimately just play 909 sounds.

How about the TR-8S? So many features and tracks, and with sample playback I could pretty much play a whole live set from it. Two drawbacks: none in stock anywhere in Australia; and the hard shiny plastic sequencer buttons weird me out a bit. I'll probably get one at some point though. The sound engine is seriously awesome.

So I ended up looking into the TR-6S, which is pretty fiddly for sound design, but once set up, is actually pretty fun for live jams. This recording is just me muting and unmuting tracks on the first pattern I made with it. It can do more, but I haven't quite learned the shortcuts yet

Direct recording from the TR-6S via USB, light mastering.

Tags: industrial, techno, tr6s, week 2 2022, View by:0F