45 thoughts on “808 State’s Graham Massey On The Roland AIRA TR-8 & TB-3”

        1. So, you refer to to someone who’s actually had influence and made a huge impact on electronic music as a “burn out” and I’m suppose to share my music with you ? Where’s your music? Clearly it sounds like you must be on the cutting edge. I’ve got plenty of tracks and have played plenty of shows but I’m certainly not going to post it for you to ridicule. And why is that always the response ? Because I make a point I have to share my music with you? No. I must have touched a nerve. Don’t you have a new “jam” you need to upload to YouTube?

        2. So, you refer to to someone who’s actually had influence and made a huge impact on electronic music as a “burn out” and I’m suppose to share my music with you ? Where’s your music? Clearly it sounds like you must be on the cutting edge. I’ve got plenty of tracks and have played plenty of shows but I’m certainly not going to post it for you to ridicule. And why is that always the response ? Because I make a point I have to share my music with you? No. I must have touched a nerve. Don’t you have a new “jam” you need to upload to YouTube?

    2. I see…you wanted Roland to use new artists who didn’t make history in electronic music using 303, 808, 909 to promote a new product everyone is expected to compare with ones from the past ? Humm….

    1. Oh Peter….that is sadly ignorant. Convolution is the the most precise way to not only clone, yet it can be a “carbon copy” of analogue. Yet to explain it to you, would be like asking a light bulb that is off, the switch on….on its own.

  3. I just realized it’s the Roland AIRA not ARIA … Aria makes me think of some inspiring operatic shit, but Ira? makes me think of that snarky NPR show they play on the weekends…

  4. Sorry to be the person who says this but these are some of the worst 303 riffs I’ve ever heard. The gear sounds good but you’ve got to be able to program it. Did Massey program the 303 line on Flow Coma and Let Yourself Go? Back to school Mr Massey, lesson one: Phuture. Lesson two: Adonis. Lesson three: Armando. And so on…

  5. Early 808 did great stuff. Martin Price left and after that they seem to go up their own arses trying to be too intricate.
    It was interesting to see acid and techno artists trying to be mainstream , and becoming duller and duller,
    808 state moved quickly from groove to groove in tracks, there was nothing to latch onto in their later music. It was a shame really as the early stuff was so good.
    The same seemed to happen with , Gerald, Juan Atkins etc
    I saw Juan Atkins recently in Berlin , he played the shittest set of crap techno I have ever heard to this day . Just bland looped crap. (what’s the Game and Interference are perhaps two of the best acid techno tracks ever made) What happened Juan? Derrick May? Hawtin etc
    It is amusing to see the old guard who lost their way , getting back to their roots.
    Keep music fucked up. Thank you Roland for these acid house machines.
    Extreme audio still has a serious place, Placid House no thanks!!

  6. Oh Peter….that is sadly ignorant. Convolution is the the most precise way to not only clone, yet it can be a “carbon copy” of analogue. Yet to explain it to you, would be like asking a light bulb that is off, the switch on….on its own.

    Yet you obviously have no understanding your self as to what convolution CAN and CANNOT achieve.

    Convolution can only sample STATIC states. Therefore it CANNOT capture dynamic/non-linear systems.

    BEFORE chastising others about a lack of knowledge it helps to have said knowledge yourself otherwise you look a bit like a total tool.

    Convolution is an exceedingly ‘cheap’ DSP trick used by manufacturers to extoll how they ‘capture’ the essence and tone of XYZ. Sadly this is nothing more than marketing nonsense.

    Convolution can capture a single state of a system NOT all of its states. Yes there are kludges in the form of interpolating many such snapshots but that is also far from perfect.

    I have no idea why you even mentioned convolution as these pieces of crap use circuit modelling. Probably driven from LTspice and Matlab simulations then simplified to allow them to be run at realtime on sensible DSP.

      1. Zymos, I nearly always regret posting here as their seems to be a complete lack of….well, thank you for posting. And I realise your question was rhetorical, don’t expect a reply by “noob”.

  9. ”
    Zymos on February 14, 2014 at 1:40 pm said:

    So I’m guessing you’ve never heard of dynamic convolution then?”

    Yes I have. I also mentioned it , Interpolating between snapshots is what dynamic convolution is.

    But it not as simple or as cut and dried as that. The technique is not perfect like any DFT/FFT type process there are tradeoffs between time and frequency accuracy , memory size , interpolation scheme , differing lengths of impulse needed with longer impulses being preferred but this then increases latency etc etc etc which in a realtime process is not something you want.

    So in order to be reasonably latency free there are going to have be shortcuts taken.
    No such thing a free lunch in DSP.

    2. Noobington is correct. Zymos is incorrect. People, if you don’t know exactly what someone is talking about, please don’t up- or down-vote.

      An LTI system can be characterised completely by its impulse response. Convolution works (perfectly) for LTI.

      A non-LTI system cannot. Any attempt to use convolution to simulate a non-LTI system is a compromise, as Noob.. noobski says.

  10. dynamic convolution, These lads are really sparring. Why not meet up in Bloom st and get on with your man loving.
    Your taking things in a strange sad direction. I like the amateur scientist stuff, but your even boring me now.

  12. Convolution: getting feathers up yer arse over some fine point of consumer electronics because you feel called upon to emulate 808 State when the real point should be to sound like yourself. I find the argument to be off-kilter when you can amass huge percussion options that range from dry jazz snares to Stormdrum. Drum machines are not some holy marvel. They’re part of the larger available kit. Fook your sine bass, try out a Taiko drum, feel the contrast, enhance your game. You guys sound like Zombie Andy Rooney, bitching and slobbering, NNNAAARRRRGH! I’m way past needing a TR-8, but I’d say Step One is to appreciate it for what it is- a well-thought-out upgrade- and stop complaining because it has no food processor module.

  14. I don’t think I’ve ever been less excited about something with such a heavy marketing blitz since the Maschine…i have absolutely zero desire to own anything from the AIRA line-up.

  15. wow the reactions to this thing are getting waaaay out of hand. From what I heard the unit sounds good. I love analog but the current analog craze is blinding peeps to the fact that digital has come a long way. Just look at the UAD stuff as an example

    1. Which are emulations of analog gear. People who say stuff like you have never ever worked with or heard the gear UAD emulates. And while UAD does a nice job, NONE of them sound quite as good as what they emulate.

        1. If it’s that simple why do 98% of analogue emulated soft synths sound like soft synths? The only truly convincing soft synth I’ve used, where it could literally be analogue, is the Odditty. I have all the rest of the classics and you can just hear something in the sound that tells you it’s not real analogue.

          The KORG legacy monopoly sounds nothing like my real monopoly. The Arturia jupiter 8 sounds very little like my real jupiter 8.

          There is a special magic in analogue, but you need to have used analogue to know that.

        2. it can be modeled, emulated, but it is impossible to duplicate, since digital and analog are completely different animals. the first is finite the later is not. i would have hoped for Roland to have a digital/ discrete command and control unit taming analog growling circuitry….

  17. Damn. I went scrolling through the comments to see what people think of this thing and I still don’t know. Just a bunch of people arguing.

  18. Does any one know if the System-1 can be sequenced within the Aira setup? A fun aspect of the SH-101 was the internal sequencer that can be step triggered by the original x0x drum machines and clones. You could also sequence the SH-101 with the TB-303 Gate/cv outs. Any idea if the TB-3 can externally sequence the System-1 or will it need a third party midi sequencer or DAW to do it?

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