Reader Chris Beckstrom lets us know that he’s released a “weird free sample pack” based on the Roland TR-808, featuring 808 samples treated in unusual ways.

“These sounds aren’t intended to be ‘bread-and-butter’ 808 sounds,” he notes. “There are already millions of those!”

Here are some of the ways Beckstrom processed the sounds:

“Playing the samples through a Zoom call and GoTo Meeting, playing the samples through a little speaker inside a güiro, using very bad mp3 compression as a filter, spectral resynthesis using Virtual ANS etc.

I also ran the sounds through my homemade modular which is very much NOT a Eurorack system – it’s based mostly on CMOS logic chips and is aggressively DIY. Like made of wood and uses machine screws and alligator clips for connections DIY.

I did some more typical stuff with the 808 samples too, like tube amplification and playing the sounds through a boombox.”

The free sample library is available to download via Archive.org. While you are there, check out his other free sample packs, too.