what is the drum machine used in polygon window?

did aphex use mod 808 or was he using a different machine? doesnt sound like a normal 808, apart from on perhaps 'is it really me'

just ask him

To me it sounds like:

606 on Untitled

808 on Polygon Window, Audax Powder, If it really is me, Quixote, Portreath Harbour

909 on Redruth School

the 808 sounding tracks could be Roland R8 with an 808 rom card, or perhaps he's was using a sampler with those types of sounds.

Untitled is blatantly a 606, and UT1-Dot sounds like it is too.

I'm pretty sure an R8 and a 606.

never heard of the R8 before. Looks amazing.

Yeah I'm down with the r8 I think. The 606 stuff is was obvious already yeah. Is the 808 card the 'electronic' card? Or is there an actual 808 card?

  On 9/24/2012 at 7:49 AM, slightlydrybeans said:

never heard of the R8 before. Looks amazing.

yeah I mean it's pretty cool - you need to ROM cards to make the most out of it though (ideally the one with 808 sounds I guess). the stock sounds that come with the machine are those boring "real" sounding samples. the R8's strength lies in it's humanisation options to add dynamics to your patterns. cool machine though and relatively cheap - the ROM cards can be pricey though!

  On 9/24/2012 at 10:22 AM, Gordon said:

Yeah I'm down with the r8 I think. The 606 stuff is was obvious already yeah. Is the 808 card the 'electronic' card? Or is there an actual 808 card?

'electronic' card is the 808 one.

someone really needs to reverse engineer the cards from these old synths and make them do some crazy shit. What if you made a card that let you load samples on it from usb or something. It's got to be possible.

  On 9/24/2012 at 7:48 PM, slightlydrybeans said:

someone really needs to reverse engineer the cards from these old synths and make them do some crazy shit. What if you made a card that let you load samples on it from usb or something. It's got to be possible.

good idea...yeah sure it must be possible somehow. it'd certainly open up interesting possibilities - load up your R8 with samples of your own synth patches and go crazy on the pads...

That's what you have an MPC for, isn't it?

Better yet, make the signals normally used to scan ROM addresses within the cards instead modulate synth parameters (EDIT: on an external computer or Arduino, etc. - such as sample position, envelope amplitude) that are normally modulated over time...

R8 + arduino + raspberry pi

could be awesome...

Of course, this doesn't differ that much from just spitting out MIDI notes. Except I'm guessing you'd get the R8's internal pitch & sample interpolation method, as well as the polyphony/choking method, applied to your synthesis technique. Assuming it doesn't have some crazy LFOs or something, that's probably not worth all that much.

almost positive he's using a drum kit.