The sequencer on the 808, a row of 16 color-coded buttons, offered artists a way to store beats they programmed. Courtesy of Roland Even if you don't know the Roland TR-808 drum machine by name, ...

There hasn’t been anything quite like the 808 in decades, and Roland may finally be revisiting it this year. Roland is calling their new machine AIRA, and is building up hype for it be explicitly ...

It’s almost impossible to imagine the modern musical landscape without the distinctive sounds of the Roland TR-808 drum machine. When the Japanese electronics company Roland started releasing the 808 ...

Roland TR-909 and TR-808 drum machines. Photo by Brandon Daniel (CC BY-SA 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons (The original image is no longer available, please contact KCRW if you need access to the original ...

Even if you've never heard of the Roland TR-808 drum machine, you've definitely heard it. Developed in Japan as a user-friendly way to produce an electronic drum beat, the 808 grew into one of the ...

Interviews with Afrika Bambaataa, Questlove, Pharrell, Rick Rubin and more are featured in a film documenting the story of the Roland TR-808 drum machine debuting Dec. 9 as an Apple Music exclusive.

If you're a fan of 1980s music, then there's a very good chance that you'll already be familiar with the electronic beats provided by what's widely regarded as the drum machine that started it all, ...

If you spent the 1980s hanging out at your local record store, and you don’t have a hankering for spandex and bouffant rock-god hairstyles, the chances are you’ll have more than a few pieces of ...

Alexander Dunn's documentary "808: The Movie" focusing on the legendary Roland-808 drum machine has been released exclusively on Apple Music, and will be available for download or rent on the iTunes ...

The Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer is credited with more musical innovations than you can wave a plug socket at – even after its rocky start. After flopping commercially upon release in 1980, because ...

This year marks the 30th anniversary of MIDI, the language that electronic instruments use to talk to one another. It’s how drum machines stay in sync with arpeggiators, how a keyboard tells a ...