deadryn:

hellacaldw3ll:

deadryn:

hellacaldw3ll:

themysteriousmurasamecastle:

This is NOT a cowbell. There is no way. I’m onto you, whoever-created-the-808-sample-collection. I’m onto you.

It literally is called a cowbell ON the original TR-808.

Yeah but they’re fuckin WRONG. No cowbell in the entire world sounds like that shit

The Roland TR-808 was manufactured between 1980 and 1983, and while sampling existed (the machine was made to compete with the Linn LM-1, released in 1980 for the modern equivalent of over $20k), it was not a practical musical technology affordable enough for most musicians. That wouldn’t become a reality until 1984 and onward. The 808 is instead an analog drum machine, meaning it generates sounds itself from analog circuits and signals rather than referencing a digital sample library to pull sounds from. When it played the cowbell sound, it was attempting a rather crude facsimile of an actual cowbell by creatively using two square waves and a volume envelope.

Like, really listen to it. The volume envelope peaking at the point a stick would hit the cowbell, and the volume quickly dropping until it evens into a slow fade out. The engineers were attempting to emulate complex timbres and harmonics using extremely basic wave generation, and considering everything I think they did a decent job.

On a more fundamental level, how well it emulates the sound of a cowbell doesn’t matter much if it still plays the part of a cowbell within a drum section well. I don’t mean by literally sounding like a cowbell, but fulfilling the musical and sonic role a cowbell does within a piece of music. The snare on the 808 doesn’t sound like a real snare drum either, but no one would dispute that that’s what it is.

(via averyterrible)