FK5: Roland TR-77 (Rhythm-77)

The Hardware

Roland TR-77 (Rhythm-77)

The Sounds

  • Bass Drum
  • Snare Drum
  • Rim-Shot
  • High-Hat
  • Cymbal
  • Maracas
  • Claves
  • High Bongo
  • Low Bongo
  • Low Conga
  • Cowbell
  • Tambourine
  • Guiro

An almost identical list to the CR-78 but sounding much different.

The TR-77 drum machine was the first product launched under the Roland brand name in 1972. It is essentially an updated Ace Tone FR7L. The wooden case and music rest are tell-tale signs that this was primarily designed to sit on top of a home organ. Being top-of-the-range, it has a few bells and whistles like the sliders that allow you to control the volume of some of the instruments, namely: Bass, Snare, Guiro and (combined into one slider): Maracas, Cymbal and High-Hat. There’s a fade-out control with variable fade time and a Metronome. An unusual feature is Up-Tempo which literally doubles the tempo!

The rhythms are divided into four groups: Latin, what’s described in the manual as Jazz, 2-Beat and 4-Beat. As is often the case with these old machines, rhythms can be combined.

The Rhythms

Latin:

  • Rhumba
  • Beguine
  • Cha-Cha
  • Mambo
  • Samba 1
  • Samba 2
  • Bossa-Nova
  • Baion
  • Bolero
  • Tango

Jazz:

  • Rock ’n Roll 1
  • Rock ’n Roll 2
  • Slow Rock
  • Ballad
  • Western
  • 6/8 March
  • Jazz Waltz
  • Waltz

2-Beat:

  • Bass Drum
  • Bass and Snare Drum
  • Fox Trot 1
  • Swing 1
  • March
  • Parade

4-Beat:

  • Bass Drum
  • Bass and Snare Drum
  • Fox Trot 2
  • Swing 2
  • Swing 3
  • Shuffle

As is usual, the lid has to come off to get at all of the sounds if you want to sample it. Just as with the Keio Mini-Pops and Maestro Rhythm King there is a matrix board supplying the patterns, and a sound generator board. To trigger a sound you have to send it a short pulse. You can take a pulse directly from the matrix board and indeed the service manual shows you how to do this in order to align the machine.

While messing around supplying different triggers to the sounds I noticed that I could create infinitely long cymbal and tambourine sounds. As there are no long cymbal sounds on this machine I created loops of this filtered noise and used them to create long cymbals in Kontakt. Also, just to squeeze everything I could out of the machine, I sampled the tones that make up the cowbell sound separately giving two more pitched tones to play with.

The Guiro sound on the TR-77 has a raised pitch at the end of its stroke to simulate the Guiro being scraped quicker. This can be a problem to sample because it is linked to the tempo. What tempo should you sample it at? The solution was to split the two pitches into separate samples, loop them and use scripting in Kontakt to decide when one should end and the other start depending on the current tempo.

The Kontakt Library

Details of the Kontakt library and how to purchase it are here. Please ensure that it is compatible with your set-up before purchasing.

FK5: Roland TR-77 Library in Kontakt 3.5