We’ve made a collaboration with Maarten, the owner and “modifier” of this fabulous modded Roland TR-909.
The result is a sample pack containing more than 200 samples, showcasing its possibilities.
We’re giving it away for free as a token of our appreciation for the open exchange of ideas and knowledge that allow tinkerers with ideas to develop things like this.
By Maarten
By Maarten
The design philosophy behind these modifications was to soften the sharp, harsh sounds of the 909. While I do appreciate its original character, gentler drum tones suit my music better.
You can listen to some of my tracks on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@pwmaarten
Most of the BD mods are taken from Colin Fraser’s site. http://www.colinfraser.com/tr909/909mods/909mods.html
The “Tune” parameter on the original 909 is in fact controlling the decay time of the pitch envelope. I modified this to be an actual Tune control as this is more in line with the other instruments. The decay time and depth have their own knobs in the mod section above the original parameters. Also, there’s a drive modification that clips the sine like waveform into a square.
As with the Bass Drum, the Snare also has controls for tune decay and depth. The switch named “Burst” is there to turn off the initial short noise burst. This noise burst is completely separate from the snappy control. The “Damp” knob is a filter for the snare’s noise.
As with the BD and SD the Toms have controls for tune decay and depth in the mod section. There is an additional noise level control that attenuates or boosts the short noise burst of the Toms. Four added switches alter the sound even further:
Has a Tune control and a switch to change the level of the second oscillator to off, normal or double volume. The “Attack” knob is actually a volume knob for the third oscillator. Because this makes the sound of the Rim Shot much softer I opted for the name Attack.
The spread modification is taken from the Nava 909 clone mods. The Reverb knob controls the decay envelope of the noise and the Tone knob controls a filter for said noise.
For the Hi Hats there is only a Tune added. The Cymbals have some more mods from the Nava 909 clone modifications, specifically an envelope with attack and decay times for the Ride and Crash VCA’s.
There is an added analog noise source in this 909 taken directly from the TR-808. This noise is selectable for the Snare Drum and Hand Clap. Also, the range of many of the original parameters has been extended significantly.
We’ve provided a few ways to get the samples:
The Sample pack options contain all the samples in 48 or 96 kHz respectively, organized in sub-folders (one for each type of sound) and the toms have been further organized by their style. This is really the recommended way to just get everything.
For Kontakt, a Multi has been created. This has all the samples in 96 kHz assigned to separate MIDI channels (1: Bass drums, 2: Snare drums, 3: High hats, 4: Crash Cymbals, 5: Ride Cymbals 6: Toms, 7: Claps/Rimshots).
The Kontakt instrument and all the DAW options are meant as easy preview options for different software samplers. All the samples are included with each download, but they’re not organized in sub-folders, and only a few samples are assigned to keys or pads.
A sample pack provided in collaboration with PWM featuring 200 twisted 909 samples. The perfect companion to our XT-909!
*) Note that a full version of Kontakt 5.8 or higher is required for the Kontakt downloads. The free Kontakt Player is not supported.
Beaotic is best known for our excellent full-featured drum machine instruments, so we have more to offer that might interest you.
If you’re into free stuff, we have the LinnDrum-based LMFree, or if you prefer a 909 more in style with the original (with added percussion), you might want to check out the XT-909.
