Roland Rhythm Performer, TR-8S

Born of the most famous and influential drum machines ever made, the Roland TR-8S combines the best of its Roland heritage with modern production techniques and professional sound design. The result? A forward-thinking, performance-tuned instrument unlike any other. Build your dream kit from the most iconic drum sounds of all time, plus the finest selection of samples from our vast library—or import your own custom samples. Tap, tune, and tweak with hands-on controls and production tools that make your patterns move and groove. And why keep this kind of percussive power confined to the studio? The TR-8S was literally made to play live.

Design Kits with Authentic TR Drums, Sampled Sounds, and Effects The TR-8S comes loaded with the largest, most authentic collection of TR drum machines available. The powerful new processor gives our next-generation ACB models a whole new level of detail and nuance, giving you that classic Roland boom, snap, and sizzle. And now you can incorporate preset and custom samples, creating unique hybrid and layered kits, and enhance them with specialized effects that inject professional sound design into the TR formula.

The TR-8S has every sound from the most sought-after TR drum machines, with detailed circuit-models of the 808, 606, 909, 707, 727, and even several modified versions. These are not sound-alike sample-packs or mere recordings of TR drum sounds. Each machine is a detailed, down-to-the-circuit-model that sounds and behaves exactly like the original hardware. All these sounds are yours, at your fingertips, and ready to use in your own productions and performances.

The right effects can make a drum part stand out by creating depth and space. Whether it’s delay on a rim-shot, overdrive on a kick, filters on toms and cymbals, or just the right amount of reverb on select instruments, the TR-8S has percussion-tuned effects that simply sound great. In addition to the Master FX knob, each channel has a customizable CTRL knob, placing all this sound-shaping power within easy reach. The attack of the kick, the snap of the snare, phaser depth, distortion amount-whatever parameter you need direct and immediate access to-can be assigned to the CTRL knob or Master FX knob and saved with the kit. Both Instrument and Master Effects, along with their precise settings, are also saved with each kit, making your productions always performance-ready.

Keep things fresh and exciting, even during extended live sets. The TR-8S can store 128 patterns-each with eight variations and three kinds of fills-and patterns or variations can be triggered individually or chained together for evolving sequences. In performance situations, you can copy patterns on the fly and even stay ahead of the beat and work on patterns that aren’t currently playing. Each pattern can include the tempo and the kit, along with its knob positions and effect settings. This gives you instant recall and enough storage and flexibility to play an entire set without ever repeating a measure in the same way.

Well-placed fills can create thrilling moments in a track or a live set. Each pattern in the TR-8S can contain two fills which you can customize or create from scratch. There’s also an adjustable "Scatter" fill which will slice and dice a measure into short bursts of cool and controlled chaos. But at times, your hands may be too busy to trigger every fill manually. That’s where Auto-Fill comes in. Automating fills every 2, 4, 8, 16, or 32 measures keeps your hands free, but also adds interesting dynamics to your performances.

For the last four years, we’ve heard feedback from enthusiastic TR-8 fans and artists from around the world. It left us with a pretty clear idea of how we could make it even better, both for studio production and live performance. We’ve put these user-requested features-and more-into the TR-8S, while keeping the immediacy and fun-factor of the original TR-8 fully intact. Like some of its famous siblings, the TR-8S has eight separate analog outputs, so you can process individual drum sounds through external effects or send them into separate channels of your mixer or DAW. Take control of your sound and decide which instruments or groups are sent to which outputs. And whatever you choose, know that the TR-8S sounds big, punchy, and spacious thanks to its high-resolution 24bit/96kHz digital-to-analog converters.