ROMAN MARS: This is 99% Invisible. I’m Roman Mars.
In the 15 years we’ve been making this show, a lot of podcasts have reached out saying that we, in some way, inspired their approach to storytelling. But to me, the podcast that consistently embodies the spirit of 99PI, while still infusing their episodes with a thoughtfulness and care that makes everything completely their own, is Twenty Thousand Hertz. Imagine 99% Invisible, but every beautifully crafted story is about sound. Every once in a while, I hear an episode of Twenty Thousand Hertz and it’s such a definitive statement on the subject that I think, “I just have to share this.” And that’s what I have for you today. This is the story of the Roland TR-808 Drum Machine. Before they were all over popular music, drum machines had a humble origin. They were originally built into home organs, with chintzy sounds that plunked along to preset rhythms like the cha-cha and the foxtrot and the waltz. But the earth-shaking 808 changed everything. And its seismic waves spread out far beyond music that had an electronic backing beat. It introduced an addictive, low-end rumble. And pop music was never the same.
[AL JOLSON – THAT HAUNTING MELODY]
DALLAS TAYLOR: You’re listening to Twenty Thousand Hertz. I’m Dallas Taylor. Whenever I listen to vintage music, one of the first things that I notice is a lack of bass. For example, in 1912, the top song in America was That Haunting Melody by Al Jolson.
Since this was recorded with a full orchestra, there’s almost certainly a double bass in there. But you’d never know it from the record. 20 years later, things were not much better. Here’s a Louis Armstrong track from the early ’30s. In this one, the double bass is just barely audible…
[LOUIS ARMSTRONG – WHEN YOUR LOVER HAS GONE]
DALLAS TAYLOR: In the 1950s, the bass started becoming a bit more noticeable. In Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock, you can definitely hear what the bassist is playing, though it’s still pretty quiet.
[BILL HALEY – ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK]
DALLAS TAYLOR: A decade later, bass guitars were much more common. But the recordings were still pretty thin. In this Rolling Stones track, the bass guitar and kick drum just aren’t very present…
[THE ROLLING STONES – ROUTE 66]
DALLAS TAYLOR: Now, it’s not that people back then didn’t care about bass. The microphones they had just weren’t very good at capturing those frequencies. And even if they could, the speakers and headphones that people had just couldn’t reproduce those low-pitched sounds.
[ROY EDWIN WILLIAMS – SUMMER OF LOVE]
DALLAS TAYLOR: But in the ’60s and ’70s, a few different companies released microphones that were much more sensitive to low frequencies. At the same time, people started investing in stereo systems that could blow those old ’50s radios out of the water. The result was an explosion of bass-heavy music, from rock classics like Dazed and Confused…
[LED ZEPPELIN – DAZED AND CONFUSED]
DALLAS TAYLOR: To disco hits like Le Freak.
[CHIC – LE FREAK]
DALLAS TAYLOR: But as bassy as that is, it’s nowhere near the booming, sub-rattling tones we hear today.
[POST MALONE – CONGRATULATIONS]
DALLAS TAYLOR: To unlock a sound like that, musicians would need something truly revolutionary. It was a little device that came out in the early ’80s and went on to transform the sound of popular music, the 808 drum machine.
[CYBERTRON 808 BEAT]
DALLAS TAYLOR: The 808 is everywhere. You may or may not know it by name, but you’ve definitely heard it before.
[WHITNEY HOUSTON – I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY]
[BEASTIE BOYS – BRASS MONKEY]
[USHER – YEAH!]
[BEYONCÉ – DRUNK IN LOVE]
[LIL NAS X – OLD TOWN ROAD]
DJ JAZZY JEFF: I laugh because, if I listen to the radio for an hour, there’s not one record that you hear that’s not an 808.
DALLAS TAYLOR: That’s DJ Jazzy Jeff. He’s a world-renowned DJ, producer, and hip-hop icon. Famously, he was Will Smith’s partner back in his Fresh Prince days.
[DJ JAZZY JEFF – THE MAGNIFICENT JAZZY JEFF]
DJ JAZZY JEFF: We were seeking out what we heard on the early hip-hop records and the machines that they used. And there was nothing that was more distinctive and more sought after than an 808.
PAUL MCCABE: The Roland TR-808 is a drum machine.
DALLAS TAYLOR: That’s Paul McCabe from Roland, the company that created the 808. When they first released it, back in the early ’80s, drum machines weren’t exactly sought after. For 20 or 30 years, they had mostly been used in the home.
[PAR – LAIKA’S LAST LAP]
PAUL MCCABE: We have to remember–in the ’70s, the ’60s, the ’50s–music being played in the home was still a very popular thing. And television hadn’t taken over the living room quite yet. So, families would often gather around and they would play music. People would play music as a pastime. A high percentage of the population was playing music.
DALLAS TAYLOR: And though families were hanging out in the living room playing music, they typically didn’t have a drum kit laying around. They might have a guitar…
[GUITAR STRUM]
DALLAS TAYLOR: Maybe a piano…
[PIANO RIFF]
DALLAS TAYLOR: Or an organ.
[ORGAN RIFF]
DALLAS TAYLOR: As you can imagine, people wanted a rhythmic instrument that wasn’t as big or loud as a live drum kit.
[DRUM FILL]
PAUL MCCABE: If you see photos of some of the earliest drum machines, in fact, you’ll even see drum machines that are designed to sit on top of an organ, where the music rest would normally be.
[ROLAND TR-66 RHYTHM ARRANGER]
PAUL MCCABE: So, particularly the earliest drum machines were really working to try and recreate the sound of a small acoustic drum kit. And so there would be a kick drum and a snare drum and cymbals and tom-toms.
DALLAS TAYLOR: For years, drum machines were used casually, and professional musicians mostly ignored them. But in time, musicians did start to find uses for drum machines. By the early ’70s, many songwriters would program a drum beat and then write to it. Now, most of the time, this drum machine would get replaced by a live drummer. But not always. One of the first recordings to include a drum machine was Family Affair by Sly and the Family Stone.
[SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE – FAMILY AFFAIR]
DALLAS TAYLOR: Around the same time, early versions of electronic music were starting to go mainstream. This is The Robots by Kraftwerk…
[KRAFTWERK – THE ROBOTS]
PAUL MCCABE: Kraftwerk is a four-piece band out of Dusseldorf, Germany. They would be one of the founding fathers of techno.
DALLAS TAYLOR: For Kraftwerk, drum machines were a perfect complement to their precise, synthesized basslines. By the late ’70s, drum machines were finally gaining traction.
PAUL MCCABE: They started to become used more in live performance, in a situation where either an acoustic drummer wasn’t available or to enhance a rhythm section. And then they started to appear in recordings.
DALLAS TAYLOR: At the time, one of the most popular drum machines was the Roland CR-78, which was a predecessor to the 808. Here it is in Blondie’s Heart of Glass…
[BLONDIE – HEART OF GLASS]
DALLAS TAYLOR: And here’s the CR-78 and Phil Collins’ In the Air Tonight…
[PHIL COLLINS – IN THE AIR TONIGHT]
DALLAS TAYLOR: These songs inspired early demand for a stage-ready drum machine. So, Roland got to work on a new model.
[808 BEAT]
DALLAS TAYLOR: They wanted to build a machine that was portable, flexible, and durable.
PAUL MCCABE: When one sees a TR-808, it almost looks military in its design. It’s kind of a drab olive color. And there’s a reason why TR-808s are still being used today–because you could drive a truck over them.
[TRUCK HIT]
PAUL MCCABE: And probably many of them would still work. That was kind of what was in our mind at the time. Where it went to, needless to say, is someplace quite different.
DALLAS TAYLOR: Over the centuries, there have been a few instruments that changed music forever. The piano revolutionized classical music.
[BEETHOVEN – FÜR ELISE]
DALLAS TAYLOR: Electric guitars defined rock and roll.
[CHUCK BERRY – JOHNNY B. GOODE]
DALLAS TAYLOR: And the 808 transformed hip-hop and electronic music.
PAUL MCCABE: When we think about the sound of the 808, we think of it in terms of its influence on hip-hop and R&B. And when we think hip-hop, of course, we start with Afrika Bambaataa and Planet Rock.
[AFRIKA BAMBAATAA & THE SOUL SONIC FORCE – PLANET ROCK]
PAUL MCCABE: It’s this otherworldly mash-up of this kind of East Coast New York sound with Kraftwerk.
DALLAS TAYLOR: Like a lot of musicians at the time, DJ Jazzy Jeff heard Planet Rock and was captivated by the drum sounds.
DJ JAZZY JEFF: We emulated whatever we heard. So, you know, when Planet Rock came out, it was kind of like, “I need that machine.” There was no drum machine that had a kick drum that sounded like that–that had snare that sounded that–that had a crispness to the hi-hats like an 808. So, it was definitely sought after so that you could kind of make these records.
DALLAS TAYLOR: Once these DJs got their hands on the 808, they started expanding on its possibilities.
[THE MASTERDON COMMITTEE – 1982 – FUNK BOX PARTY, PART 1]
DJ JAZZY JEFF: There was a record–Funk Box Party by Masterdon Committee. And he was a DJ that was very, very good on an 808.
DALLAS TAYLOR: Musicians were experimenting. Here’s Egyptian Lover over on the West Coast…
[THE EGYPTIAN LOVER – EGYPT, EGYPT]
DALLAS TAYLOR: And here’s some 808 electro-funk from a group called The S.O.S. Band…
[S.O.S. BAND – JUST GOOD TO BE ME]
DALLAS TAYLOR: Here’s Indian musician, Charanjit Singh, using an 808 on his album, Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat…
[CHARANJIT SINGH – TEN RAGAS TO A DISCO BEAT]
DALLAS TAYLOR: And here’s Marvin Gaye’s more minimalist use of the 808…
[MARVIN GAYE – SEXUAL HEALING]
[PARTICLE HOUSE – WHAT WE DIDN’T DO]
DALLAS TAYLOR: As the 808 took off, it wasn’t clear if this sound had any staying power. It could just be a flash in the pan that would be replaced by the next big thing.
PAUL MCCABE: There was all these moments that were happening–these musical moments that were very serendipitous in the early ’80s–that, you know, if they’d gone left instead of right or if this guy did this on a Tuesday instead of a Wednesday, we probably wouldn’t be talking about the 808 in this context today. It was literally that kind of magical.
[WITCHITAW SLIM – BLESS THE RIDE]
DALLAS TAYLOR: A huge factor in that magic had to do with the 808’s bass drum sound and a little knob for controlling it, labeled “Decay.” That one tiny knob allowed musicians to push the bass in their music farther than they ever had before. And it created a sound that still dominates to this day.
That’s coming up, after the break…
[AD BREAK]
ROMAN MARS: We’re back with more 808 from Twenty Thousand Hertz on 99% Invisible. That’s all the numbers I’ve got for you.
[808 BEAT]
DALLAS TAYLOR: When drum machines were first developed, they were meant to replace live drummers. So, the goal was to sound like a real drum kit, using artificial sounds. The Roland 808 was designed with the same idea in mind.
PAUL MCCABE: Even when we got to the TR-808, the technology was designed to recreate an acoustic drum kit.
DALLAS TAYLOR: The 808 was released in 1980. And at first, it wasn’t a big hit. For one thing, it cost $1,200, which is about $4,600 in today’s money. And soon after it came out, the 808 got some tough competition.
PAUL MCCABE: Right about that same time–1981–the first drum machine that used recorded sound clips or samples came into being.
[SAMPLE BASED DRUMS]
DALLAS TAYLOR: This new generation of drum machines could play real recorded drum sounds. Once they hit the scene, they made synthesized drum machines, like the 808, sound dated.
[808 BEAT]
DJ JAZZY JEFF: To me, this is very Nintendo and Atari-ish. “Here’s my computer version of what I think a drum kit is supposed to sound.” And it doesn’t sound anything like a drummer or a drum set at all.
DALLAS TAYLOR: At the time, an Atari video gamey drum sound just wasn’t what people wanted on their records. But after a couple years of mediocre sales, the 808 started showing up in pawn shops for a fraction of the price.
[FROOK – GECKO SUITCASE]
DJ JAZZY JEFF: I ended up getting mine from a pawn shop because you couldn’t really walk into a store and see an 808.
DALLAS TAYLOR: Musicians started picking them up because it was a piece of equipment they could actually afford. Recording studios often had one on a shelf collecting dust. Or somebody’s friend might lend them one for a live show. But the jury was still out on whether the 808 was anything more than a cheap machine that couldn’t play real drum sounds.
PAUL MCCABE: The 808 was really facing quite an uphill battle to gain any kind of acceptance. But in kind of one of these classic, “your strength is your weakness” paradoxes, where the strength of the drum machines that were based on recordings of actual drum sounds was that at first glance they sounded more natural, on the other hand, certainly with the technology available at that time, you couldn’t really adjust the sound that much.
DJ JAZZY JEFF: We were used to having a drum machine that you were stuck with basically the sound that came out of it. There wasn’t too much manipulation that you can do. So, to have this machine that you can take the snappiness out of the snare.
[SNARE SAMPLES WITH SNAPPINESS BEING REMOVED]
DJ JAZZY JEFF: Then you can add more boom into the kick.
[KICK SAMPLES WITH BOOM INCREASING]
DJ JAZZY JEFF: This one machine could sound a hundred different ways.
DALLAS TAYLOR: The 808 may have sounded artificial, but those video gamey tones were highly adjustable. And that ended up being the key to its success.
PAUL MCCABE: And so with that in mind, you look and you’ve got these 11 sounds.
DALLAS TAYLOR: Here’s the kick…
[KICK]
DALLAS TAYLOR: Snare…
[SNARE]
DALLAS TAYLOR: Closed hi-hat…
[CLOSED HI-HAT]
DALLAS TAYLOR: Open hi-hat…
[OPEN HI-HAT]
PAUL MCCABE: Crash cymbal…
[CRASH CYMBAL]
PAUL MCCABE: Toms…
[TOMS]
PAUL MCCABE: Hand clap…
[HAND CLAP]
PAUL MCCABE: Rim shot…
[RIM SHOT]
PAUL MCCABE: Cowbell…
[COWBELL]
PAUL MCCABE: You always gotta have more cowbell…
[COWBELL]
DALLAS TAYLOR: And finally, clave…
[CLAVE]
[808 BEAT WITH COWBELL AND CLAVE]
DJ JAZZY JEFF: When you start getting into the clave and the cowbell, those were two very distinctive sounds that–if you put them on anything–you knew they came from an 808.
DALLAS TAYLOR: But there was one sound on the 808 that changed music forever: the bass drum–also known as the “kick.”
DJ JAZZY JEFF: There was a point in time that I felt like people were afraid of kick drums. You couldn’t have the kick drum too loud. You couldn’t have it too boomy.
[GRANDMASTER FLASH & THE FURIOUS FIVE]
DALLAS TAYLOR: Here’s Scorpio by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five. You can hear that the kick drum is relatively low in the mix.
DJ JAZZY JEFF: Someone had the heart to put an 808 kick drum that was round. And it was boomy. And it felt really good.
DALLAS TAYLOR: Here’s Planet Patrol with a rounder, louder kick drum…
[PLANET PATROL – PLAY AT YOUR OWN RISK]
DJ JAZZY JEFF: Then somebody on a record opened up the decay.
[DECAY]
DJ JAZZY JEFF: And when that kick drum rang out, it was nothing like you’ve ever heard.
DALLAS TAYLOR: Here’s DJ Jazzy Jeff himself opening up that decay and letting the kick drum drive the song…
[DJ JAZZY JEFF AND FRESH PRINCE – JUST ONE OF THOSE DAYS]
DALLAS TAYLOR: Soon enough, the sound of the 808 bass drum became synonymous with hip hop. The idea of young people driving down the street with big, boomy subwoofers was largely because of that tone.
[L’TRIMM – CARS THAT GO BOOM]
DALLAS TAYLOR: Here’s L’Trimm, a Miami Bass hip-hop duo, singing about boomy car stereos in 1988. Notice the signature, sustained 808 bass drum sound.
Twenty years later, Felix da Housecat released the song Kickdrum, which pushes that decay to its absolute limit.
[FELIX DA HOUSECAT – KICKDRUM]
DALLAS TAYLOR: Today, artists often shift the pitch of these 808 kick sounds to create full-on basslines.
[808 BASSLINE]
DALLAS TAYLOR: Over the last couple decades, this technique has been used in hit song after hit song. It’s in Hotline Bling by Drake…
[DRAKE – HOTLINE BLING INSTRUMENTAL]
DALLAS TAYLOR: It’s in DNA by Kendrick Lamar…
[KENDRICK LAMAR – DNA INSTRUMENTAL]
DALLAS TAYLOR: It’s in Up by Cardi B…
[CARDI B – UP INSTRUMENTAL]
DALLAS TAYLOR: By now, we’ve heard these booming bass tones in hundreds–if not thousands–of tracks. But back in the early ’80s, a sound like that was unheard of.
[808 BEAT]
DJ JAZZY JEFF: You’re not supposed to have your bass drum driving that much. And it’s kind of like, “Why not?” Everybody’s riding around in their car playing this music. And it’s vibrating their car. And they enjoy that. There’s no right and wrong in it. I really feel like the 808 kick drum was one of the first things that started shattering the rules of what you should or shouldn’t do when it came to recording music.
DALLAS TAYLOR: The decay control basically turned the 808’s bass drum into a whole new instrument. It was so different that the studios making early hip-hop records didn’t even know what to do with it.
[DJ JAZZY JEFF AND FRESH PRINCE – PARENTS JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND]
DJ JAZZY JEFF: When we did He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper, it was the first record that I used 808s and 808 samples on that I wanted the kick drum to really resonate. And I remember fighting with the engineer because I wanted to push the envelope on how loud and how deep I wanted the 808 because I knew there were some hip-hop records that you would get in a car and you would play it and the entire car would vibrate. And I was like, “I want that!”
DALLAS TAYLOR: But since that was so unusual at the time, the engineer refused.
[TIMOTHY INFINITE – SUDDEN]
DJ JAZZY JEFF: I had to fight with the engineer to turn it up. And he would turn it down and turn it up. And I had to kind of explain to him, like, “I understand that there is a technical way that you think you’re supposed to do something. I want to push that envelope. I need this to be this loud. I need it to be almost at the brink that it’s not distorting and it’s overpowering everything, but I need to be the focal point of the record. Hip-hop is something that the drums have to drive the record.” And I got him to allow me to do it to the point that I loved it. And what I never realized was I never told the mastering engineer that I wanted that. And he thought it was a mistake, and he took all of the 808 out of the album. And I don’t think I’ve ever said this in public: I can’t listen to he’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper now. That is the biggest record we’ve ever done, and I absolutely hate the way that it sounds because they sucked all of the bottom end from the 808 out in mastering.
DALLAS TAYLOR: Here’s a clip from He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper as it is on the record…
[DJ JAZZY JEFF AND FRESH PRINCE – HE’S THE DJ, I’M THE RAPPER]
DALLAS TAYLOR: And here’s what DJ Jazzy Jeff was probably going for…
[DJ JAZZY JEFF AND FRESH PRINCE – HE’S THE DJ, I’M THE RAPPER – BASSY]
[JAKUZZI JEFFERSON – BACKBOARD]
DALLAS TAYLOR: The 808 arrived at exactly the right time. Through the 1970s, the rise of funk and disco made people hungry for thumping, bass-heavy music. Then, in the early ’80s, the 808 showed up just as hip-hop was starting to take off. It was the perfect storm.
PAUL MCCABE: When the 808 was absorbed into hip hop culture, the ability to create that boom–and the boom was largely driven by where you tuned the kick and then where you adjusted its decay to–that became the signature.
DJ JAZZY JEFF: So, as hip-hop grew–the sound of hip-hop grew–the backbone of that sound was the 808.
DALLAS TAYLOR: Pretty soon, these boomy bass drums spread into R&B, electronic music, and beyond.
PAUL MCCABE: Today, the 808 is just everywhere through pop music. And just by saying “pop,” that’s such a wide term now. It encompasses world music, electronic music, EDM, techno, and house. And it’s not an understatement to say that the 808 is an instrument that has actually defined culture.
DALLAS TAYLOR: Just like the electric guitar with rock and roll, the 808 allowed musicians to express new ideas–or at least to express timeless ideas in ways that felt new and exciting.
DJ JAZZY JEFF: This is why I love music so much–because there’s a thousand different combinations and ways to get to a result. At the end of the day, you realize that someone who had a crappy week at work–depending on how you present this music–you can change their day. You can introduce two people together that end up spending the rest of their lives together just by playing music in a certain way to bring people together. I’ve been blessed to have a thumbprint in music and making it or playing it that affects people’s moods. That’s the coolest job in the world.
[JAMES MYLES JR. – MY TIME RIGHT NOW]
DALLAS TAYLOR: Twenty Thousand Hertz is produced out of the sound design studios of Defacto Sound. Find out more at defactosound.com.
OTHER VOICES: This episode was written and produced by Fil Corbitt and Casey Emmerling, with help from Grace East. It was sound designed and mixed by Joel Boyter and Justin Hollis.
DALLAS TAYLOR: Thanks to our guests, DJ Jazzy Jeff and Paul McCabe. You can find Jeff’s latest work at djjazzyjeff.com. And a big thanks to OnePlus for partnering with us on this episode. To learn more, visit oneplus.com.
I’m Dallas Taylor. Thanks for listening.
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