TR808 The Down Beat of Innovation
Percussion is the back beat, down beat, foundation for and expression of temperament in music. The evolution of Roland’s TR808 has been all that and more- its versatility inspiring new uses for the instrument, as well as a new genre of music.
Don Lewis’s involvement with the TR808 began with Ace Tone’s original version, the FR-2L, known as the iconic “Rhythm Ace,” which he first started using in the late 1960s to add electronic percussion accompaniment to his organ music.
Without external controls, Don would adjust circuitry manually for every new rhythm pattern for every song, sometimes adding parts and soldering them in place to achieve the sounds he desired.
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Don Lewis Takes on the Vocoder
It is one thing to be called a pioneer, yet quite another to actually be one.
For Don Lewis, his decades-long contributions to the development of the synthesizer and related technologies like the vocoder qualify him as the real deal.
Starting in the late 1960s, Lewis consulted behind the scenes to drive synthesizer innovation for commercial use by Hammond and Acetone. In coming decades, he contributed to development efforts at ARP, Yamaha and Roland, working directly with electronics engineers in the lab and as a demo artist.
When the synthesizer movement evolved from a desire to replicate musical instruments to replicating voice in the early 1980s, it was only natural for Roland to bring Lewis in on the ground floor as they developed their first vocoder.
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Ned Augustenborg: One Driven Documentarian
It would be easy to entitle this opening blog entry, “The Man Behind the Movie,” but Ned Augustenborg is much more.
His unwavering motivation to keep the dream of bringing the film to the big screen over the past decade- despite personal and professional delays – could cause a lesser-driven director to permanently shelve it.
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