Lofi beats with the Roland R8 vintage drum machine and WaveRex WaveR8 card / Review and demo

[@AnalogFlava]

This is really cool. If waverex reads this, please make this happen but for the Roland MC505!! That would be so dope to be able to load samples on that machine!

[@bleepsandboops]

Thanks! Hopefully they'll see this!!

[@ultramet]

I never appreciated this drum machine at the time. I had a Drumulator and then an SP1200 and used them ad nauseam. When I was moving to LA in 2022, I found my old R-8 in a box. Your great video has made me appreciate this machine much more. I’m going to have a blast rediscovering its potential. Thanks!

[@bleepsandboops]

Thank you, and you're welcome! They're great drum machines - do share what you come up with too!!!

[@roystroebel]

I love that card to death, bought one when they came out. Real nerds & old school AFX/Autechre admirers love the R8/WaveRex combo. Let me tell you something: Get an Yamaha RY30 & Sector101 Waveblade card and thank me later

[@bleepsandboops]

Thanks - will see what I can find!!

[@Kung_Fu_Jesus]

@@bleepsandboops I’ve just got my RY30 up and running since I last used it back in 1997. I’m gonna this a go

[@blackboxorchestra]

This is brilliant. As if the existing R8 limitations didn’t put creativity into overdrive, this introduces a whole new set of constraints to exploit. I just blew a circuit imagining all the possibilities. Bad ass!

[@bleepsandboops]

Thanks! It's a really great expansion - really shows how much the Roland engineers tried to squeeze out of the R8, and now we can too! 😎

[@mastercylinder1939]

Great demo, and very interesting sound creations.

[@bleepsandboops]

Thanks, glad you like it!

[@djwombatpoo3369]

I find all of your remakes and hardware videos endlessly interesting. I was wondering if you would ever do a Portishead hardware cover. That would be so cool. Look forward to whatever you do next regardless :)

[@bleepsandboops]

Thank you! Ooooh, love Portishead! Might have to have a go with one!

[@f33fifofum]

This is awesome, that card is a real winner

[@bleepsandboops]

Thanks! Yeah - I was unsure at first, but it's really turned out to be a bit of a gamechanger..!

[@707jette]

Haha I am absolutely part of the niche intersection which this video is aiming at. Love my r8.

[@bleepsandboops]

😁😁👍

[@MattRTGB]

3:17 lmao is that creep? Great video as always man, I love your stuff. You are a damn beast!

[@bleepsandboops]

😁😁 Thanks for watching!

[@TheDjpredator]

Had both the R8 and later the R8M with of course the 808 & 909 expansion card ;) Used it a lot in my 90s productions 😎

[@bleepsandboops]

They're great drum machines especially with the expansion cards - I think a lot of people overlook them since they hear the stock sounds and think 🧀 😂

[@binchsoda]

One of my fav youtube channels

[@bleepsandboops]

Thank you so much!

[@nostandingonlydancin]

Me too!

[@bleepsandboops]

@@nostandingonlydancin Thank you!

[@unfair_potato]

New to the channel - I don't know what I'm doing, I just got sucked in with the great portishead/trip hop opener, and it was hit after hit, heinbach photo, bad gear, etc. How am I going to get an r8? Well, I'll figure out something, but in the meantime, I'll try to check out your back catalogue. Very nice work.

[@bleepsandboops]

Thank you and welcome!!

[@ringtangting]

great video, mate. Love jam 3, that would sound nice along with a nice, fat bass drum. I've been toying with the idea of buying a R8, but I'm having too much fun already with my RX5 with the usb card. I've also got the RY30, would love that card too, maybe I'll invest in it one day, the process of working with it does seem a little more daunting than with the RX5USB or Waverex.

[@bleepsandboops]

Thanks so much - RY30 seems to get mentioned a lot alongside the R8, would love to see what other drum machines and cards can do!

[@aseomg]

2min. in..this man has won the internet. 😎

[@bleepsandboops]

😂 Thanks!

[@chriswareham]

Love the second jam! If I hadn't just bought an Electribe ES-1 I'd definitely be thinking of getting an R8 and this card. Lots of these cool cards seem to be coming out lately - I've just bought something similar for my Korg M1.

[@bleepsandboops]

Thanks! How does the M1 card work? Sounds intriguing!

[@chriswareham]

@@bleepsandboops There's a version of the WaveRex for the M1 as well as the R8, but there are also a couple of other options. I've actually got the "M1RAM", which is not as sophisticated as the WaveRex but is about half the price.

[@endenel8694]

still loving your videos and music. real ones already knew your face from your main channel :)

[@bleepsandboops]

😂😂 I need to find a way to segue the two together... fingerstyle acoustic guitar with afx inspired drums and synths???

[@els1f]

That is RIDICULOUSLY cool! 🔥

[@bleepsandboops]

Thanks! ❄️😎❄️

[@roystroebel]

totally forgot: awesome video, love your channel. and I do not feel shame to admit I have the same Bo Beats portrait on my desktop ...

[@bleepsandboops]

😁😁😁 Thank you!

[@Direktorat]

Any chance of getting the second jam as a release somewhere, sounds really good and oddly nostalgic!

[@bleepsandboops]

😂Maybe at some point - tbh I'm never sure if there's an audience for the jams...! Think I was listening to Kiew Mission by Tangerine Dream at the time... big fan of that PPG sound

[@conk971]

another great vid. cheers!

[@bleepsandboops]

Thank you!

[@nostandingonlydancin]

Great video and great channel

[@bleepsandboops]

Thank you!

[@GordonBraicks]

Did I just hear a sneaky Bad Gear Theme coming out of the R8 😮?

[@bleepsandboops]

😂 I know my audience...

[@summerlaverdure]

this is hella cool, i would have never thought waverex could be made for these/this could be used like this! do you have a bandcamp where i can buy the first lofi jam please?

[@bleepsandboops]

Thanks! Yeah, I was itching to try something that wasn't 100% drums on a 100% drum machine to see what happened! I don't yet have a bandcamp that's relevant for this channel unfortunately! Need to find a way to segue my twiddly acoustic guitar stuff into synth mode... 😁

[@DavidMorley]

Superb!

[@bleepsandboops]

Thank you so much!

[@canecreek00]

"Jam 2 - synthy stuff" is Gorgeous, you must release it, I want to buy it.

[@bleepsandboops]

😁 Maybe one day..

[@canecreek00]

@@bleepsandboops "Maybe someday" was the title of my debut album that never got finished lol

[@badfortheglass]

Great video and good timing for me as I've been considering one of these! Please could you tell me if there's some way to take the .bin files of the original R8 cards and rip the individual sounds (both LF and HF if applicable) to mix and match on to your own card? So you could basically create a 'best of' whatever you feel you're missing most on the stock device from the actual Roland sounds. Messing around with the software (sans card) I get the sense this isn't really seen as a use case and that it's more geared towards loading an entire card image like the ones on the Waverex store or creating an entirely new card from scratch with your own samples? Thanks!

[@bleepsandboops]

Thanks for watching! Was going to recommend having a play with the software before taking the plunge - as far as the .bin files go, I don't think there's a way to pull the data off them to mix and match. I think you've got the use-case spot on - create and save your own cards but there's no way to read the current data on the card.

[@blackboxorchestra]

was imagining this scenario too: “saving” sounds of multiple ROMs to create a megamix on this card. It’s was a bummer to have more cards than slots…

[@badfortheglass]

@@blackboxorchestra Yeah, I do have the card now and it should be possible by compiling the individual R8 sounds you want on to one image, either sampling them yourself or downloaded from elsewhere. I should try it though because I've noticed the R8 seems to heavily filter the loaded samples, probably for anti-aliasing purposes, so sampling then putting them back in might lead to them sounding duller than they should. Another limitation is it doesn't seem possible to pitch any of the loaded sounds up more than 20 semitones. I haven't figured out if this is due to the way the card works or some analysis the R8 does (again, maybe to avoid aliasing) since some of the internal sounds can go further. Bonus observation: some sounds are very noticeably different when loaded from a card vs the MKII's internal memory, even once the decay etc. settings are matched. Others are identical. I'm guessing there's variance in how much some sounds are downsampled on the MKI, MKII and ROM cards and this probably accounts for a lot of the 'MKI sounds better than MKII' converters myth.

[@binchsoda]

Honestly seems pretty cool, I feel like it already gets pretty close to the limitations of the R8, I think they should open source the software so all sorts of features can be added for manipulating samples before exporting them to the card

[@bleepsandboops]

Ooh, open sourcing would be good, not sure how that would fit with the bespoke hardware - am going to feed back what I've found so far so hopefully there'll be updates 🤓👍

[@binchsoda]

@@bleepsandboops I mean Im a programmer so I complain abt open sourcing every time there is ANY feature I wanna see lol but since this seems to be a smaller project and there are a bunch of features people might wanna see, open sourcing it or at least some scripting thing might make sense, or maybe just some library to load sounds to it and then that would allow building custom loading utilities

[@bleepsandboops]

@@binchsoda putting my dev hat on, I hear you! 🤓

[@AkaiS1100]

Great video! Now I wish I had an R8 😂

[@bleepsandboops]

Thanks! They're still relatively cheap for a piece of 30+ year old Roland gear, so keep searching!!

[@dj.aguirre]

Hello, first I congratulate you for your good videos, now I ask you, having a waverex, is it the same as having a rom, the dance rom for example, if we load the same samplers? Do you have more limitations? thank you

[@bleepsandboops]

Thanks for watching! If you have the samples from the Dance ROM card, yes you can use the waverex software to write those samples. Waverex also sell samples from things like the Linn so get you started. The waverex software will also allow you to write raw binary/ROM dumps from the original cards - so if you can find the .bin file, you can create a like-for-like copy of any SN-R8- card. You should own the original card though, for legal reasons.

[@dj.aguirre]

@@bleepsandboops I have the original 04 (electronic) and 10 (dance), but it is also very good as a backup, thank you very much for answering

[@kannon3979]

Wait!!!! Wait a minute.... speechless 😮

[@bleepsandboops]

😂😂 In a good way??

[@707jette]

The main drawback of the R8 (which I love) is that its Swing just doesn't hit as well as the mpc, sp1200 etc

[@bleepsandboops]

The swing is quite a thing on this... Tricky to get so it actually 'swings' and then you're right, it doesn't groove as much as it could.. 😁

[@friendlystranger9662]

Where is the background melody from? Sounds very familiar

[@bleepsandboops]

The one under where I'm talking? It's my interpretation of Radiohead's Creep in the style of The Moog Cookbook 😁😁

[@friendlystranger9662]

​@@bleepsandboops My god, how could I not recognize Creep 🤦‍♂️😅 Thanks!

[@AboveTheTrees00]

hell yeah ❤!

[@bleepsandboops]

😎👍 Thank you!

[@immeika]

big BOC in their early years vibes on the intro track

[@bleepsandboops]

I might be a fan...

[@immeika]

@@bleepsandboops How scandalous lol

[@Vauun]

BABE WAKE UP NEW BLEEPS AND BOOPS JUST DROPPED

[@bleepsandboops]

😂 😂

[@robofixit4636]

What are your thoughts on making that old school pulse bass sound in the R8? I have found a way to use the Roll function to create it with the internal bass samples but it’s not exactly perfect and difficult to make key changes with the pitch shift. The other idea I have is to send out a MIDI to an external synth but sound is not coming from the R8 anymore. Idk maybe I need an MPC for something like this? Any other ways possibly or am I just wishing upon a star? 😂 Example of the pulse bass in reference: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z53WnYKeiNBmo80si=Im2-KIHsZGJ-m0yi

[@bleepsandboops]

You could do it with the R8 sequencing external midi gear, though you sacrifice one instrument for each note you want to play. Or, you sample the synth sound, put it onto something like the WaveRex and sequence it within the R8 doing the pitch shifting internally (like you would the internal samplers) Or you get an external sequencer and synth, program the synth however you like (arpeggiator, clock synced looping envelopes, lfo, whatever) and use either the R8 or the other sequencer as a clock to sync it all together... Jam 2 does some of that - I'm using the Hapax to play all the other instruments, whilst the R8 is playing the drum sounds. Hope that helps!

[@desktorp]

face reveal didn't disappoint, brother.. blue eyed ginger phenotype is top tier.

[@bleepsandboops]

😂😂 Thanks!

[@lookapi]

🤟🤟🤟

[@bleepsandboops]

Thanks! 🙏

[@pawnotdaw4559]

My R5 very jelous now

[@bleepsandboops]

Always room for another drum machine... 😁

[@samch1k954]

no offence but you look like House M.D. and Aphex Twin at the same time

[@bleepsandboops]

I'll take that... 😂😂

[@father_moo]

Gotem

[@samch1k954]

​@@bleepsandboops is there any platforms where i could contact you?

[@longGlaise]

@@samch1k954ET used a Speak and Spell.

[@samch1k954]

@@longGlaise whats that?

[@ryanv6117]

the bad gear music!!!!!! hahaha!!!!

[@desktorp]

this video is ticking all the boxes

[@bleepsandboops]

☑☑☑☑

[@lundsweden]

The R8 ain't lofi, it has uncompressed 16 bit, 44.1 khz samples, exactly the same as CD.

[@bleepsandboops]

Maybe on the factory samples - and the R8's convertors are 44,1/16 from what I understand - but you do have to downsample anything longer than a drum hit in order to fit it on the WaveRex card. Combine with the pitch shifting, and it sounds pretty lofi..

[@lundsweden]

It does sound deliciously lofi. I've done some research and believe the R8 (and most 80s drum machines) uses Mu-law compression (or similar) to fit 16 bits into an 8 bit word length. On the Waverex website they say the R8 cards fit 1MB of (uncompressed 16 but) into 512kb (half a MB essentially).

[@TotallyNuss]

$190?! Yikes. That’s ridiculous.

[@bleepsandboops]

EU to USD... but then look at the prices of the original expansion cards, especially the Electronic and Dance ones.. !

[@jamesdelrogers542]

The r8 is great for triggering 8 and 12 bit analog digital analog samplers , it has such a mechanical sound if you dont use the humanized function. I hate the word industrial ever since That winy boy trent rezner sold out the original underground art movements and coined this marketable term . So think front 242 instead They used the r8 quite a bit on up evil and off

[@bleepsandboops]

😁 .. And doesn't it make you feel better...

[@jamesdelrogers542]

@bleepsandboops if you mean calling trent rezner a winy or weenie boy , Absolutely............................ It's personal I have never met the dumb sun of a b*tch And never wanted to but he managed to worm his way into my world any way

[@RoyMaya]

Great track, but licking your drum machine is so wrong! 🤣

[@vitaliiandronov8629]

licking other people drum machines is wrong

[@bleepsandboops]

TASTY BEATS