Why put Distortion on a Roland TR-505 Drum Machine?

Drums have a history of being distorted, overdriven, and saturated. Today we send the humble TR-505 through an overdrive pedal for some added grit.
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[@zooblestyx]

The heavy overdrive reminds me of how lofi drum samples used to saturate when recording an Amiga tracker song to tape. Those were the days.

[@yetanotheruser1989]

The slight saturation is where it's at!

[@thevainestknives4843]

Just jumping in here to say that your videos inspired me to purchase a 505 from Reverb. It's in the mail right now and can't wait to play around with it.

[@MadeOnTape]

heck yes! have fun with that! it’s so quirky but i love the sound (not 808 or 909…just different)

[@museum1401]

@@MadeOnTape Yeah, I've just become interested in the 505. Love the kick and snare - they're more reminiscent of the Linn machines than Roland.

[@lamborghinimiura7625]

I really liked the second one and I'm going to do it.

[@TheBroDotTV]

I think a bit of overdrive sounds good. Nice video!

[@MadeOnTape]

glad you like it! let me know if there are any topics you’d like to see covered here on the channel 🤘

[@chadjohnson-authormusician8072]

Great stuff. I agree that the middle setting was the most useful overall. And I have to give a shout out for the early Stevie stuff! I have his Greatest Hits Volume 2 on vinyl. You'd think a "volume 2" would contain some of his later stuff, but it actually spans from 68 to 71, and he was in TOP FORM. "Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day" is just oozing soul, effortlessly too.

[@MadeOnTape]

oh yes love that early Stevie when he was still singing in front of the Funk Brothers. I used to have "For Once in My Life" CD spinning all the time (Shoo be doo is on that, if memory serves me)

[@lu4enp]

Finally a terrific Potastudio oriented channel!!!! Thanks Man, Hi from Buenos Aires!!! I love 4 tracks too, and drum machines, sadly i didn't have a real 505 but i use the samples in MPC1000, i like to distort a bit the snare too. Please keep going this way!!!!

[@MadeOnTape]

thanks for the kind words! while working as a musician on cruises i made several musician friends from Buenos Aires: I hope to visit your beautiful city someday!

[@BurnMoneyBeats]

If you can find a Roland Cr-3000 it has the same sound set as the 505 but it doesn't have the programmable sequencer but you can push midi to it. Should be even cheaper than a 505, which is already a pretty inexpensive rhythm machine.

[@BluesBrethrenofPolishPeoplesR]

Stop it! Your cool and inspiring music videos are to cool to keep seating on the sofa 🛋:_) Super heavy muaaa! And in the middle. Plus the guitar through chorus was also so cool. And of course that bass guitar was something I just couldn’t not loving. Thank you so much.

[@MadeOnTape]

if you’ve got your drum machine nearby you can stay on the sofa! thanks for watching 🙏

[@anthonypocetti]

You got me wanting a whammy pedal from that other video and now I need a distortion pedal too....

[@MadeOnTape]

ahhhh i’m sorry to fuel your G.A.S.!

[@mirage69]

Have you tried overloading the tascam pre amps to get some cool distortion? I use a drumbrute into my tascam with the ol light flashing and get a nice sound.

[@MadeOnTape]

Yes! I really like it on the drums and bass...I find there is a fine line between really cool and going overboard on my Porta Two. If you check out a lot of the Made on Tape music, the drums and bass are usually pushed pretty hot into the TASCAM. Thanks for the comment/question!

[@mirage69]

@@MadeOnTape sick. You’re stuff sounds great. I’d be interested in knowing how you track bass. Do you go direct in?

[@MadeOnTape]

@@mirage69 thank you! Bass is always direct in, no compression, but sometimes it has an effect like Chorus on it. Many times, I double the bass with a guitar an octave higher also

[@DannyOKC]

@@MadeOnTape Is the no-compression thing a bassist's pride sort of thing? As in, you're trained to play each note at a consistent volume? Or is it something else?

[@MadeOnTape]

@@DannyOKC in this context, it's definitely not a pride thing. I'm using the TASCAM and the tape itself like a light compression, so no actual compressor is needed. For me, at least. great question!

[@nondoctor]

I do enjoy these videos. I had mine modded... with Linn/LM-1/CR-78/DMX and really love it. I tried running it through a Blackstar Dept. 10 Dual Distortion and it came out really, really quiet as soon I enabled either distortion button... not quite sure what I'm doing wrong with it? (new pedal to me!)

[@MadeOnTape]

hmmm I hope you've sorted it out!

[@nondoctor]

@@MadeOnTape Not yet! Any idea what I'm doing wrong here?

[@MadeOnTape]

@@nondoctor unfortunately i'm not familiar with that pedal. I assume you cranked all the gain and levels on the pedal and your 505?

[@JoshuaPickenpaugh]

Interesting stuff. I kinda like the heavy overdrive when solo'd, but in the mix it became way to much.

[@MadeOnTape]

same. for me when the overdrive is too heavy, the drums gain a more discernible pitch, too. so, if you’re song ain’t in that key there would be problems

[@JoshuaPickenpaugh]

@@MadeOnTape so is there a way to "tune" the 505 with overdrive? I'm suspecting that if yes, the pitch range would be rather small unless you want the drums to be radically changed.

[@trvshbxvt3146]

Now just saturate the entire mix for more fun!

[@MadeOnTape]

hahaha yessss

[@trvshbxvt3146]

@@MadeOnTape I do this almost every song lol, essential to the mastering process

[@t55a2]

Modding this is pointless. It's nice at low bpm as the tempo drifts, quite a nice quirk

[@MadeOnTape]

seem to be a lot folks who want to mod the 505, but yeah, ive been very happy with factory settings. cheers! 🤘

[@t55a2]

@@MadeOnTape I'm always impressed that the mods seem very time - intensive and sound dreadful at the same time

[@t55a2]

@@MadeOnTape There is a mod you can do to get 5 mono outputs plus stereo main out intact, which is worth doing and quite easy, apparently.