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How I built a live track from scratch using only the Roland TR-1000

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TR-1000 with companion app, photo by press

The Roland TR-1000 is a bulking, titanic piece of kit. But with that comes immense power and masses of hands-on control. Although it’s big, you could take this drum machine on the road and perform complete tracks without much else.

Before I sent my review unit back to Roland, I wanted to see if I could build an entire track to perform live with the TR-1000. I used the built-in sounds and samples, and the various editing and performance tools this behemoth drum machine has: knob assignments, effect sends, master effects, filters, snapshots and step loop stutter edits.

Below you’ll find details of the different elements I programmed and the choices I made, culminating in a final jam performance before I sadly parted ways with the machine. Hopefully, it will inspire anyone else looking to perform with the TR-1000 or any other programmable drum machine.

Sequencing

I first select sounds and then sequence them into a beat. I could opt to use a pre-defined kit, which has the bonus of having parameters already mapped to the main knob panel. However, I’m going to assign specific controls for live tweaking later, so I start with a blank slate and choose characterful sounds for each track.

The fundamental beat uses a mixture of analogue drum sounds, sampled hits and a chopped percussion loop. Although the sequence is only 16 steps, I use the Cycle feature to make certain hits play on different repetitions. This adds subtle variation and makes the loop feel less repetitive. Alternatively, you could use VARI CHAIN to have up to 8 different 16-step patterns playing back to back.

Melodic sounds and effects

Next, I add a few extra elements that include a simple single note bass, a pulsating synth sound, a stab chord, a menacing sustained bass, and a splashy noise hit. These elements can be brought in and out on top of the beat to build up a more complete-sounding track. To give a deeper and more polished sound, I also send some of these to the Reverb and Delay send effects.

Volume throws

The sustained synth and the splashy noise are overkioil as continual sounds. However, they sound great with lashings of delay and short throws of the volume sliders. It can be useful to have a couple of tracks that play continually and be thrown in when needed. Another option might be a vocal loop that can be chopped in like a DJ doing cuts.

Balancing and mixing

Volume balancing is important to get right and can be done with the faders or with adjustments in the Amp section. Ideally, you don’t want to be worrying about balancing on the fly by remembering the fader placements, so using the Amp gain is preferable.

The TR-1000 is incredibly flexible when it comes to refining your sounds. Each track comes with its own EQ/filter, compressor and effects slot. With careful use of volume balancing, pan placement, carving out space in the low-end using the filter or EQ, and the effects, you can create a surprisingly mix-ready output. Effects like the spreader and chorus can give stereo width and 3D depth to mono sounds, and the drive and saturation can add character and thickness.

Master effects, drive and filter

The analogue drive can be used on the entire output to add some final harmonic richness, volume and grit. You could just send specific tracks to it, but I prefer using it to add glue to the entire output.

There’s also an analogue filter that can affect the whole output and be set to LP, HP or BP. The bandpass cuts out too much signal, but the lowpass is great for resonant filtered disco build-ups. Alternatively, the highpass is a quick and easy way to reduce low end for an edit or a sparser section. I’ve opted to use the highpass as it works well with the Morph slider.

When it comes to master effects, you have a lot to choose from. Chorus, flanger, and phaser can add familiar sounding character, while more experimental and glitchy options include DJFX, Scatter and Sideband Filter. Alternatively, you could choose additional distortion, bitcrush, compressor or transient effects to help shape the overall sound.

It’s a shame that there’s no separate master compressor though. I decide to go with the Sideband filter set at 80% wet as it can be used for dramatic edit and build-up type sounds.

Main Panel Knobs

It’s hard to miss the 42 knobs that control the ten tracks of the TR-1000. Each one can be freely assigned to up to 4 different parameters, which is plenty of mappable control to keep you busy. I decide to use the bottom row for filtering and sound shaping, and the second row for send effects. Having a repeatable system like this helps aid with muscle memory. Rather than over-complicate things, I decide to only map a handful of parameters: Kick Drum Decay, Snare Drum Mix, 909 Hat Decay, Bass LP Filter and Delay Send, Synth Sound LP Filter and FREQSHIFT FX, and Synth Chord Stab.

Morph slider

The Morph slider is a fun way to create more complex macros that shift multiple parameters across the entire machine. You can save up to 16 different Morph sweeps, which are accessible using the 16-step buttons after you activate the Morph button. I program a filter sweep on the whole output that cuts the lows, but doesn’t completely thin out the track. I also shorten the kick decay and increase the reverb and delay amounts to create a more washed-out sound. You could potentially mess with the controls and tuning to create a completely different section of a track that can easily be switched back and forth.

Motion recording, step loop and snapshot

The Motion Recording, Step Loop, and Snapshot functions provide different ways to add and perform edits.

Motion Recording lets you record dial movements across the length of your loop. You could create a subtle sense of movement or do more dramatic moves that breathe life into static parts. You can choose if this is something that’s pre-recorded or created new for each performance/jam.

Step Loop lets you perform stutter-like edits in real-time by hitting the steps that you’d like to loop. It could be a single snare hit that gets repeated, or 3 hits taken from different parts of the sequence that create a cool syncopated edit. You have to be a bit careful with this, as it can sound great to you but a bit awkward and gimmicky to the audience. With some practice, though, it can be a useful way to inject flair and detail into your performance.

The Snapshot function lets you take a snapshot of the dials for a particular track and then save it to one of the 16 step buttons. This offers a different and more immediate way to flip sounds, and is also the best (current) way to get tracks to play chromatically, as you can set each key to play a different tuning for the instrument or sample.

Final jam

With all these control options in place, I finally get to have a jam and get a feel for how the parts interact. I instantly find that I’m coming up with structures and edits that I would never have thought of when in front of a DAW. It also leads to ideas for extra parameters that could be controlled or refined.

The TR-1000 offers a flexible collection of tools for performance, so there are many other ways in which it could be tailored to your play style. With time, effort and patience, you could become a drum-machine performance master.

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