I hear this a fair bit on techno records and I simultaneously love this and it makes me want to puke (in a good way I think) but what is going on with the hi-hats here?
Is it a different sequence running a few bpm out, is it shuffled, is it running at a different pattern length? It’s a thing that I just can’t get my head around when listening/trying to extrapolate what/how it’s happening
shuffle, and the worst midi timing ever on a drummachine, the famous Roland R8.
it’s looping every two bars, so I think it’s just shuffle/hats being deliberately placed off the grid.
I think it’s just a timeless and genius track as a whole. Everything has it’s right place.
Oh absolutely, my brain is just a bit too smooth to count for long enough against something that’s not regular and I’d like to try to make sense of it to try on my elektron boxes.
Well, the R8 definitely has its “sound”, partly the samples(electronic and dance card are essential, internal sounds are pretty useless) but mostly just the horrible timing on it. You could layer two kicks and they would just not be tight, not drifting perse, just off. Not sure if theres an easy recipe to reproduce this on something modern like an Elektron, mostly prob by trying swing settings and some micro-timing, and play it by ear. But keep in mind, this was not done intentionally, and more of a bonus from Roland.
Best possible answer
the humanise feel thing on the r5/r8/r70 is a pretty mad addition.
Looked great on paper and adressed everyone’s initial dislike about drumcomputers(its not real music is it, a computer), but in the end most people doing electronic music used the R8 to emulate the classic drummachines afaik and human feel didnt really work for those sounds.
oh my …the countless times this was danced too…that batboy bass and chords…wow!..doing old man dance
Sounds like a standard beat with some swing/shuffle. That double hit in the second bar of the loop accentuates that with two hats hitting in tandem, and may be the reason it sounds a bit off to you.
Make 2 bar loop. On the last step of the loop put another hihiat and microtime it to the right until it sounds right. It’ll sound just like it, I’ve done it.
One of the best songs ever in its category. I have it on white vinyl 