NICE.
Even though I objectively didn’t care which was which, my heart liked #1 a bit more.
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Couple of slight disappointments (although not that bad) no triggers sent when triggering the respective sounds via midi, TR-08 and 09 don’t either, but I was hoping 06 would but it doesn’t, and also over midi you can’t seem to trigger the alt sounds in addition to the standard sounds, it is either/or, the TR-08 allows the alt sounds to be triggered from their own notes eg toms/congas, clave/rim, maraca/clap, so it seems strange they did not allow the 06 to do it.
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My unit just arrived, was suprised for it to show up on a Sunday, as tracking indicated tomorrow. Signature was required by vendor, but luckily FedEx dropped it off anyway, no complaint there on my end!
About to do a shoot out with my 606 now. Right out of the box, I’m not liking the hats compared to my mental recollection of my original. They seem a little tighter/stiffer than my og, which has a more prevelant sizzle. This is all in my head though, so I’ll be sure to post an update tonight.
I know I stated this a few weeks ago but:
Didn’t purchase this to replace my 606 anyway, rather to compliment it and my dr110 with a couple more kick and snare options and most importantly for the robust trigger section to drive JX-3P, sh-101, tb-03, System-8, and a pair of DSD-2/3’s. 3 trig outs from the 606/110 weren’t cutting it after parting with my yocto, 707, and 626.
The TR-06 announcement was actually the final straw that led me to go ahead and sell my SPS-1 UW MKii, which was only being used as a trigger generator for the past little bit anyway.
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Had my first session with it and I‘m super happy with the sound so far. Really punchy.
Super playable, simple, straight forward!
Great quality as well, doesn’t feel cheap at all.
Only thing I‘m a bit concerned about is the value knob, hope it doesn’t wear out too quickly. It‘s quite hard to turn but needs to be turned a lot
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Yeah it is a bit punchier than the original, really love the 606 kick on it, the other 2 are a bonus.
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torn between this, and typhon , £££ towards better laptop, paying off mortgage a little sooner.
though i already have rd6, other mono synths, a laptop , and only 3 yrs left on mortgage.
but it is my birthday soon 
i often think a lot of my fave tracks mightve been 606 and not 808… except they have claps on them.
The TR06 has also 4 trigger outs. So wouldn´t it be a nice little sequencer for modular drums too? Maybe not with a hugh amount of tricks like the Elektrons … but still. Did anyone tried it?
Do your mortgage if you already have some toys 
6 Likes
Really pleased with the TR-06 as well. I took my blind test over to my collaborators yesterday. I had a harder time telling the difference in his room with presonus eris 8’s opposed to my Genelecs. Was funny, as I told him the night before that I was suprised at how different the TR-06 was from my 606, but when I played them back, it took me a minute to remember which was which on the kick and snare…There’s something to be said for that, it was evident when tracking, but once recored (24bit 48k) they homogenized a bit.
The TR-06 has a more noticeable attack on all sounds and the accent doesn’t change the sound quite like the 606’s accent. My 606’s kick has what I’d consider a little more of a ramped attack that makes it bloom right before the decay stage. My 606’s snare has a little more seperation between the pulse and noise that creates a little more of a “sizzle”, especially when accented.
I couldn’t get the 06’s hat pitch to match my og’s pitch, that is probably the biggest difference I noticed.
It also doesn’t sound quite right to me when playing faster/busy hat patterns. I think this is most likely due to the TR-06’s hat attack resetting perfectly each step where as the 606, being analog, can’t quite fully reset the attack causing a little more bounce in the pattern.
I’ve noticed 2 distinct variations between 606’s sound character regarding the kick, snare, and hats, there’s a video on YouTube between 2 606’s that shows the differing characteristics that I have also experienced between units I’ve used. Of course there are variances from unit to unit as well. The TR-06 seems based on the “other” sound signature from my 606, which in my case is a good thing.
I’d consider one sound signature being tighter and punchier and the other having softer attack, a tad more saturation and a little more metallic noise and sibilence in the hats. The TR-06 seems more akin to the first.
The real unexpected treat with the TR-06, for me, is the noise tom alternate sound. I’d assume the clap is the boss HC-2 and the synth perc is the PC-2, common trig options for the 606.
No complaints on this unit from me, very happy with it. Well… okay I do have one complaint, I don’t really care for the effects other than the flangers. I was looking forward to the filter, but without a center detent it’s too agressive if even slightly off center. The Saturator is useable. The reverb sounds nearly identical to the TB-03’s and is probably my least favorite reverb I’ve ever heard. The delays are fine, but woukd really benefit from a level or wet/dry. Getting the send levels just right is crucial. As much as the OD’s cut volume the delays increase volume, I find this to be the same with the TB-03. Also, what’s with the boutiques only using ~80% of the knob’s travel. The first and last 10% of the dials do nothing.
2 Likes
At one time I had 4 606’s and they did all sound different, especially hats/cymbal easy to see why - 6 CMOS oscillators each using a capacitor and resistor to set the frequency make up the hats and cymbal, the components used are 10% tolerance at best, so a 560k resistor could be anywhere from 504k to 616k, also I believe there were 4 revisions of the 606, later ones had different components in some of the sound related circuitry.
With this in mind it would have been awesome if Roland had accounted for this and allowed each of the TR-06 hihat/cymbal oscillators to be tuned independently in a +/- 10% range. And for the kick, snare and toms to allow the different variations seen in the various production revisions, each with a 10% tuning range again.
Edit: @Psyre re the accent did you try setting it between 8-10 after placing a step? Then it sounds a lot more like a 606, the default setting is far too tame.
8 Likes
Good point regarding accent, I’ll mess with it more, I need to account for the increased accent control.
I agree that it woukd have been great for some added HH variance options, sonething along the lines of the tom color.
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I started to think that this would be a UI nightmare, but actually it’d be pretty cool if they implemented it as sysex parameters that could be set using an external editor… so you could technically tune the TR06 to sound like your favourite 606 variant and leave it like that.
As I wait for my unit to ship out, I’ve been thinking of various ways it could integrate with my gear.
I think this would pair really well with a Minilogue XD. To me, the most annoying thing about the Minilogue XD is the limited pattern length, and the inability to chain them. Using the TR-06 to trigger the Minilogue’s sequencer steps would really mitigate this issue.
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ordered a lot of fun
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Sweetwater had some in stock last night. I got a stock alert email, and within an hour they were all sold again. Not sure how many they had, but they went fast.
Just dabbled with both around a bit during my lunch break…, with just onboard speakers…the delay on both 06 and 03 seems useless.
But Drive is fun!
Good job, Roland!
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I love the delay on the 06!
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I love the delay on 03.
1 Like