Ah I understand now, thanks. Pretty cool indeed to use a trigger track and all the weirdness that it would allow. A good way to vary sequences for the S-1.
I’m excited. I have a gig in July that I was first thinking of doing with a computer, put now I’ll try to play with the TR, S-1, SP 404 MKII, M8 and MAM33. Should be fun!
The trigger track does some cool stuff but is the only track on the TR8S that doesn’t support ‘Last Step’. So, it’s always 16 steps long. Not a problem but if you want to use polyrhythms you would need to use an instrument track with the output type set in global to ‘Trigger’. You can then use the global mixer to turn the track volume to ‘0’. Now you can use ‘Last Step’ on that instrument track. Again, this isn’t an issue with the trigger track just a method to open up more complexity to what you can do with triggers from the TR8S.
The other cool thing about using an instrument track for triggers is that you can use the fader to activate/mute the triggers.
Amazing tips! Thanks a lot.
Does anyone know if the 8s still has this feature?
It does not.
Rock solid timing all the time.
but… but… but I want to have it…
I have a (almost) first ever gig coming in July and I decided to bring the TR-8S, should be fun. Time to explore more, organize a few kits, patterns. I haven’t touched FM and samples yet, should bring some variety to the sound palette!
Any advice from people playing live with a TR-8S?
Organize your variations the same way on each pattern. It’s like shortcuts to different extra fills.
For example I always use E for a variation that only has kick and low end groove to use for groove only drops, where muting all the other elements would otherwise take too many fingers
I use F for a broken beat variation on the main groove. Or vice versa if the main groove is already broken beat:)
I use G for silence
I use H for an elongated fill builder / riser pattern that should last more than 16 steps (so I don’t have to keep manually Retriggering Fill)
Other things i did that helped:
Things I wish I remembered before I performed last time:
Things I wanna do next time:
Solid advices. Thanks. This helps 
More is welcome!
How can just H last more than 16 steps?
sorry i wasnt clear. basically when you hit ‘fill’, the fill bar triggers, then it jumps back to the previous variation.
if you use one of the variations as a ‘fill’ it repeats until you switch variations again. so i used a dedicated variation slot like a ‘latched fill’.
Got it, thanks!
I am a bit disappointed about the quality of the faders. Second one is jumping in values and its not even 2 years old. I use it pretty regularly, but not touring so far. Bad luck ? Loosing trust in reliability.
Contact roland.
Mines flawless. 5 years Heavy use, no dust cover.
I had the same issue on my BD fader, Roland fixed it, it took about a total of 3 weeks iirc (I’m in the UK). I also notice that the LED on faders occasionally flicker to a different colour, weird. Still the best drum machine ever
Yes it is the best drummachine. I am total dependent on this. But I bought it at Musicstore.com. After the first fader broke (ride). Skipping values. I contacted them and they didn’t react. Than I checked the ratings and saw a lot of complains about them. In the mean time I let it get repaired professionally and paid it myself. Musicstore.com replied after over 3 weeks and send me a return brand and also mentioning that it will take approx 6 weeks time. This means I can’t make music for around 2 months. 
All was fine and I thought its just the one fader. But now the second is not working (BD). Don’t know what to do. I am not even touring. It stand save in my home studio and gets good use, but nothing special. You guys think I can contact Roland directly ? How ?
Create an account with the link below and register your TR8s, then just head to the support section and tap product repair, they will repair for free:
https://www.roland.com/backstage/login
