Today is August 8, and you know what that means: it's the music tech world's annual excuse to sing the praises of history's most iconic drum machine. This year, the legendary Roland TR-808 turns 45, ...

808-style hip-hop bass is classic patch that's effective for giving tracks a low-end punch, and is a relatively simple sound to recreate. In the video above and the step-by-step below, we show you how ...

The tonal nature of 808 and 909 drums means they can be used as melodic or tuned elements. In this first example, we've used the TR-808's toms as a simple bass pattern over a kick. The notes are ...