TR-8S tips for live jamming

Roland’s mighty drum machine and sampler excels in live scenarios. Let’s knock out a quick beat and explore some useful features…

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When muting channels in a live scenario, users of the original TR-8 became accustomed to pulling down faders on the fly. While you can still do this, TR-8S users can now toggle the bottom-right Mute button, then punch an Instrument’s bottom button to mute it. Hold Mute to punch this in, then let go to jump back.

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When in Inst Play mode, the first 11 sequencer steps trigger playback of the Instruments. Steps 12–16 are unlit – but you can hold step 12 or 13 and hit another step to trigger a 16th-note or 32nd-note roll for that Instrument.

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The TR-8S has a handy Nudge function, so you can momentarily speed up or slow down playback and sync up your groove with tracks playing on vinyl or CDJs. To do this, hold Shift then hit Copy or Utility to push global speed forwards or back a bit.

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We’ve seen Motion Recording, and it’s worth revisiting if you’re performing live. Not only can you automate parameter sweeps, but you can then toggle these on and off via Motion On. Punch in huge changes in Tune, Decay, Ctrl effects and Master FX to create weird edits, then deactivate them to drop everything back in.