I'm Shawn Rudiman, we're in
Pittsburgh in my studio the
Synthdrome with 30 years of music
surrounding me all the way around.
Welcome. I've been here for 15
years. I built the room itself,
wired it, did the electrical.
It's been through many, many, many
traumatic skin sheddings
and changes.
It always seems to be changing.
A Roland drum machine for me
functions in the studio and it
functions live.
That duality is hard to
come by for some manufacturers
as long as I've been doing it since
1990. Some are good for one, some
are good for other, but rarely do
they work for both.
My history with the 606, it was
the first of the Roland machines I
had. I rate the Roland
analog machines on their hi-hats,
and the 606 is the most brutal,
crude, and like,
impactful of the hi-hats.
The 606 has a very distinct
sound. Immediately, it's like,
"Yeah, it's a 606." It's almost as
recognizable as the 909 hi-hat.
The 606
was always in techno.
The fact that it was small, very
simple, had one output,
made it an essential live
machine for myself and a lot
of other people.
From the 606 to the 06,
the advancements, that's where
they're just completely night and
day, because there's so many
new things on the 06
that give it a lot more finesse
than the 606 could ever
do. All of the tuning, all
of the probability, the effects,
the decay, all the sound
modification parameters, and all
of the sequence parameters.
I mean, that's a huge, huge
game-changer.
Plus, the trigger outs are quite
nice. Let's take the TR-06
for a test spin in the studio here.
It'll be connected to some
sequencers and envelopes and stuff
on the modular wall.
I'm sure there's probably
a thousand different ways you can do
it, but this is just my way to do it
and kind of a nice way to take
it for a little test drive.