Roland TR-626

The TR-626 is sort of an upgraded digital version of the classic TR-606 and TR-505 Rhythm Composers. This beat-box is still simple but has a few good points that come from its legendary ancestors - the TR-909 and TR-808. Its sounds are pretty drab, they are 12 bit low-quality samples of the most boring acoustic drum sounds around. Fortunately the sounds can be individually tuned and mixed and there are 8 individual outputs for the basic sounds as well as a stereo out. Its sequencer is very basic, coming with 48 preset patterns and 48 user patterns. But it has a simple matrix display similar to that on the TR-505, clearly displaying the current pattern in a graphical layout. The 626 also featured very good MIDI implementation for it's time. It has been used by Vangelis and Jimmy Edgar.