DrumVerse R8

The R-8 is a late 80s drum machine that combined high quality 16-bit samples with a plenty of sound-editing options and human-like grooves; it went on to become the studio drum machine of the early 90s. It marked a shift towards more 'human' sounding drums and was featured on at least two landmark albums.

Originally released in 1989, with a 'mkII' version following in 1992, the R-8 offered electronic musicians a way to create dynamic drum patterns with a degree of human feel, thus the Human Rhythm Composer tag. It also offered a huge, expandable library of sounds via 11 expansion cards, featuring a plethora of high quality drum sounds, some of the best TR-808 and TR-909 sounds around, as well as everything from mallets to SFX.

The R-8 went on to become the studio drum machine of the early 90s; if you haven't heard of it before then you've probably heard it all over Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works 85-92, The Cure's Disintegration, Prince's Diamonds and Pearls, and early Autechre records.

The R-8 featured high quality samples in combination with a unique feature that splits each sound into two layers, which are repitched at different scales when controlling the sample pitch, and also dynamically relayered via a Nuance control. The nuance control can also be randomized via a Groove control that takes machine-like programming and produces more humanized sounds.