Saturday, May 30, 2015

Roland TR-606, Juno-60, SH-09 & CSQ-600

It took me forever to get my hands on a 606. Now at last I did it, on a whim. In earlier years (speaking of the 90s and early 00s) I was highly suspicious of everything pre-MIDI. How the heck are you going to sync an old drummachine to a DAW the way you do it with MIDI sound generators? Naaa... go away. That was my way of thinking. Getting an 808 for a couple of hundred bucks: Gone are the days. The 606 is still super-affordable in comparison. So, anyway, my way of seeing CV and DIN sync and analog clock and whatnot has changed drastically in the last, say, 5 years. I have acquired quite a bit of vintage stuff since then. I doubt if I can say anything about the 606 that hasn't been mentioned before. Hey, it's a legend alright!


Roland TR-606 + Roland SRV-2000



Taking my newly purchased 606 on a test drive I ended up with this little track showcasing the fun you can have using its trigger outputs to drive an arpeggiator. In this case I am triggering my Juno-60's arpeggiator with triggers from the 606's High Tom channel. The great thing about rhythmically triggering an arpeggiator is that you can create interesting patterns that don't necessarily repeat (at least not right away), Instant fun!
For the technical details: 606 is being synced by a Roland CSQ-600 CV/Gate sequencer. The CSQ-600 has a DIN sync output so it can sync other TR machines or sequencers while being the master. Here the CSQ-600 not only slaves the 606 but also drives a Roland SH-09 for the bassline of the track. SH-09 and CSQ-600 are a perfect couple. They were practically made for each other. So much fun. There is a tiny bit of Roland SRV-2000 reverb on the TR-606 signal. Other than that, no audio processing.
Enjoy this little demo track!