ESTECHO

Hillwood Super Variation HR-2

16/12/17 at 6.57pm / by ESTECHO / 1 Comment

This small drum machine doesn’t look like much, but in fact it has a good amount of nice features, and is more versatile than one would expect from a preset drum box. This is mainly due to the presence of five ‘cancel’ buttons which allow you to remove unwanted sounds from any of the rhythms; very useful, because so many times you find a great beat, but one of the sounds ruins it…

The HR-2 also has a digital numerical display that actually writes the bar number, instead of the usual blinking light in other units from the era. This must have been pretty exciting at the time!
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Ace Tone Rhythm Ace FR-6

16/12/17 at 6.51pm / by ESTECHO / 0 Comment

The FR-6 represents, in many ways, the ‘classic’ Rhythm Ace drum machine. It doesn’t have all the features of more sophisticated units such as the Rhythm 77, but it has the standard Rhythm Ace voice board and sounds, plus the typical array of preset rhythms you’d expect from a drum machine of this era.

The FR-6’s voice board (where all the sounds are generated) is identical to many other Rhythm Ace units of the era (check out the Rhythm Fever page for more info about this). It’s fairly simple, with only six sounds, but it’s a classic sound heard on many recordings from the past forty years.
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Roland CompuRhythm CR-5000

16/12/17 at 6.43pm / by ESTECHO / 2 Comments

The Roland CR-5000 and CR-8000 drum machines, both released in 1981 (around the same time as the TR-808, TB-303 and TR-606), are very closely related; they share the same chassis, boards and general design, the sound generators are identical for both units, except the 8000 has twice the amount of presets, and also programmability. So basically the 5000 is a more affordable version of the 8000, with some features removed. It’s also very similar to the Korg KR-55 series of drum machines (the first one released a couple of years earlier), although with a few distinct features.
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Ace Tone Rhythm Fever FR-106

16/12/17 at 6.32pm / by ESTECHO / 3 Comments

The Rhythm Fever is basically a repackaging, with a ‘stylish-modern-turn-of-the-eighties’ enclosure, of classic Rhythm Ace units such as the FR-6, minus the wood. A few of the rhythm patterns are different (this one has ‘disco’!!), but the internal circuitry hasn’t changed much, if at all. In fact, after comparing the voice board for a few Ace Tone drum machines, I realized that they were all the same!
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Hillwood Super Variation HR-30

16/12/17 at 6.19pm / by ESTECHO / 0 Comment

I guess this is supposed to be the top-end model of Hillwood’s drum machine lineup, which also includes the smaller HR-2, and it does have three times the amount of preset rhythms, plus a couple of extra sounds and an interesting variation switch… But strangely it doesn’t have the really useful ‘cancel’ buttons of its smaller brother. Now, if this had been available on the HR-30, it could easily have competed with some of the most famous and succesful drum machines of the era, such as the Korg Mini Pops 120, but instead we’re left with a design full of promise that doesn’t fully deliver…

Nevertheless, the ‘super variation’ switch and the big amount of presets makes it a fun and useful drum box. Plus there’s a really original ‘guiro’ sound (that ‘scraping on the ribbed belly of the wooden-fish-looking-thing with a stick’ sound) that I haven’t heard in any other drum machines from the era.
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National Automatic Rhythm SY-50

16/12/17 at 6.15pm / by ESTECHO / 1 Comment

National is a brand name belonging to Matsushita electronics, who are better known outside Japan under another brand name, Panasonic. I’m not aware of other musical instruments sold under the National name, so I was surprised to see this drum machine show up for sale. Until 2009, Matsushita used the National name almost exclusively for home appliances (washing machines, microwaves etc.), keeping the Panasonic name for audio & video, so a National drum machine was unexpected…
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Ace Tone Rhythm Producer FR-15

16/12/17 at 5.44pm / by ESTECHO / 5 Comments

The Ace Tone rhythm producer is an early attempt by Ace Tone / Roland / Nihon Hammond to create a programmable drum machine. The sounds available are very ‘Rhythm Ace’ like, and the usual preset rhythms can be found on the front panel, but what sets this unit apart is a programming matrix that allows limited control over the patterns, something that was very hard to come by in those days.
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Roland Rhythm Plus PB-300

16/12/17 at 5.29pm / by ESTECHO / 9 Comments

The Roland Rhythm Plus PB-300 was manufactured around 1983, and was designed as a complete accompaniment device, similar to the ones found on home organs from the same era. A keyboard can be connected via midi and trigger bass lines, arpeggios or chords along with the preset rhythm selected. The owner’s manual specifically mentions the HP-300/400 Keyboard and PR-800 Roland devices to go along with this unit. We’ve never hooked up the PB-300 to its siblings, only using it as a standalone drum machine.
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Korg Rhythm 55B

16/12/17 at 5.18pm / by ESTECHO / 11 Comments

Almost identical to the Korg KR-55, released a couple of years earlier, except it has twice the amount of patterns. It’s arguably one of the greatest preset drum machines ever produced, with individual volume controls and a wide variety of preset rhythms, all of which can be tweaked with the “swing” setting.
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Korg Mini Pops 120

16/12/17 at 7.34am / by ESTECHO / 14 Comments

The Korg Mini-Pops 120, also rebranded as the Univox SR-120, was the top-of-the-line Mini Pops model produced, with more features and presets than other drum machines from this series, such as the Mini Pops Junior and 35. It comes in two cabinet styles, a tolex road case or a wooden chassis. Apart from their appearance, both units are identical in every other aspect. My tolex 120 came with a huge “Boss” sticker stuck on it… I couldn’t remove it, I thought it was too funny, Roland being Korg’s biggest competitor in the drum machine market at the time!
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