Real Life 808

Let’s get physical: MR-808 is the first drum robot that reproduces the drum sounds of the 80s – in the real world.

The robot installation MR-808 is a replica of the famous 1980s electronic drum machine TR-808 — with robots playing the drum sounds! I (Moritz Simon Geist) have been playing electronic music for several years now, and at some place I was bored of the electronic music production process. With binary logic, everything is possible.

So I decided to go back to the roots of sound generation — the physical sound generation — but combine it with the electronic music structure we like so much.

I liked the idea so much, that I couldn’t stop building my own drum robots, and ended up replacing all the electronic sounds of a whole drum computer, placed in a 3,3 x 1,7m² case. I am very proud to present the “MR-808” — a mechanic replica of the famous 1980s electronic drum machine TR-808!

Read on: sonicrobots.com/mr808-eng/
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MR-808 – mechanic sound robot (all drums, miced)
A mechanic relay controlled via arduino (bass sound)
Gameboy – Arduinoboy hardware (8 bit chiptune sound)
Everything was programmed in Ableton, only equing and compression has been applied.
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Filmography: David Campesino
Music: Moritz Simon Geist