The Crow Hill Company has introduced its latest installment in the Vaults series of free instrument libraries. Preserving Roland’s 1978-vintage CR-78 CompuRhythm’s classic character, Rhythm Machine expands its sonic potential with some tasteful effects.
Before the 808, before drum machines became staples of hip-hop, pop, and electronic music, there was the Roland CompuRhythm CR-78 Drum Machine.Released in 1978, the CR-78 was Roland’s first programmable drum machine.Before the CR-78, most rhythm machines were preset-only. You’d pick ‘bossa nova’, ‘waltz’, or ‘rock 2’. The CR-78 offered something new, it let users program their own patterns and store them in memory using the external Roland WS-1 programmer.
You’ve got 14 drum voices: hits like kick, snare, hi-hats, rimshot, tambourine, claves – all generated using analog circuits, which gives it a distinctly warm, punchy character. On the other hand, being fully analog, the tempo control isn’t exactly surgical. But this quirk adds to the CR-78’s charm, and in the hands of artists like Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, and Blondie, it became something iconic.
For this Vault, we have in equal parts preserved the much-loved character of the CR-78 AND expanded its sonic potential by adding some tasteful effects.
Running in The Crow Hill App for Windows and Mac (VST/VST3, AU and AAX), Rhythm Machine is free to download for a limited time.
More information: The Crow Hill Company
