Metamatic Forums John Foxx John Foxx Metal Beat

I wonder if John (or Louis) use presets for things like drum loops on his later work or if he programmes his own...

well drum machines don't tend to come with bakelite preset buttons these days, more's the pity!

The CR-78 is a bitch to program using a footswitch or the TS-1 button thingy that came with it - Roland produced an optional plug-in gadget called a WS-1 which enabled you to "step program" - making things suddenly a lot easier (and more accurate)!

The WS-1 is a rare beast and I've seen them go on Ebay for in excess of £1000

Fortunately, later machines had step programming, MIDI, control and output of individual instruments which makes the CR-78 feel almost pre-historic. Then of course there came "drum loop" software for computers, bringing with it almost infinite patterns, loops and sounds.

But - despite all that - I absolutely love my CR-78 and won't ever part with it!

You're talking a language I don't understand now!

Anything more advanced than Garageband, a mac and my eKeys 37, and I'm completely out of my depth!!!

over a grand! you're kidding me??

I've got a WS-1 - my CR78 just came with it when I bought it off some guy in the mid 1990s!

I didn't realise it was worth about 3 times as much as the CR78 itself! flippin 'eck.

To be honest, the 4 (hah!) memories on my CR78 don't even work any more anyways! So I don't even have a use for my WS-1 ..... I got my CR78 MIDIfied instead.

I was considering MIDIfying my CR-78, but because it's in such mint condition, I chose not to. Instead, I opted for a £30 V trig converter box made for me by a guy in Canada. It plugs into the stop/start and ext. clock IN jacks on the CR-78. The only other socket on the box is MIDI in, which I connect to my Emagic Unitor 8.

then ~

I load up a sequence in Cakewalk Sonar, press the required bakealite buttons on the CR-78, hit START in Cakewalk and eh voila! - The CR-78 plays the selected rhythm and stays in perfect tempo with my sequence!

Cool, huh?


Alex, sorry for jumping into musician mode for a moment, apologies for all the technical speak :p :p

I'd better make this my last post....

yeah but my MIDI lets me trigger individual voices note-per-note you see!

Ah, cool. Well yes indeed that kit makes the instrument so much more versatile

I said the previous post would be the last, but what the hell......

Here are the a few CR-78 settings I have worked out for Metamatic songs :


Underpass :

Rhythm(s) Rock 1 "A" and Disco 1 "A"
Tempo Around 4.8 approx.
variation Fill-In 4
Measure 8
Cancel Voice Varies during intro/song.


Plaza :

Rhythm(s) Rock 1 "B" and Disco 2 "B"
Tempo Around 4.8 approx.
variation HB Rolling
Measure 8
Cancel Voice Cymbal/High Hat = OFF, Bass Drum = ON, Snare Drum = ON, Cow Bell/Claves = OFF.


No-One Driving :

Rhythm(s) Foxtrot "A"
Tempo Around 4.8 approx.
variation Off
Measure N/A
Cancel Voice Cymbal/High Hat = OFF, Bass Drum = ON, Snare Drum = ON, Cow Bell/Claves = OFF.


A New Kind Of Man :

Rhythm(s) Rock 3 "A"
Tempo Around 4.8 approx.
variation HB Rolling
Measure 8
Cancel Voice Cymbal/High Hat = OFF, Bass Drum = ON, Snare Drum = ON, Cow Bell/Claves = OFF.


Please post more if you can work them out.

Cheers,

Dave.

Underpass is actually ROCK 1 (A) and DISCO 1 (A) together, is it not? (cos there's 3 bass drum hits, not just 2)

FILM ONE, is, I believe, the green RHUMBA preset,
at a very slow tempo,
Variation switched off.
"Cymbal/Hi Hat" cancelled, perhaps.
"Balance" about halfway to bass end.
"Metal Beat" slider up about to about 30%
GUIRO manually slid up for ultra-slow "TSSSSCCCCHHKKK!"
Little peeps of manual TAMBOURINE too?
Much flanging is applied too.