A blast from the past

My friend and I bought one of these from Musical Exchanges in Birmingham in the mid-eighties, and I think we kept it pretty much 'on' in our garage studio until around 1991. Unbelievably hardy machine that could be programmed even by 2 thrash-metal fanatics after an evenings worth of beer, and survived endless drops, incorrect power adaptors, numerous liquid spillages and was the go- to drum track provider for everything we ever wrote. I remember when MIDI became a thing- and I found the compatibility with my Roland D10 a real revelation, because of the drum sounds on that fabulous keyboard. I still own this- and although it's now 'retired', it earned its stripes and holds many great memories.

Good rhythm composer for solo playing

This old 1986 rhythm composer can still be used today, thanks to its MIDI IN/OUT ports (and also bunch of jacks). This gear is FOR YOU if you want to, for example play an instrument such as a guitar, and have an accompaniment (that replace a metronome). You can easily get it in hand, even though some menu are confusing. The buttons also have a weird feeling, kinda stiff. Even though nowadays, these TR-505 are all yellow, you will find a lot on second-hand. Unfortunately, I would have think that you can find some in second-hand for super cheap, but it's not the case. You will find them around 100€.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

From Gear Setup

cute display but not so hot

apart from the utter lack of professional features like indicidual outs (flaws shared by many of its post 909 siblings) the 505 also suffers from what I would describe as roland's worst sounds... really, its not as nice as the sample based rolands that proceeded it and definitely not a knock on the mediocre but funkily analog 606 and its nothing compared to like a drumulator or even the lowly alesis hr16... if you like this look into the 626, also cheap but I think it sounds a bit better and it has some editing eg tunability.

The Mothership

I bought this just for fun initially, but years later I use it as a sequencer in a live band setting, and it sends MIDI to our other equipment. I have a start and stop pedal mounted on my pedal board so I can stop it while I'm playing guitar. This works via a standard Roland damper pedal connected to a dedicated start/stop input jack (a feature which was removed from most subsequent Roland models) The tempo can sometimes drift slightly by itself which is apparently an issue with this model in general, but it's almost unnoticeable unless you're MIDI syncing to an audio device that doesn't time stretch. An external clock could solve this.

From Gear Setup

This is the most underrated drumachine for some unknown reason¿

This thing's auh beast when hooked up tooo some sort of overdrive pedal like a BigMuff or even a cheapo Joyo Sweetbaby OD, hardfloor tooo the max kid's¡!

Dated but still useful

Bought new 30 years ago, still works. What else can you say.

Roland TR-505 Rhythm Composer

Roland TR-505 Rhythm Composer our first tr and still use it

OldSkool

I've had this thing since forever. I gave it a name: Rolando Commando.

found a bargain at a thrift store, getting it circuit bent

Found this dirt cheap at a thrift store... Having this circuit bent!!

little but efficient

I love this little punchy guy - it's a great addon to any 909 !