The Roland TR-909 Rhythm Composer, often called the 909, is a drum machine made by Roland Corporation in 1983. It replaced the TR-808. The 909 was the first Roland drum machine to use recorded sounds for some beats and the first to include MIDI technology, which lets it work with other music devices.

The 909 did not sell well because people preferred the more realistic sounds of other products like the LinnDrum. Roland stopped making it after one year, having produced 10,000 units. The 909 helped shape the development of electronic dance music styles such as techno, house, and acid house.

Development

The TR-909 was created by Tadao Kikumoto, who also worked on Roland's earlier drum machine, the TR-808, and designed the Roland TB-303 synthesizer. Makoto Muroi was the main engineer. Atsushi Hoshiai developed the software, and Yoshiro Oue designed the voice circuits.

The TR-909 was the first Roland drum machine to use sound samples for its crash, ride, and hi-hat sounds. Hoshiai recorded his own drum kit for these sounds. He used Paiste and Zildjian hi-hat cymbals for the hi-hat and a Paiste crash cymbal for the crash and ride sounds. The recording happened in the Roland office after employees left for the natural reverb effect. Hoshiai sampled the sounds using a 6-bit format and edited the waveforms on a computer with a CP/M-80 operating system. No equalization or compression was used during the process.

Other sounds were made using analog sound creation. A Roland representative said the engineers believed samples had some drawbacks. Because of this, they chose to combine sampled sounds with analog sounds.

Sounds and features

The 909 drum machine is known for its strong, punchy sounds, unlike the 808, which has a deeper, boomy bass. The 909 includes 11 different percussion sounds, such as bass drum, snare, toms, rimshot, clap, crash cymbal, ride cymbal, and hi-hat (open and closed). It does not include the clave, cowbell, maracas, or conga sounds found in the 808.

The bass drum has controls for attack and decay. The snare drum has controls for tone and "snappy," which changes how much the snare wire sound is heard. The clap and snare use the same noise source, so playing them together creates a phasing effect. The sequencer can link up to 96 patterns to make songs with up to 896 measures. It includes controls like shuffle and flam, and users can add accents to beats.

The 909 was the first Roland drum machine to use MIDI, allowing it to connect with other MIDI devices or to have sounds triggered by an external MIDI controller for more varied volume levels. Older Roland machines can be synchronized using a DIN sync port. Roland made changes to the 909 in later versions to fix problems and adjust sounds. Some users modify their machines to match the sounds of earlier versions.

Release

The 909 was released in 1983 and sold for $1,195 USD, equal to $3,863 in 2025. It gained attention in the industry as the first Roland instrument to use sampled sounds.

In its review, Electronics & Music Maker found the 909 easier to use than the 808 and stated it provided the best analog drum sounds available at the time. The review concluded that the 909 combined analog and sampled sounds well and that adding MIDI made it "as modern as needed." One Two Testing described the 909 as "very easy to use," but noted it was too expensive and "still sounds like a drum machine, not a machine playing drums… It doesn’t sound like real drums for studio work."

The 909 was not successful in sales, as users preferred the more realistic sampled sounds of competing products like the LinnDrum. Roland stopped making it after one year, having produced 10,000 units.

Legacy

The TR-808 was important for the development of hip hop music. The TR-909, along with the TB-303 synthesizer, helped shape dance music like techno, house, and acid. Gordon Reid from Sound on Sound said, "Like the TR-808 before it, nobody could have predicted how much respect the TR-909 would eventually receive."

In 1984, the TR-909 was used in several recordings. These included the city pop album Sailing Blaster by Hiroshi Sato, the electronic album S-F-X by Haruomi Hosono, and the EP Remission by the industrial band Skinny Puppy. Kurtis Mantronik, a hip-hop producer, also used the TR-909 in his work with the group Mantronix and in records like Back to the Old School (1986) by Just-Ice.

In the late 1980s, Chicago house and Detroit techno producers like Derrick May, Frankie Knuckles, and Jeff Mills popularized the TR-909. They often bought second-hand units. DJ Sneak said every Chicago producer used the TR-909. Mixmag described Jeff Mills as the "master" of the TR-909. Mills explained that the TR-909’s design allowed musicians to "play" it, using tuning controls to mimic the feel of a live drummer.

The TR-909 was used in hip-hop records by groups like Boogie Down Productions, Ultramagnetic MCs, Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, and Public Enemy. In the early 1990s, the Japanese composer Yuzo Koshiro included TR-909 sounds in his music for the Streets of Rage video games. During that decade, the TR-909 was also used by pop musicians like Madonna and Pet Shop Boys, as well as rock and alternative artists. Mark Bell used it to create "militaristic" percussion for Björk’s 1997 song Hunter, and Radiohead used it on Videotape from their 2007 album In Rainbows. Electronic artists like Kirk Degiorgio and Cristian Vogel made sample libraries by recording TR-909 sounds from friends’ machines.

The TR-909 was replaced in 1984 by the TR-707, which uses pre-recorded samples for all its sounds. In 2017, Roland released the TR-09, a smaller version of the TR-909 with added features. Hoshiai said he was proud that the TR-909 helped create new musical styles, which he had not expected. As of 2024, he still used the cymbal sounds he sampled for the TR-909 in his jazz band.