Drum Robot (SoléBot) Motherboard Works, meanwhile Behringer's 606 Clone has MIDI. Hmmm...

When you go a-scrolling, entering the search terms "drum robot" into your default "sengine," a few things come up, like Compressorhead's heavy metal covers, a million dollar pneumatic actuated robotic live band. Then there are the usual, incomplete, or niche, hobbyist things, basic busker gimmicks or student science projects. All good, valid stuff, sure, but none of it generalised. Well, there's some SparkFun stuff and an art project, too, but the generalisations are perhaps... too general? So, generalising a robotic drum kit development kit seems the unfilled niche. So that's what I've started to turn my own drumming robot system towards.

Meanwhile, looking at the other kind of drum robot, arguably the first modern ones at least, analog drum machines, the latest crop of 606 clones from both Roland and Behringer, have MIDI, a luxury the originals couldn't afford while aiming for a sub-1980s pricepoint with 1980s tech in the 1980s. MIDI is the language of electronic music that allows synths, sequencers and rhythm machines to talk to each other. It actually predates most of the earliest of what we'd call modern drum machines, being developed from the late 70s to the very early 80s. My robotic drum kit will speak the language, too, thanks to the Arduino MIDI library, allowing my DAW or my Alesis SR18 drum machine to play a real drum kit.

So, a clone of an ancient beats box has MIDI, so what? Isn't a drum machine like a drum machine like a drum machine? No! Not all drum machines are alike and modern ones tend to be more like rhythm recorders than playable musical instruments. Yes, they have buttons that you can tap out beats, but you need to be a musician to do it, because there's no pre-insertion of beats on modern drum machines.

Roland's TR-606 Drumatix was revolutionary. It was affordable (albeit because it had limited memory), but a non-drummer could live perform a beat without having to actually keep time. Rather, they could sequence beats ahead of the play cursor, beats which wouldn't play until the cursor got to them. It made music making accessible to anybody who could dance! We can all dance! In our own ways, but we can move how the beat inspires us. House music was born!

Beringer RD 6 (image source behringer.com)

So, what happens if I combine the Behringer RD6, a cheap 606 clone with MIDI, analog trigger outs and tap tempo, with SoléBot? I don't know yet, but I can guess that I can play drums, real drums, the way a house DJ/mixmaster plays a 606, by inserting and removing notes into a single, simple pattern, mixing up the beat, changing tension dynamically, all the while jamming live with real musicians in a realtime, proper jam session! House belnded with rock, blues, jazz... There's genre title, "House Blend." Yeah, I live in Melbourne, the antipodean coffee capital. Sorry, not sorry. All the same, new genres happen when new people do old things in new ways. Country. Ragtime. Free jazz. Prog Rock. The various forms of punk, EDM, etc.

At each step, familiar instruments but used differently, or in different contexts, and new music is born. And all along, in the case of my robotic drum kit, the initial motivation for me was to create a "band" that can work with the unreliability and slow progress my health might cause, due to music making's need for hard work. Instead, by using a cheap-assed AU$200 drum machine, I might actually be able to play drums live, something I have never been able to master... ever!

My 1980s 606 was quickly replaced in 1985 or 6 by a Korg DDM10, that was better for programming but was nowhere near as good as a live drumming device, unless all the beats were already programmed, and all the drum machines went that way very quickly. The thing I have long lamented was how the 606 was a live instrument and nothing much has been since, unless it's one of the modern professional music pad stations like NI's Maschine, those babies aren't cheap. Nor do they easily, if at all, work away from a computer. Nothing really ticks the boxes the 606 ticks... Except for Roland's re-release (about the same as the literal 1980s price today) or the Behringer RD6, half the price of Roland's more features. And both have MIDI.

So, last week, I ordered an RD6 from a trusted online retailer I know well. The intention is to use it to more easily program my SR18, and create a less mechanical feel in the process. Build loops in the "6," with swing turned on, dump them to the SR18 with the swing turned off, sequence a set of beats as a song. Then, as SoléBot comes online, play beats on real drums, using the "anticipated step time," as I call the method, to get tight grooves that are in-the-room from real drums and cymbals, rather than from synth tones.

I've never felt more passionate about a project. I'm anticipating the "grape box" (as I'm already calling it) like it's a new bicycle! I promise you, I will be reporting more as news comes to hand.