Tadao Kikumoto

is Roland's senior managing director and head of its R&D center. He was the chief engineer of the Roland TR-808 drum machine, and then designed the TB-303 (1981) bass synthesizer and TR-909 (1983) drum machine.

Roland TR-808

Design The Roland TR-808, a programmable drum machine, was launched in 1980. The TR-808 included unique artificial percussion sounds, such as “the hum kick, the ticky snare, the tishy hi-hats (open and closed) and the spacey cowbell.”

The machine is particularly noted for its powerful booming bass drum sound, built from a combination of a bridged T-network sine oscillator, a low-pass filter, and a voltage-controlled amplifier. The bass drum decay control allows the user to lengthen the sound, creating uniquely low frequencies that flatten slightly over long periods, or bass drops. It was the first drum machine with the ability to program an entire percussion track of a song from beginning to end, complete with breaks and rolls. The machine includes volume knobs for each voice, multiple audio outputs, and a DIN sync port (a precursor to MIDI) to synchronize with other devices via the Digital Control Bus (DCB) interface, considered groundbreaking at the time. The machine has three trigger outputs, used to synchronize/control synthesizers and other equipment. and genres including electro, Miami bass, and Detroit techno. The 808 was instrumental to the origins of house and techno, and remains a staple of electronic dance music.

Producer Rick Rubin and hip hop group Original Concept popularized the technique of lengthening the bass drum decay and tuning it to different pitches to create basslines. The Bomb Squad popularized the use of samplers to manipulate the 808 bass, which became common in hip hop music. 808 samples were the basis for jungle and drum and bass, which developed from British producers using samplers to manipulate 808 sounds. attaining an iconic status within the music industry. The TR-909 was also notable for being the first MIDI-equipped drum machine. In turn, the TR-909 was succeeded in 1984 by the Roland TR-707, which was entirely based on digital sampling.

The TR-909 eventually came to be held in reverence by music producers, hip hop music DJs and beatmakers, and techno and other electronic dance music-style DJs. Much like the TR-808's importance to hip hop, the TR-909 holds a similar important for dance music, such as techno and house music.

Roland TB-303

Tadao Kikumoto's invention of the TB-303 in 1981 has been listed by The Guardian in 2011 as one of the 50 key events in the history of dance music, for its key role in the foundation of acid house. The article described it as one of the "first boxes to define the sound of electronic dance music."