House is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by a repetitive four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 115–130 beats per minute. It was created by DJs and music producers from Chicago's underground club culture and evolved slowly in the early/mid 1980s as DJs began altering disco songs to give them a more mechanical beat. By early 1988, House became mainstream and supplanted the typical 80s music beat.
Roland Corporation is a Japanese multinational manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, electronic equipment, and software. It was founded by Ikutaro Kakehashi in Osaka on 18 April 1972. In 2005, its headquarters relocated to Hamamatsu in Shizuoka Prefecture. It has factories in Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan, and the United States. As of December 2022, it employed 2,783 people. In 2014, it was subject to a management buyout by its CEO, Junichi Miki, supported by Taiyo Pacific Partners.
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument that creates percussion sounds, drum beats, and patterns. Drum machines may imitate drum kits or other percussion instruments, or produce unique sounds, such as synthesized electronic tones. A drum machine often has pre-programmed beats and patterns for popular genres and styles, such as pop music, rock music, and dance music. Most modern drum machines made in the 2010s and 2020s also allow users to program their own rhythms and beats. Drum machines may create sounds using analog synthesis or play prerecorded samples.
Digital music technology encompasses the use of digital instruments to produce, perform or record music. These instruments vary, including computers, electronic effects units, software, and digital audio equipment. Digital music technology is used in performance, playback, recording, composition, mixing, analysis and editing of music, by professions in all parts of the music industry.
The Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer, commonly known as the 808, is a drum machine manufactured by Roland Corporation between 1980 and 1983. It was one of the first drum machines to allow users to program rhythms instead of using preset patterns. Unlike its nearest competitor at the time, the more expensive Linn LM-1, the 808 generates sounds using analog synthesis rather than by playing samples.
Chicago house refers to house music produced during the mid to late 1980s within Chicago. The term is generally used to refer to the original house music DJs and producers from the area, such as Ron Hardy and Phuture.
The Roland TR-909 Rhythm Composer, commonly known as the 909, is a drum machine introduced by Roland Corporation in 1983, succeeding the TR-808. It was the first Roland drum machine to use samples for some sounds, and the first with MIDI functionality, allowing it to synchronize with other devices. Though a commercial failure, it influenced the development of electronic dance music genres such as techno, house and acid house.
The Roland SH-101 is an analog synthesizer manufactured by the Roland Corporation between 1982 and 1986. Though it was something of a commercial failure during the time of its manufacture, it later became a staple of electronic music in the 1990s, particularly house music.
An acid house party was a type of illegal party typically staged in abandoned warehouses between 1987 and 1989. Parties played acid house and acid techno music, electronic music genres with a distinct sound from the use of the Roland TB-303 synthesizer. The origin of the term acid house party is disputed coming either from the 1987 song "Acid Tracks" by Phuture, or the consumption of MDMA and LSD that were common at the parties.
Acid techno, sometimes known generally as "acid", is a genre of techno that was derived from acid house and developed in Europe in the late 1980s to early 1990s. It saw younger artists apply the "squelching" synthesizer sound of Chicago acid house to harder-edged techno material.
Behringer is an audio equipment company founded by the Swiss engineer Uli Behringer on 25 January 1989 in Willich, Germany. Behringer produces equipment including synthesizers, mixers, audio interfaces and amplifiers. Behringer is owned by Music Tribe, a holding company chaired by Uli Behringer.
Tadao Kikumoto is Roland's senior managing director and head of its R&D center. He designed the TB-303 bass synthesizer and the TR-909 drum machine. He was also the chief engineer of the Roland TR-808 drum machine.
The Roland MC-202 (MicroComposer) is a monophonic analog synthesizer and music sequencer released by Roland in 1983. It was the first groovebox. Its synth is similar to the TB-303 bass synth and the SH-101 synthesizer, featuring one voltage-controlled oscillator with simultaneous saw and square/pulse-width waveforms. It is a successor to the Microcomposer family of sequencers, including the MC-8 and MC-4. The unit is portable and can be operated from batteries or an external power supply.
Phuture is an American house music group from Chicago, founded in 1985 by Earl "Spanky" Smith Jr., Nathaniel Pierre Jones aka DJ Pierre, and Herbert "Herb J" Jackson. The group is renowned for inventing and defining the sound of acid house, a subgenre of house music, with their 1987 release "Acid Tracks".
The Roland Juno-106 is a synthesizer released by Roland Corporation in February 1984.
"Acid Tracks" is a 1987 acid house song by Phuture produced by Marshall Jefferson and released by Trax Records. Phuture consisted of Nathan Pierre Jones, better known as DJ Pierre, Earl Smith Jr, and Herbert Jackson. Jones had been interested in developing dance music and became superficially interested in house music after Spanky had taken him to see DJ Ron Hardy perform in Chicago. The trio began developing tracks without finding anything that they felt was satisfying; Jones had heard a track made on the unpopular Roland TB-303 bass machine, which led the group to purchase one.
A synthesizer is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and frequency modulation synthesis. These sounds may be altered by components such as filters, which cut or boost frequencies; envelopes, which control articulation, or how notes begin and end; and low-frequency oscillators, which modulate parameters such as pitch, volume, or filter characteristics affecting timbre. Synthesizers are typically played with keyboards or controlled by sequencers, software or other instruments, and may be synchronized to other equipment via MIDI.
Acid house is a subgenre of house music developed around the mid-1980s by DJs from Chicago. The style is defined primarily by the squelching sounds and basslines of the Roland TB-303 electronic bass synthesizer-sequencer, an innovation attributed to Chicago artists Phuture and Sleezy D circa 1986.
Charanjit Singh was an Indian musician from Mumbai, who performed as a session musician, often as a guitarist or synthesizer player, in numerous Bollywood soundtrack orchestras from the 1960s to 1980s, working with filmi composers such as Shankar-Jaikishan, R.D. Burman, S.D. Burman, and Laxmikant–Pyarelal.
The timeline of music technology provides the major dates in the history of electric music technologies inventions from the 1800s to the early 1900s and electronic and digital music technologies from 1874 to the 2010s.
