Audio demo at the auction and further below.
"The Roland R5 was a late 80's / early 90's drum machine that was an extremely capable unit, and somewhat ahead of its time, but was overshadowed by its big brother the mighty Roland R8. As a result it was often neglected as a poor mans R8 and was probably never really as popular as it should have been.
The standard machine has 68 sounds, four individual outputs plus a stereo pair, extensive sound shaping capabilities, 16 velocity sensitive pads and a whole host of 'human feel' and groove editing capabilities. One additional feature that takes the R5 into whole new realms of percussion programming is the ability to record parameter changes into patterns in on the fly using the data entry slider. This may not seem like much these days, but other than the R8 and the Yamaha RY30, it was a feature that was pretty much unique at the time.Theres no room for any decent mods inside the casing of the R5, so as you can see we've bolted an extra case to the side of the unit and mounted a patchbay in it. The case is made from transparent blue plastic and contains several LED's that light up when you power up the machine. This gives you a very cool and unique glowing blue patchbay.
The patchbay mods consist of a 20 way main patching area, 2 x patching multiples, 2 x patchable switches and 1 x patchable momentary button. You can find full details of our drum machine patchbay mods on our website HERE. but essentially each 3.5mm patchbay socket is home to a certain audio process or effect which either combines with the effect from another socket when they are patched together, or sometimes just produces an entirely new effect you've never heard before. Multiple simultaneous connections may also combine in unexpected ways to produce a brand new unexpected effect, giving you a virtually unlimited number of warped alterations and audio mutations.
