The Roland x0x Series: If synthesizers and drum machines were videogames

Part of the Music Research Seminar Series 2025-26

Speaker: James Newman – Bath Spa University

Location: School of Music Lecture Theatre 2

• This will be a hybrid event. The guest speaker will be present with us in the School of Music, and colleagues and other guests are encouraged to join us there. But if you are unable to do so then please consider joining us via Teams.
• No booking is required. Those wishing to attend online should contact series convenor Dr Ellis Jones (e.n.jones@leeds.ac.uk).

This talk explores the Roland ‘x0x’ series of synthesizers and drum machines. Originally designed and released in the early 1980s, these instruments have gone on to become some of the most influential and revered ever created. The punchy, swung sounds of the TR-909 continue to provide the rhythmic foundation of House and Techno, the esoteric sequences and ‘squelchy’ resonant filter of the TB-303 are synonymous with ‘Acid’ while the TR-808 has not only graced countless Hip-Hop, R&B and Pop recordings but is perhaps the only drum machine to be referenced in song titles, lyrics, and band names, or to have a line of clothing and trainers created in its honour. And, herein lies a problem. Over the past 40 years, the x0x instruments have been so comprehensively mythologised that it is difficult to disentangle the actualities of their histories from the rumour and hearsay that have built up around them.

James Newman is Professor of Digital Media and Senior Teaching Fellow in the Design School at Bath Spa University. He has written widely on aspects of digital play and games, ludomusicology, media histories, digital heritage and preservation. He is the Series Editor of the Routledge Histories of Electronic Musical Instruments.