Roland TR-626
Digital Rhythm Composer (1987)

 

One of the first fully-digital affordable drum machine based on compresed PCM acoustic samples.

DRUM MACHINE main panel features a LCD display (no backlit), 16 buttons, 2 knobs and 16 trigger pads (no velocity).

Rear panel terminal connectors:
- signal main out
- 8 individual outputs
- Midi interface (no THRU)
- analog trig out (at +5V) controlled by rimshot
- pedalswitch input start / stop
- tape & sync interface.

Power supply is a 9V external PSU DC +(- 50mA or 6x 1.5V batteries.

 

 

TECH main core based on CMOS 8 bits CPU HD63701Y0P which manages 8 channels polyphony. Each TR626 voice has a sample assigned from 4 different ROM banks (rompler) with some channel-shared restrictions e.g: you cannot play SNARE 1 and SNARE 2 at the same time.

The sample edit is limited to 2 parameters: - pitch tuning (7 semitones range) - mix volume

 

 

WAVETABLE internal ROM (at IC15) UPD23 contains 30 PCM waves at 8 bits resolution and 25 kHz sampling rate.

PCM are mainly sampled from acoustic drums and organized in 16 categories: kick, timbale, hihats, cup, snare, crash, cowbell, handclap, tomtom, cymbals, tambourines, claves, rimshot, ride, agogo and shaker. Hear all waves

SEQUENCER recording patterns is similar to Roland TR-707 system with some dit options e.g flame, accent, swing and shuffle an d 2 recording modes: realtime or step.

SYNC internal tempo range from 40 to 240 BPM or slave-synched to: - external Midi clock - tape sync protocol. TECH: SYNC 24 is no more implemented in 626, however the trigger out is always handy to sync other drum box or synth arpeggiator. Hear a synched sequence

 

MIDI sounds can be assigned to a specific MIDI note and triggered dynamically (limited to 6 levels) by Midi devices, but no other special controls or CC#.

MEMORY:
- 48 ROM patterns
- 48 RAM patterns
- 6 songs (maximum of 999 steps)
RAM is tripled using Roland M-128D card, usually cheaper than m256D used by Roland D-50 or JD-800. Patterns and songs can be also saved to Midi sysex dump or using the obsolete tape interface.

LEFT - Battery replacement soldered CR 2032 3V - thanks to Marco Moreno Graziano for pic click to enlarge

 

MODIFICATION a common operation modding for TR-626 is the circuit bending: bent points are often modular of activated by levers.

UP -If you like stretched glitches sounds this could be a nice job for your machine. Our special circuit bent TR626 (now sold)

gallery of BENT BURNKIT 2600

 

RELATED FAMILY:

Tr-505 is the cut-down features brother. Even more compact, the 505 features less sounds, less sequencer functions, no more separate outs and no samples tuning options.

 

VST PLUGIN / SAMPLED VERSION there are some free and commercial samples set:

FREE tr626 sample set

DOWNLOAD

AUDIO DEMO

	super mix : tr626 + roland sh101 bass
	super mix : tr626 bending (100% bent no other samples)
	factory demo
	some raw rhythm pattern

 

VIDEO SELECTION Demo with Roland TR-707 Circuit bent modular

 

 

MANUAL

SERVICE MANUAL

original Brochure

Roland TR-626 FOR SALE CHECK OUT EBAY OFFERS