 thumb|right|the roland cr-78 drum machine the roland compurhythm cr-78 is a drum machine launched in 1978.the history of roland although primitive by today's standards, the cr-78 represented an important advance in drum machine technology at the time, in particular by allowing users to program and store their own drum patterns. the wood effect cabinet and preset rhythms of the cr-78 such as waltz, bossa nova and rhumba suggest that it was seen by its designers as primarily an accompaniment for an electric organ, but the cr-78 became one of the favorite instruments of pop and electronic musicians in the late 1970s and early 1980s. famous songs that make prominent use of the roland cr-78 include "vienna" by ultravox, "heart of glass" by blondie and "in the air tonight" by phil collins.classic tracks: phil collins' "in the air tonight" ==the machine and its controls== the cr-78 used analog drum voices, which sounded very little like real percussion instruments, but they instead had their own distinctive sounds. the unit also incorporated an early intel microprocessor to provide digital control of its functions.roland cr78 previous roland drum machines had offered only a selection of preset rhythms. the cr-78's key new feature was that in addition to offering 34 preset rhythms, it provided four programmable memory locations for storing patterns created by the user. these could be created by using step programming with the ws-1 box, which was available as an optional extra. the four user patterns were stored in ram memory; when the cr78 was switched off, the contents of the ram was maintained by a nicd rechargeable battery. the cr-78's front panel allowed the user to customize the preset rhythms by altering the volume balance between bass and treble sounds, canceling some sounds altogether, and adding ring modulation ("metallic beat") to the cymbal sounds. many of the preset rhythms have a memorable character, and the ability to manipulate them further made the cr-78 a versatile instrument. no digital control of tempo was provided on the front panel, with only an analog knob for the function. however, the cr-78 would also accept an external v-trig clock, allowing a control voltage to be fed in from another devic
Drum_machines Products_introduced_in_1978 Roland_drum_machines Roland_synthesizers