Also, what the guy in Australia says about it jumping to shuffle when you tell it to, at the same point in the bar as you were previously on. The other thing is the programmables - too bad there's only 8 slots - I could do with 48.

I've tried CR-1000 (no programmables) and the 505 as well - but they aren't easy top use as you play - they really are for sequencing, not accompaniment on the fly. I've bought a 'Zoom' as well - but it's much harder to use, owing to absence of truly helpful display. I just love the CR-8000, though its pedal inputs seem to be getting unreliable - any helpful hints out there?

The trick is in the register and swing buttons. The register button will switch to another pattern ala the 808's A/B switch but in real time as soon as you hit it. It does no wait till the end of the bar. Same with the swing button which basically make the pattern change to 3/4.

The funn lies in dropping between swing and a/b/ patterns. With some though very convincing Drum and bass patterns can be written up as well as bent fills etc. It also will send it's triggers out in relation to these buttons, so following sequencers will swing also. VERY COOL.

They also are a completley Modifiable. There is a mass of room on thee back pannel for individual outs and trigger out's etc and all circuts are easily hackable. So much can be modded on this baby. I am currently modding my CR8000 to include a CR5000 voice board so I'll have twice the amount of sounds all modded to the hilt.

This is my favorite Roland piece of gear. Nathan Null Object

The CR-8000 was my second piece of musical gear. I just bought a Korg Poly 800 then (and really liked it) and I needed some drums to start making music. My friends got me convinced that analogue equals cool and I know I had to buy the CR-8000 when I saw it in the (not so local) ads.

For a while, I kind of liked it, especially the looks - I still think it looks absolutely stunning. I didn't know if it sounded good or if it was easy to use because I had nothing to compare it to, but I soon mastered all of its functions except the manual "intro", which I never got to work right. I didn't mind the sequencer at all; even long after I had bought the TR-707, I found those 16 buttons in a row only slightly (if at all) more intuitive than the Register/Pause pair. Furthermore, I really liked the fact that the CR allowed you to mix two patterns together, even a preset and a user one - with some careful programming, you could make great use of those presets.

After I realised that the secret of new wave was the gated snare and that its building blocks were longer that 32 steps, the CR was used mostly to keep the arpeggio of my Jupiter 4 in synch, and soon even that was taken over by the 707 because the latter could synchronise to MIDI, as well. I really liked the hi-hats, though (I like 'em soft) and the clave, which found a very prominent spot in one of my tracks (write me at sartre@siol.net to hear it). Otherwise, I found the 707 to be a far more fulfilling machine.

I find nothing but praise for the CR-8000's reliabilty. It is pretty impressive for any 20-odd year old piece of gear to perform flawlessly all the time - I can't imagine the previous owner ever servicing it. Sometimes, a button or two had to be pressed a bit harder when the machine was cold, but after a few minutes, everything was fine. Same goes for the tempo knob which needed a bit of time to calibrate itself.

So yet again, I will remember the CR-8000 as a positively funky machine, in fact too funky for my taste. If I ever feel the need for analogue drums, I'll probably go for the Jomox Airbase 99, otherwise, the Yamaha RM-50 and the Kawai XD-5 will serve me just fine.

If you get a good bargain and you want a toy to keep you busy for a while, go for the CR-8000. Otherwise, I'll let Morrissey tell you how I feel about the CR-8000: "Very nice, very nice, very nice, very nice...but maybe in the next world."