loopdon wrote:I wonder why Roland chose those tunings?
No idea. I guess it has more to do with the lower frequencies than anything note specific, I did read an article once ( SOS I think ) on how the 808 kick was synthesized, I think there was a 909 too but that was a while ago. Personally, I'd hate not being able to change the pitch without sampling it. You'd find it restrictive in terms of what you could write if you had a fair amount of decay on it. Gm, Fm keys seem to be better, probably Gm in contrast to my last post. Different story with a shorter attack though, Planet Rock was in Bm but that would probably sound horrible with the 808 kick decay set lengthly. Hashim - Al Naafiysh in Fm, can't remember any other old tunes offhand. I'm not even sure these guys were even bothered about the tune of the kick, they might have been but on some of the old records, they rarely seemed to use the kick with any decay on it anyways.
I don't know about in later yrs, affordable sampling arrived so probably everything changed then. I wonder if there's any old records where a long 808 kick was used? Interesting to see what key they used.
Well, it got me thinking anyway. I have a boring day so anything mildly stimulating is good.