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IR-909 brings old school beatmaking to the iPhone

by Joshua Ellis May 16th 2008 at 8:00PM



Back in 1984, Roland released the TR-909 drum machine as a successor to their legendary 808. Over the years, the 909 became one of the most influential and widely-used instruments in the history of electronic music, right up there with the Minimoog and the AKAI MPC sampler.

Now you can pick up IR-909, a free iPhone / iPod Touch version of the 909 over at roventskij.net. It has the 909's 16-step sequencer, eight drum sounds, and four pattern storage.

The minimal, lovely interface is close enough to the 909 for aficionados of the original hardware without sacrificing usability on the iPhone / iPod Touch's small screen.

IR-909 may not be a full-fledged replacement for your software sampler or old-school hardware 909...but I'm betting it's fun to play with on the bus or the train. Or hook it up to a pair of portable speakers and get your "Planet Rock" on anywhere and everywhere. 'Cause I know you got the funk in you.

[via Create Digital Music]

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Back in 1984, Roland released the TR-909 drum machine as a successor to their legendary 808. Over the years, the 909 became one of the...
 

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Allister

Does this even work on the iPod Touch? I've chucked the app on there with SFTP, set ALL permissions on all files and folders and when I launch it I get the main screen and then my iPod is hung and I have to power it down - the Home button doesn't work.

May 18 2008 at 4:21 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
MIchael

don't jailbreak your iphone, pwn it, and then just download the new 2.0 software and not worry, and wait for a new hacked up version to come out within an hour.

May 18 2008 at 3:34 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Demi

where would i find instruction to install this? i installed winscp and im still confused.. thanks

May 18 2008 at 2:03 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jip van Reijsen

On my iPod touch it crashes a few seconds after I lauched the application. Am I the only one? Does someone have a fix for it?

May 17 2008 at 11:32 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dave

Maybe I'm a little slow tonight. How do I install this? I put it in my applications folder using Cyberduck, but nothing happened, even after rebooting.

May 17 2008 at 12:57 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Dave's comment
WiFone

You also need to give the IR-909 file inside the /IR-909.app folder permissions to be executed. Use Finder or Terminal to do so, or use something like WinSCP (windows) to do it from your desktop.

May 17 2008 at 6:34 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Dave

Thanks! Worked perfectly.

May 17 2008 at 2:25 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jfolger

The article didn't say, but I assume you need to hack your iPhone. No thanks, I like my warranty.

May 16 2008 at 8:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
4 replies to jfolger's comment
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