808 Maracas

The 808 has an highly artificial and unrealistic emulation of a shaker/maraca. Read some notes about the 808 maracas here.

The sound is just filtered white noise. No cables are required for this patch.

1: Switch noise to ‘white.’

2: Pull down everything in the mixer except noise.

3: Switch the VCF to High-pass (HP4).

4: Ensure the envelope is not modulating the filter by setting VCF FM1 level to 0.

5: Set VCF Q level to 0.

6: Remove the low frequencies by raising the VCF frequency about 75% of the way up.

7: The 808 Maracas has a very short envelope (between 25 and 35ms). Set ENV-A to fast.

8: Refer to the waveform above. Unlike the other 808 sounds the Maracas doesn’t have a decay only envelope. It has an attack time that’s 3/4 as long as its decay time. Adjust the attack and decay times until you’re getting a soft “chik” sound.

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Further Reading

808 Service Manual

Pg. 6 has a brief description of the combined clap/maracas circuit (CP/MA).

Pg. 7 has a block diagram (top right, under the SD).

Pg. 9 has the circuit diagram (bottom right).

Pg. 14 has a chart displaying the decay time (M).

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Basic Buchla Bongos

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808 Tom (Pinged)