Not content with rebooting the 808, Roland Corporation will also be bringing back the TR-909, techno’s favourite drum machine, this year. 

As with the 808, Roland have broken the news via a video on their Youtube channel [above]. It’s pretty interesting, too: after explaining that the machine’s analogue snare and kick were easy to get right, it tells how they toiled on the cymbal, and eventually used a digital sample. It closes by claiming that the time is here to “plant a new seed”, and “take the next step in music history”.

As with the 808 reboot, the 2014 909 will be released under the banner name AIRA, and as with the 808 video, we get a small (and we mean very small) shot of what the new model might look like.

Even better: as Music Radar points out, the AIRA range now has a website. It reveals that four AIRA products will be released this year: the TR-808, the TR-909, the VT-3 Vocal Transformer (see here) and one other. 303, anyone?

If recent leaked information is to be believed, the new 808 will be a digital synth rather than a fully analogue box – we suspect the 909 will be similar. We’re promised more information next month.

Last week, we rounded up Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About the Roland TR-808, and Mr. Beatnick looked into whether its reboot will be worth the wait.