Roland CR-78 Compu-Rhythm

The CR-78 was a very traditional looking, but pretty groundbreaking unit in some ways.

Not merely building upon their legacy and upgrading the exsting CR-68 model, Roland added user programmability to the CR-78 for the first time in their rhythm units. You could add your own beats to existing rhythms – or create a new one – by means of a trigger input. Roland supplied a weird pad device for this, that you can bang to enter the hits. This showed the way for future classic Roland drum machines – the TR-808, TR-909, TR-707 and TR-606 Drumatix series, as well as for controllers like the Octapad.

I owned and used the CR-78 in my Studio Version 1