Bring The 808, 303, and 909 To Your iPhone

By Ned Hepburn on May 8th, 2009

technobox-iphone-app-brings-durms-1

technoBox brings, in its $10 package, probably the greatest little music app out there for music geeks like myself. Unlike the “your Mom can do it!” way that, say, Ocarina, works on your iPhone, this might take a little bit of nerdiness to figure out.

The Roland 808 and 909 are two of the original, most used, and most copied drum sequencers on the planet. They’re used in countless hip hop, electronic, and some rock songs. For example, Outkast used and reference the 808 on “I Like The Way You Move”, while The Postal Service used one on their mega-hit “Such Great Heights”. See what I’m getting at? It kind of goes into everything. And the 303 was a keyboard sequencer that synthesized bass sounds used from the awesome acid house techno from the mid 80’s. So yeah. This is a big deal if you are a total music dork like myself.

Anyway, so this app recreates them so you could effectively use them all at once or one or two at a time.

Wait, hold up. DUDE. THAT SAVES ME LIKE $6000. Original 808’s, 909’s, and 303’s go for thousands of dollars, and here’s a thing on your iPhone that can do all three for about $10. That’s amazing.

So after I got over reverse sticker shock I started really playing around with it. It’s a sold app. No big bugs or crashes, the volume was a bit low, not the kind of thing you could rock a school bus with or what have you, but you could plug your iPhone into external speakers and easily play it as an actual “instrument”, too, if you’re comfortable with calling a cell phone an “instrument”. Regardless, this is impeccably solid and very worth the price. So what’s the hold up? The knobs are tiny, and if you have Homer Simpson fingers like I do, you might want to think twice about this app. Like I said, it’s totally worth it, a ton of fun, and better than any of the crappy keyboard and drum machine ones out there. This one is the real deal, producing quality (well, mid-quality if you want to get super technical, but this is an iPhone, not the original thing).

technoBox might not be for everybody, but its a great addition to the iPhone for the type of dude that reads Pitchfork or Mojo or maybe DJ’s on the side. Definitely an A-.