99% Invisible
Hosted by Roman Mars
Vintage music barely had any bass. Today’s hits are all about the low end. What changed?
4,357 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
Instagram teen accounts have automatic protections on by default. Built-in content settings for the content teens can see, contact limits for who can contact them, and time management tools like daily time limits and sleep mode. Teens are automatically placed into teen accounts, and teens under 16 will need a parent's permission to change any of these settings to be less strict. Instagram will continue adding built-in safety features to help create age-appropriate experiences. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com/teenaccounts. Some of the most important design choices are the ones that go unnoticed. The details that together make an experience feel intuitive, comfortable, and above all, exhilarating.
At Acura, that means looking closely at how every detail can make your experience behind the wheel more rewarding. Every lesson learned and every idea refined becomes part of what comes next, and it lives inside every MDX, ADX, and Integra. That's precision-crafted performance. That's Acura.
If you're a small business, the right hire can be make or break. Indeed-sponsored jobs gets you quality candidates when you need them most. Join the 3.3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to connect with quality talent that fits their needs. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed-sponsored jobs.
This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars.
In the 15 years we've been making this show, a lot of podcasts have reached out saying that we in some way inspired their approach to storytelling. But to me, the podcast that consistently embodies the spirit of 99PI while still infusing their episodes with a thoughtfulness and care that makes everything completely their own. is 20,000 hertz. Imagine 99% invisible, but every beautifully crafted story is about sound. Every once in a while, I hear an episode of 20,000 hertz, and it's such a definitive statement on a subject that I think, I just have to share this. And that's what I have for you today. This is the story of the Roland TR-808 drum machine. Before they were all over popular music, drum machines had a humble origin.
They were originally built into home organs with chintzy sounds that plunked along to preset rhythms like the cha-cha and the foxtrot and the waltz. But the earth-shaking 808 changed everything, and its seismic waves spread out far beyond music that had an electronic backing beat. It introduced an addictive low-end rumble, and pop music was never the same.
You're listening to 20,000 Hertz. I'm Dallas Taylor.
Whenever I listen to vintage music, one of the first things that I notice is a lack of bass. For example, in 1912, the top song in America was "The Haunting Melody" by Al Jolson.
Tell me, have you ever heard this melody?
Since this was recorded with a full orchestra, there's almost certainly a double bass in there, but you'd never know it from the record.
20 years later, things were not much better. Here's a Louis Armstrong track from the early 30s. In this one, the double bass is just barely audible.
In the 1950s, the bass started becoming a bit more noticeable. In Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock", you can definitely hear what the bassist is playing, though it's still pretty quiet.
A decade later, bass guitars were much more common, but the recordings were still pretty thin. In this Rolling Stones track, the bass guitar and kick drum just aren't very present.
Now, it's not that people back then didn't care about bass. The microphones they had just weren't very good at capturing those frequencies. And even if they could, the speakers and headphones that people had just couldn't reproduce those low-pitched sounds.
But in the 60s and 70s, a few different companies released microphones that were much more sensitive to low frequencies. At the same time, people started investing in stereo systems that could blow those old 50s radios out of the water. The result was an explosion of bass-heavy music, from rock classics like Dazed and Confused...
to disco hits like Le Freak.
But as bassy as that is, it's nowhere near the booming, sub-rattling tones we hear today.
To unlock a sound like that, musicians would need something truly revolutionary. It was a little device that came out in the early 80s and went on to transform the sound of popular music: the 808 drum machine.
The 808 is everywhere. You may or may not know it by name, but you've definitely heard it before.
I laugh because if I listen to the radio for an hour, there's not one record that you hear that's not an 808.
That's DJ Jazzy Jeff. He's a world-renowned DJ, producer, and hip-hop icon. Famously, he was Will Smith's partner back in his Fresh Prince days.
We were seeking out what we heard on the early hip-hop records and the machines that they used, and there was nothing that was more distinctive and more sought after than an 808.
The Roland TR-808 is a drum machine.
That's Paul McCabe from Roland, the company that created the 808. When they first released it back in the early 80s, drum machines weren't exactly sought after. For 20 or 30 years, they had mostly been used in the home.
We have to remember, in the 70s, the 60s, the 50s, music being played in the home was still a very popular thing, and television hadn't taken over the living room quite yet, so families would often gather around and they would play music. People would play music as a pastime. A high percentage of the population was playing music.
And though families were hanging out in the living room playing music, they typically didn't have a drum kit laying around. They might have a guitar, maybe a piano, or an organ.
As you can imagine, people wanted a rhythmic instrument that wasn't as big or loud as a live drum kit.
If you see photos of some of the earliest drum machines, in fact, you'll even see drum machines that are designed to sit on top of an organ where the music rest would normally be.
So particularly, the earliest drum machines were really working to try and recreate the sound of a small acoustic drum kit, and so there would be a kick drum and a snare drum and cymbals and tom-toms.
For years, drum machines were used casually, and professional musicians mostly ignored them.
But in time, musicians did start to find uses for drum machines. By the early 70s, many songwriters would program a drum beat and then write to it. Now, most of the time, this drum machine would get replaced by a live drummer, but not always. One of the first recordings to include a drum machine was "Family Affair" by Sly and the Family Stone.
Around the same time, early versions of electronic music were starting to go mainstream.
This is "The Robots" by Kraftwerk.
Kraftwerk is a four-piece band out of Dusseldorf, Germany. They would be one of the founding fathers of techno.
For Kraftwerk, drum machines were a perfect complement to their precise synthesized basslines.
By the late 70s, drum machines were finally gaining traction.
They started to become used more in live performance in a situation where either an acoustic drummer wasn't available, or to enhance a rhythm section, and then they started to appear in recordings.
At the time, one of the most popular drum machines was the Roland CR78, which was a predecessor to the 808. Here it is in Blondie's "Heart of Glass."
And here's the CR78 in Phil Collins's "In the Air Tonight."
These songs inspired early demand for a stage-ready drum machine, so Roland got to work on a new model.
They wanted to build a machine that was portable, flexible, and durable.
When one sees a TR808, it almost looks military in its design. It's kind of a drab olive color, and there's a reason why TR808s are still being used today, because you could drive a truck over them, and probably many of them would still work. That was kind of what was in our mind at the time. Where it went to, needless to say, is someplace quite different.
Over the centuries, there have been a few instruments that changed music forever. The piano revolutionized classical music.
Electric guitars defined rock and roll.
And the 808 transformed hip-hop and electronic music.
When we think about the sound of the 808, we think of it in terms of its influence on hip-hop and R&B, and, you know, when we think of hip-hop, of course, we start with Afrika Bambaataa and Planet Rock.
It's this otherworldly mashup of this kind of east coast New York sound with Kraftwerk.
Like a lot of musicians at the time, DJ Jazzy Jeff heard Planet Rock and was captivated by the drum sounds.
We emulated whatever we heard. So, you know, when Planet Rock came out, it was kind of like, I need that machine. There was no drum machine that had a kick drum that sounded like that, that had a snare that sounded like that, that had a Christmas to the hi-hats, like an 808. So it was definitely sought after so that you could kind of make these records.
Once these DJs got their hands on the 808, they started expanding on its possibilities.
There was a record funk box party by Mastodon Committee, and he was a DJ that was very, very good on an 808.
Musicians were experimenting. Here's Egyptian Lover over on the west coast.
And here's some 808 electro funk from a group called The SOS Band.
Here's Indian musician Chiranjeev Singh using an 808 on his album Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat.
And here's Marvin Gaye's more minimalist use of the 808.
As the 808 took off, it wasn't clear if this sound had any staying power. It could just be a flash in the pan that would be replaced by the next big thing.
There was all these moments that were happening, these musical moments that were very serendipitous in the early 80s, that, you know, if they'd gone left instead of right, if this guy did this on a Tuesday instead of a Wednesday, we probably wouldn't be talking about the 808 in this context today. It was literally that kind of magical.
A huge factor in that magic had to do with the 808's bass drum sound, and a little knob for controlling it labeled "Decay." That one tiny knob allowed musicians to push the bass in their music farther than they ever had before, and it created a sound that still dominates to this day. That's coming up, after the break.
When your mental health is suffering, therapy can help. But sometimes, it's not the whole answer. Talkiatory gives you access to real psychiatric care with licensed clinicians who can diagnose and prescribe medication if it's right for you. It's a simple way to get effective treatment right from home. Talkiatory is a 100% online psychiatry practice that provides comprehensive evaluations, diagnoses, and ongoing medication management for conditions like ADHD, anxiety, depression, and more. You can meet with a licensed psychiatrist who takes the time to understand what's going on, builds a personalized treatment plan, and supports you over time with consistent, evidence-based care.
All 800-plus clinicians are in-network with major insurers, so you can use your existing insurance instead of paying monthly subscriptions or out-of-network costs. Head to talkiatory.com/invisible to complete the short assessment and get matched with an in-network psychiatrist in just a few minutes. That's T-A-L-K-I-A-T-R-Y.com/invisible to get matched in minutes. Talkiatory.com/invisible.
To the millions of small business owners out there, we appreciate you. We see your early mornings, late nights, and all the hard work in between. And with the US Bank Business Essentials card, you don't have to go it alone. With unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase, because we know your community's counting on you to be here, there, everywhere. So yeah, we don't just appreciate you, we support you. The creditor and issuer of this card is US Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from VC USA Inc. Some restrictions may apply.
This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. Some design was made to be seen by all, like, for example, the seven wonders of the world. I mean, everyone should see those. While some were made to be less seen, like sewer systems. Like, when was the last time you thought about an aqueduct? Yet, that doesn't mean they're any less impressive. You could say the same thing about PNC Bank's smart, calculated approach to banking. It won't make for flashy headlines or trends on social media, but it'll make the right money moves that'll help set you up for the successful financial future you're looking for. A design everyone can get behind. PNC Bank. Brilliantly boring since 1865. Brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. PNC Bank, National Association, Member FDIC. The best pieces in your closet are the ones you can count on,
whether you're heading to work, going out, or keeping things casual. And this time of year, Quince makes finding something great for everyone else just as easy. Quince focuses on high-quality staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, and Italian leather. All timeless, versatile pieces that feel special to unwrap and become everyday favorites long after the holidays. I'm a huge fan of the whole line of Quince sweaters. I have button-up ones, zip-up ones, black, gray, brown. I use them when I just go upstairs, when I get on a call, when I take a dog for a walk. These are favorites that everyone would love. Give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers,
or go to quince.com, get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know that it was 99% invisible. It's the best way to support the show.
We're back with more 808 from 20,000 Hertz on 99% Invisible. That's all the numbers I've got for you.
When drum machines were first developed, they were meant to replace live drummers. So the goal was to sound like a real drum kit, using artificial sounds. The Roland 808 was designed with the same idea in mind.
Even when we got to the TR808, the technology was designed to recreate an acoustic drum kit.
The 808 was released in 1980, and at first, it wasn't a big hit. For one thing, it cost $1,200, which is about $4,600 in today's money. And soon after it came out, the 808 got some tough competition.
Right about that same time, 1981, the first drum machine that used recorded sound clips or samples came into being.
This new generation of drum machines could play real, recorded drum sounds. Once they hit the scene, they made synthesized drum machines like the 808 sound dated.
To me, this is very Nintendo and Atari-ish. Here's my computer version of what I think a drum kit is supposed to sound. And it doesn't sound anything like a drummer or a drum set, at all.
At the time, an Atari video gamey drum sound just wasn't what people wanted on their records. But after a couple years of mediocre sales, the 808 started showing up in pawn shops for a fraction of the price.
I ended up getting mine from a pawn shop, because you couldn't really walk into a store and see an 808.
Musicians started picking them up because it was a piece of equipment they could actually afford. Recording studios often had one on a shelf collecting dust, or somebody's friend might lend them one for a live show. But the jury was still out on whether the 808 was anything more than a cheap machine that couldn't play real drum sounds.
The 808 was really facing quite an uphill battle to gain any kind of acceptance. But in a kind of one of these classic "your strength is your weakness" paradoxes, where the strength of the drum machines that were based on recordings of actual drum sounds was that, at first glance, they sounded more natural. On the other hand, certainly with the technology available at that time, you couldn't really adjust the sound that much.
We were used to having a drum machine that you were stuck with basically the sound that came out of it. There wasn't too much manipulation that you can do. So to have this machine that you can take the snappiness out of the snare, and you can add more boom into the kick. This one machine could sound a hundred different ways.
The 808 may have sounded artificial, but those video gamey tones were highly adjustable, and that ended up being the key to its success.
And so with that in mind, you look and you've got these 11 sounds.
Here's the kick. Snare. Closed hi-hat. Open hi-hat.
Crash cymbal. Toms. Hand clap. Rimshot. Cowbell. You always gotta have more cowbell.
And finally, clave.
When you started getting into the clave and the cowbell, those were two very distinctive sounds that if you put them on anything, you knew they came from an 808.
But there was one sound on the 808 that changed music forever: the bass drum, also known as the kick.
There was a point in time that I felt like people were afraid of kick drums. You couldn't have the kick drum too loud. You couldn't have it too boomy.
Here's Scorpio by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. You can hear that the kick drum is relatively low in the mix.
Someone had the heart to put an 808 kick drum that it was round and it was boomy and it felt really good.
Here's Planet Patrol with a rounder, louder kick drum.
Then somebody on a record opened up the decay.
And when that kick drum rang out, it was nothing like you've ever heard.
Here's DJ Jazzy Jeff himself opening up that decay and letting the kick drum drive the song.
Have you ever in your life experienced a day where nothing at all seemed to go your way? No matter how hard you tried to get out of the rut, you just could not break the string of bad luck a day where Murphy's Law takes you.
Soon enough, the sound of the 808 bass drum became synonymous with hip hop. The idea of young people driving down the street with big boomy subwoofers was largely because of that tone.
Here's La Trim, a Miami-based hip-hop duo singing about boomy car stereos in 1988. Notice the signature sustained 808 bass drum sound.
Cause when you're in the streets, you can't go far without hearing the boom pouring out your car.
20 years later, Felix de Housecat released the song Kick Drum, which pushes that decay to its absolute limit.
Today, artists often shift the pitch of these 808 kick sounds to create full-on basslines.
Over the last couple decades, this technique has been used in hit song after hit song. It's in Hotline Bling by Drake.
It's in DNA by Kendrick Lamar.
It's in Up by Cardi B.
By now, we've heard these booming bass tones in hundreds, if not thousands of tracks. But back in the early 80s, a sound like that was unheard of.
You're not supposed to have your bass drum driving that much. And it's kind of like, why not? Everybody's riding around in their car, playing this music, and it's vibrating in their car, and they enjoy that. There's no right and wrong in it. I really feel like the 808 kick drum was one of the first things that started shattering the rules of what you should or shouldn't do when it came to recording music.
The decay control basically turned the 808's bass drum into a whole new instrument. It was so different that the studios making early hip-hop records didn't even know what to do with it.
When we did "He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper," was the first record that I used 808's and 808 samples on, that I wanted the kick drum to really resonate.
And I remember fighting with the engineer, because I wanted to push the envelope on how loud and how deep I wanted the 808. Because I knew there were some hip-hop records that you would get in a car, and you would play it, and the entire car would vibrate. And I was like, I want that.
But since that was so unusual at the time, the engineer refused.
I had to fight with the engineer to turn it up, and he would turn it down and turn it up. And I had to kind of explain to him, like, I understand that there is a technical way that you think you're supposed to do something. I want to push that envelope. I need this to be this loud. I need it to be almost at the brink, that it's not distorting, and it's not overpowering everything. But I need this to be the focal point of the record. Hip-hop is something that the drums have to drive the record. And I got him to allow me to do that. To the point that I loved it. And what I never realized was I never told the mastering engineer that I wanted that. And he thought it was a mistake and he took all of the 808 out of the album.
And I don't think I've ever said this in public. I can't listen to He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper now. That is the biggest record we've ever done. And I absolutely hate the way that it sounds. Because they sucked all of the bottom end from the 808 out and mastered.
Here's a clip from He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper, as it is on the record.
And here's what DJ Jazzy Jeff was probably going for.
The 808 arrived at exactly the right time. Through the 1970s, the rise of funk and disco made people hungry for thumping bass-heavy music. Then, in the early 80s, the 808 showed up just as hip-hop was starting to take off. It was the perfect storm.
When the 808 was absorbed into hip-hop culture, the ability to create that boom and the boom was largely driven by where you tuned the kick and then where you adjusted its decay to, that became the signature.
So as hip-hop grew, the sound of hip-hop grew, the backbone of that sound was the 808.
Pretty soon, these boomy bass drums spread into R&B, electronic music, and beyond.
Today, the 808 is just everywhere through pop music. And just by saying pop, that's such a wide term now. It encompasses world music, electronic music, and EDM, and techno, and house. And it's not an understatement to say that the 808 is an instrument that has actually defined culture.
Just like the electric guitar with rock and roll, the 808 allowed musicians to express new ideas, or at least to express timeless ideas in ways that felt new and exciting.
This is why I love music so much, because there's a thousand different combinations and ways to get to a result. At the end of the day, you realize that someone who had a crappy week at work, depending on how you present this music, you can change their day. You can introduce two people together that end up spending the rest of their lives together just by playing music in a certain way to bring people together. I've been blessed to have a thumbprint in music in making it or playing it that affects people's moods. That's the coolest job in the world.
20,000 Hertz is produced out of the Sound Design Studios of De Facto Sound. Find out more at defactosound.com.
This episode was written and produced by Phil Corbett.
And Casey Emmerling. With help from Grace East. It was sound designed and mixed by Joel Boyer.
And Justin Hollis. Thanks to our guests, DJ Jazzy Jeff and Paul McCabe. You can find Jeff's latest work at djjazzyjeff.com. And a big thanks to OnePlus for partnering with us on this episode. To learn more, visit oneplus.com. I'm Dallas Taylor. Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. One thing I've learned is that you buy a house, but you make it a home. For decades, Angie's helped millions of homeowners hire skilled pros for the projects that matter. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find a pro for your project at angie.com. When an intruder approaches a home, they expect a camera. What they don't expect... Stop, this is Simply Safe. Police are on the way. Using smart AI cameras, live USB-based agents help deter intruders in under 30 seconds. Don't just record a break-in, stop it from ever happening. Plans starting around a dollar a day. Right now, get 70% off your new system with professional monitoring at simplysafe.com/sxm. 30 seconds response time requires monitoring plan with outdoor protection starting at $49.99 a month. Visit simplysafe.com/licenses for alarm license information.
You wouldn't take financial advice from a 72 hours in a single day alpha influencer, would you? Same goes if you're in a car accident, or any accident. Who you choose matters. That's why Morgan & Morgan exists. They're the largest injury law firm in America, and they've built a reputation by actually winning cases, not just talking about it. Over 1,000 lawyers across all 50 states and $30 billion recovered. Injured? Go to forthepeople.com/podcast. That's forthepeople.com/podcast.
Page updated November 1, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
