Welcome to this second post in my "Top Gear" series (please don't sue me BBC!) where I briefly discuss a couple of key instruments which I used to produce the music you can find on this website. This time, let's talk about the Roland SP-808EX, the second device I bought and a strong companion to my MC-505 groovebox.The SP-808EX is labelled as a "workstation" (what's in a name?), and it comprises a sampler, a 4-track recorder and a wider array of effects. When I bought this, it was the first time I could actually use sounds I recorded from alternative sources in my music. Which, obviously, I started doing like a madman: sampling films, series or other music, recording whatever sound I thought was interesting around me, cutting it up, running it through effects and filters, etc. It was super fun and opened a lot of new ways of making interesting music. And, also very important: it allowed me to record guitar parts as well! Which was really super cool as well...Of course, again, this also came with limitations. The sampler was quite alright but manipulating the samples on the very tiny screen and by using only buttons and knobs was a bit cumbersome, especially to today's standards. Recording with 4 tracks was a luxury at the time for me, as it was a vast improvement from only having been able to record directly to a tape, but still it is very limited when one wants to record intricate tracks.All music starting Disobedient Demo to The Faces was recorded on this 4 track recorder. Still very limited, but at least an improvement. Once I got my 16-track VS-2000CD, the SP-808EX's recording days were over, but I kept using it as a sampler and had loads of fun with it over the years. Great piece of machinery!