Sines of reality [electronics music]

When it launched in 1983, Roland's silver TB-303 Bassline did not sell well. The Japanese company badly misread its market. The company conceived the Bassline as an accompaniment machine for keyboardists and guitarists, promoting it alongside the TR-808 drum machine. The only problem was that the TB-303 did not sound much like a bass guitar and was extremely tedious to program. But Nathaniel Pierre Jones (aka DJ Pierre) picked one up a few years later in Chicago. His initial hope was to to emulate the techniques of Ron Hardy, who worked as a DJ in a local nightclub, and who used a drum machine to mix extra beats into the records he played. But Pierre also tweaked the knobs of the TB-303 so that it sounded less like a bass and more like a sound-effects machine, and in so doing provided a new addition to his arsenal. Soon, Pierreinspired tracks began to supplant the regular diet of disco played in Chicago and moved outwards to spread around the world.