This is the thing often missed by various clones. The Roland machines were cheap, often thought of as limited. An 808 clone selling at $1,000 is a weird idea.
I was hoping that the RPi or Arduino would open up cheap great interfaces to good software, but it hasn't really happened yet.
There's a documentary I really like on the history of House music called "Pump Up The Volume," and it can actually be found entirely on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1HpY65cXDA -- it covers what some of the early genre originators were doing and feeling at the time. Generally they were just experimenting, as well as doing the "track -> venue/club -> evaluate" feedback loop so common in the origin of genres. However, I still think it's cool to hear them discuss their unique contributions to a style that would eventually grow far larger than they ever expected.
There are also some good books on the history of electronic music I can recommend, the best one being "Last Night A DJ Saved My Life" http://www.amazon.com/Last-Night-DJ-Saved-Life/dp/0802146104...
I'd rather have real kit simply because there is a maintenance overhead for supporting software based solutions. Embedded systems i.e workstations are probably a good midpoint. You can just sit down and play shit then.
However, $1000 for 808 clones is batshit.
I paid less than half that for my Triton Studio which emulates an 808 pretty much spot on with about 20 mins work.
I've got analog synths, digital synths, and soft synths. My $40 Korg Monotron is more expressive than my $700 1997 Access Virus. But the Animoog iPad app trumps them both ($40, and I think I got it for $5 because I bought on the first day or something).
There's a reason nobody has ever cheapened the Stradivarius by creating new technology. The selling point is craftsmanship and good design. The 808's a work of art and it's always better to have the real thing, if you're serious about music. (I mean absolutely no offense, but it sounds like it's just a hobby to you.)
Speaking of iPads, there's a great simulation of a later-model Korg ER-1 drum machine availabe for iPad. It's called iElectribe. I love it, but I used to own an early version of the real thing, and it was just better. Context: I've owned many drum machines, even built a toy one for fun (the Bleep Drum, from Bleep Labs), and I'm learning to play the drums.
Access Virus is a rip off. I had a KC and it was no better than a Novation KS6 at a fraction of the cost. Fortunately the scene I was in grew out of the Virus eventually. Not sure about a monotron - horrible sounding feepers. Seem to be trendy but not particularly musical.
I very much doubt many Stradivarius' are actually played. They are like art. The value is subjective. Personally I hate the whining things and would rather use them to smoke some cheese with (this is sarcasm) :)
For me, it's a matter of pragmatism. My Triton sounds pretty good (not too digital) and saves lugging a crap ton of kit around. If it doesn't do something, I'll sample something that does do it and I'm sorted.
NB I was a session keyboardist in the goth/industrial scene for a number of years (also known as unemployed student) so I have some professional experience.
Many more are played by the likes of Yo-Yo Ma, and principle instrumentalists of various symphonies.
Browsing this list[1] it would seem that many more instruments are in the hands of musicians than are in museums.
[0] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04...
[1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Stradivarius_instrume...
Nope, their major selling point is their myth, vintage status and patina.
That's why nobody cheapened them with new technology. Those are not attributes you can make better with technology or that relate to music and audio performance directly.
(That's why, say, the guitar Hendrix played in Woodstock would trump any 10 times better in timbre and keeping its tuning guitar in any auction sale).
There were several A/B tests with Stradivarius and most professional violinists couldn't even tell them apart from regular violins. E.g: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stradivarius#Comparisons_in_sou...
>The 808's a work of art and it's always better to have the real thing, if you're serious about music.
No, that's only if you are serious about collecting stuff. Nothing to do with music.
>(I mean absolutely no offense, but it sounds like it's just a hobby to you.)
Professional electronic musicians, absolutely passionate about music, have used 808 sounds in ROMpler and/or analogue emulation audio plugin form for ages.
Collecting pieces of history, even musical history, has nothing to do with being "serious about music" as a musician.
We're not in the 80's now and even in the late 80's a workstation was practical (think Korg M1). I mean Oldfield did pretty well with them and an ST.
Triton has assignable knobs and pages and pages of virtual knobs which are trivial to change. If you really want you can stick a MIDI knob box in the back of it and associate those to a virtual control including parameters equivalent to the 808's.
Triton has multiple outs and multiple internal busses. Think of it as a 120 note polyphonic synth with 16 part timbrality, built in rack of effects, built in sequencer, built in sampler and a full size studio mixer and half a hard disk recorder (TBH I use an external DAT because they're bomb proof). Plus it burns and rips CDs and loads Akai samples off floppies and CDs. It's a whole pile of awesome which fits in a flight case.
My rhythm is naff enough that the Triton's sequencer has the resolution to pick it up. If I really want to, which as per you I don't, I can quantize on the device and get it perfect. Then I can assign patterns to keys and play them with my left hand while I hammer out a lead with the right hand.