Before the TR-808 and TR-909 changed hip-hop and dance, the CR-78 changed pop. Here's the story of the last Roland organ-top rhythm machine.

Programmability is such an integral part of drum machines that we now take it for granted. Yet there was a time when drum machines were preset-only. In those days, all one could do was mash a button to start a foxtrot rhythm and adjust the tempo knob. That is, until 1978 and the arrival of Roland’s CR-78. As the first computer-controlled programmable drum machine, the CR-78 helped free musicians from the tyranny of the preset. It also set the stage for the arrival of Roland’s world-conquering TR-808 and TR-909 drum machines in the next decade. But first, the CR-78 would make some waves of its own.

The late 1970s was a time of musical and rhythmic change in pop music. Genres like new wave, post punk, disco, and reggae were all forging exciting new paths with rhythm, borrowing from and inspiring each other. It was also a time for change in the world of musical instruments. Cutting-edge technology made new things possible, like affordable polyphony and synthesizer memory recall. Drum machines were about to benefit from these advances as well. 

The CR-78 debuted in 1978 amid these radical musical and technological changes. While the CR-78 appeared to be just another preset organ rhythm machine at first glance, it was much more. Indeed, the unit was precisely what musicians had been waiting for. To understand the CR-78’s place in drum machine history—and how disruptive it was—we first need to back up a few years and take a closer look at its ancestors."