Sound Master Memory Rhythm SR-88

Four sounds and a useful memory

The 1982 buyers guide lists bass drum, snare, hi-hat and cymbal, with paired memories, fills and a trigger output. The operating booklet shows how those few elements were organised into playable rhythms. It was a small vocabulary, but one designed for a musician to combine and keep close at hand.

A machine priced for experiment

Strings & Things listed the SR-88 at £72.95 including VAT, and a JSG Music advertisement offered it for £59 delivered the following year. Those prices place it in a different part of the market from the larger programmable machines: accessible enough for a player to try an electronic rhythm section without building a full studio around it.

In post-punk working rooms

A Sudeten Creche participant recalled an SR88 among the group’s equipment around 1982. Later accounts from Nagamatzu, Cyrnai and Blancmange also retain its presence in the period’s small-scale electronic setups. The SR-88’s story is therefore more intimate than spectacular: a compact box whose limited sounds could still make a room move.

In the market

• 1982-07: GBP 72.95 — UK contemporary buyers-guide quotation. Instrument; options not specified Source ↗
• 1983-11-05: GBP 59 — JSG Music UK advertised offer. Free Securicor delivery Source ↗

On record

• Robin Guthrie / Cocteau Twins — Early Cocteau Twins work before Garlands; individual SR-88 recording not named. LeRoy’s account quotes Guthrie recalling that he bought two Sound Master SR-88 machines while developing the early Cocteau Twins set, before the group recorded Garlands with a Roland TR-808. Source ↗
• Martin Newell / The Cleaners from Venus — This Rainy Decade. LeRoy reports that Newell bought a Sound Master SR-88 and used it on This Rainy Decade from the 1982 cassette Midnight Cleaners, augmenting it with overdubbed percussion. Source ↗
• Martin Newell / The Cleaners from Venus — “This Rainy Decade”. A published secondary account reports that Martin Newell used a Sound Master SR-88 on “This Rainy Decade” from the 1982 cassette release Midnight Cleaners. Source ↗
• Sudeten Creche — Early 1980s recordings and live work. Sudeten Creche recall a Sound Master SR-88 in their 1982 setup, alongside a Casio CT202, Akai tape machine and borrowed Wasp. Source ↗
• Nagamatzu — Early recordings and live work. Nagamatzu recall their Sound Master SR-88 as part of the small equipment pool used for their earliest work. Source ↗
• Microchip Junky — The End Is Not Yet. Microchip Junky lists a Sound Master Memory Rhythm SR88 in the hardware inventory for its music rooms. Source ↗
• solitude fx / Marc — demos II. solitude fx credit Marc with a Sound Master Memory Rhythm SR-88 on demos II, alongside a BOSS DR-55 and Roland TR-808. Source ↗
• isvisible isinvisible — Isvisible Isinvisible. Simon Pott lists a SoundMaster Memory Rhythm SR-88 among the sound-generating equipment for Isvisible Isinvisible. Source ↗
• Flip Arkulary — Northern Gothic. Flip Arkulary’s album credit lists a Sound Master SR-88 among the instruments he played, produced and mixed. Source ↗
• Jonathan D. Valdez — One Christmas For Your Thoughts. Jonathan D. Valdez says he worked out the SR-88 programming and processing for this Durutti Column cover, then credits himself with drum computer. Source ↗

In the studio and on stage

• Neil Arthur / Blancmange — Blancmange working setup. Neil Arthur distinguishes the Sound Master SR-88 in his hardware history from the later AudioThing software recreation, preserving the little rhythm box as part of his working equipment story. Source ↗
• Oceanic — Mechanical Man studio. The 1993 feature lists an SR-88 beside Oceanic’s Roland R-8 and R-8M in the rhythm inventory. Source ↗