The TX81Z was originally manufactured in 1987 and was ubiquitous on House music tracks in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s. It was also used widely in Hip Hop and RnB. TX81Z Editing on the hardware was a tortuous process because of the small LCD - a bit like trying to decorate the inside of a house through a letter box. Because of this, many producers just used the presets, and many of those just used one preset – Lately Bass, (later, Wood Piano was also used on many Detroit Techno records, following Derrick May’s track, Nude Photo).

All of the instruments are multi-sampled, but with Lately Bass we have gone to extremes – 12 velocity layers and 420 un-looped samples.

Although we have tried to keep the feel of the original by using virtual LCD screens, it’s considerably easier to program, and we have also added two effects pages: