Recently my friend KAdam facilitated my acquisition of a used Roland T-8 Beat Machine. This device emulates sounds and functions from several genre-foundational drum and bass synthesizers, and it’s the first bit of dedicated electronic-music hardware that I have ever owned as an adult.

After I picked up the little box, KAdam gave me a quick-start lesson at a bar under the Williamsburg Bridge—he brought some portable speakers, you see—and then sent me home with an example tutorial video by the folks behind Electronic Music Pedagogy. I submit the following video as evidence that I have been toured through enough of the T-8’s dizzyingly obscure menus and functions to have recreated the core rhythm of Benny Benassi’s 2002 club hit Satisfaction: