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jamesg1213
Sometimes the sound of a drum machine can work nicely if it's right up front in the mix. It can give a cool atmosphere to a track. Genesis/Phil Collins used drum machines a lot, songs like Mama or In The Air Tonight. Rather than trying to get it to 'blend in', use it for what it is.

 
Phil Collins, best human drum machine ever!
 
Genesis - Live At Wembley Stadium (1987)
 
...the legendary duet with Phil and Chester:
 
Drum Duet (Chester Thompson And Phil Collins)
 
[tube]http://youtu.be/A3Q8KOkimE0?t=1h26m
[/tube]

 
I was at that show! To be honest having seen Gabriel a week or two earlier on his 'So' tour, Genesis bored me a bit, especially the dreadful 'Blues Brothers' medley at the end.
 
Not knocking Phil's drumming though, he was a master, and Chester still is.

Really appreciate everyone's input, guys.  Thanks.
 
When I get a chance again, I plan on going through this thread once more and sit down with the TR-8, and a bunch of plugins, and a BIG cup of coffee. 
 
Overall, I had a chance to experiment shortly after Sharke's first suggestion, and I did manage to get the TR-8 to sound better.  With the type of music that I prefer to make, which is somewhere in the dark corner of ambient and downtempo techno.
 
It seems that the trick for it to remain subtle.  I try to follow and create music along the lines of my favorite artists: Solar Fields, Scann-Tec, Aes Dana, and basically anything under the Ultimae label.  However, these dudes are LIGHT-YEARS ahead of me...well, they are professionals, duh! 
 
Critically listening to their tracks reveals that their rhythms are mostly comprised of 808 and 909 sounds, but seemingly not over-processed.  Tweaking the TR-8's controls, I can mimic the sounds almost spot on with minimal treatments.  So it's almost as if the sounds are pretty dry.  But when tossed into my tracks, then it all goes to Hell.
 
I guess I got a lot of work to do!
 
I've also been experimenting with some gritty, external reverb units like the MicroverbIII and the MidiverbII, and a little gritty ambience goes a long way.  I can see why these units were popular back in the day.

In my previous band, I transcribed a lot of 60s - 80s tunes, and reprogram into Roland R8. What I found is, there is a main pattern theme, but within this (especially on drum machine based tunes), there are variations to keep different verses interesting. Copying a main pattern and add extra triangles, claps, etc.

For example, if the sample sounds like it was recorded to a 15ips tape machine with a live band going straight through a console, and the drums are coming from a drum machine, synth, or stock DAW drum samples, chances are the context won’t make sense.