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The LM-1 Drum Computer, manufactured by Linn Electronics, Inc. , is the first drum machine to utilize digital samples of acoustic drums. For the early "drum machine" computers that used a rotating cylinder as their main memory see Drum memory A drum machine is an A digital system uses discrete (discontinuous values usually but not always Symbolized Numerically (hence called "digital" to represent information for A drum kit (also drum set or trap set) is a collection of Drums Cymbals and sometimes other Percussion instruments such as cowbells Conceived and designed by Roger Linn, it is also one of the first programmable drum machines. Roger Linn is a Musical instrument designer mainly of electronic Drum machines, and has recently branched out into Guitar Effects pedals It was introduced in early 1980 at a list price of US$4,995, climbed to $5,500 when additional features were incorporated, fell to $4,995 as cost-cutting measures were introduced, and later reduced to $3,995 before it was discontinued after the release of its successor, the LinnDrum. The LinnDrum is a Drum machine manufactured by Linn Electronics. It is prized by amateur and professional musicians alike for its rarity as well as its characteristic sounds, which can be heard on the recordings of such famous artists as Prince, Michael Jackson, Madonna, The Human League, and countless other pop hits of the 1980s. Prince Rogers Nelson (born June 7 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota) is an American musician Michael Joseph Jackson (born August 29 1958 is an American musician entertainer and businessman

Contents

History

Roger Linn was a semi-professional guitarist in California in 1978 when he began to develop the LM-1 as an accompaniment tool for his home studio. A guitarist is a Musician who plays the Guitar. Guitarists may perform solo pieces or play with ensembles and bands of a wide variety of genres California ( is a US state on the West Coast of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. Year 1978 ( MCMLXXVIII) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link displays the 1978 Gregorian calendar) He had experimented with many of the preset rhythm boxes which were popular at the time, but was dissatisfied and "wanted a drum machine that did more than play preset samba patterns and didn't sound like crickets. " [1] Having learned how to program in BASIC and assembly language, Linn set to work on a computer program which could play user-programmed rhythm patterns, as well as chain them together to form a song. Computer programs (also software programs, or just programs) are instructions for a Computer. In Computer programming, BASIC (an Acronym for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of High-level programming languages See the terminology section below for information regarding inconsistent use of the terms assembly and assembler

According to Linn, the first to suggest the idea of digital samples was Steve Porcaro of Toto. Steven Maxwell "Steve" Porcaro (born 2 September 1957, Hartford Connecticut) is a Keyboardist and Composer who was Toto was a Grammy Award winning American rock band founded in 1977 by some of the most popular and experienced Session musicians of For his drum machine, the percussion sounds were played by local Los Angeles session drummer James Gadson. Los Angeles (lɑˈsændʒələs los ˈaŋxeles in Spanish) is the largest City in the state of California and the American West Linn accomplished this with a chip, built into the machine, which converted the digital samples into analogue audio. His first prototype, manufactured around 1979, was a cardboard box which contained the electronic components of the drum machine. Year 1979 ( MCMLXXIX) was a Common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1979 Gregorian calendar) Supposedly, Linn brought this prototype to parties and jobs and marketed it to fellow musicians, including Peter Gabriel, the members of Fleetwood Mac, and Stevie Wonder, who bought one of the first units ever produced. Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950 in Chobham, Surrey, England) is an English Musician and Songwriter. Fleetwood Mac are a British / American Stevie Wonder (born Stevland Hardaway Judkins on May 13 1950 name later changed to Stevland Hardaway Morris) is an

In total, approximately 525 units were built and sold between 1980 and 1983, when the LM-1's successor, the LinnDrum, was released. The LinnDrum is a Drum machine manufactured by Linn Electronics. The first 35 units were assembled in Linn's home, before manufacturing and distribution was taken over by 360 Systems, run by Bob Easton.

Features

The LM-1's many features set it apart from other drum machines of its time, most of which could only play a limited selection of preset rhythms (i. e. Roland CompuRhythm CR-78). One of its most prominent features was its programmability. Although the Linn LM-1 was not the first programmable drum machine (the PAiA Programmable Drum Set was released 6 years earlier), it was the first to use digital samples and gained widespread popularity among professionals, including Prince on 1999, Gary Numan on Dance and The Human League on Dare!. PAiA Electronics Inc is an American Synthesizer kit company that was started by John Simonton in 1967. Prince Rogers Nelson (born June 7 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota) is an American musician 1999 is Prince 's fifth Album, released October 27, 1982. It was his first top ten album on the Billboard 200 charts in Gary Numan (born Gary Anthony James Webb on 8 March 1958 is an English singer composer and musician Dance is the fifth studio album the third under his own name by Electronic music pioneer Gary Numan, released in 1981 Dare (or Dare! in the US is the third studio album from British Synthpop band The Human League. The LM-1 also introduced a "shuffle" feature, which enabled users to program swing notes into their rhythms. Although this feature has often been imitated, the "Linn shuffle" has widely been recognized as the best and most natural-sounding, and is present on every device Linn designed, including the Akai MPC series. Akai ( Japanese: AKAI in Romaji) is a consumer electronics brand founded as, a Japanese manufacturer in 1929 Akai MPCs (originally MIDI Production Center, now Music Production Center) are a popular and well respected

The LM-1 included a built-in 13-channel mixer (one channel for each sound) as well as individual output jacks. This enabled Linn's machine to integrate with existing recording equipment in a way that had previously not been possible for a drum machine. Unlike the later Linndrum, the LM-1 also had individual tuning pots for each voice, resulting in many famous users expressing their preference for the LM-1 long after the Linndrum was introduced. Unlike its younger brother, the LM-1 lacked cymbal sounds (which producers easily compensated for by having live cymbals overdubbed onto whatever track was being recorded) and the drum sounds could not be triggered by MIDI or trigger inputs. Cymbals are a modern percussion instrument Cymbals consist of thin normally round plates of various Cymbal alloys; see Cymbal making for a discussion of their Nevertheless, the LM-1's sounds are very punchy and prominent, and it still sounds great, even by today's standards.

There are notable differences between the various LM-1 revisions. The Rev. 1 LM-1 is recognizable by its engraved buttons and lack of shuffle LEDs. The drum buttons were engraved with a small symbol of the drum it represented (the bass drum button had a small engraving of a bass drum on it). A bass drum is a large Drum that produces a note of low definite or indefinite pitch. These buttons were later discontinued because they were too expensive to manufacture. Internally it was different as well. It had single chips for the kick, tom, and conga sounds, and double chips for the clap. The Rev. 1 LM-1's did not have the filter on the kick, toms, and congas that Rev. 2 and later machines had. As a result, it didn't sound as nice as the Rev. 2 and later machines, but the toms and congas could be played simultaneously. The Rev. 2 LM-1 introduced two rows of LEDs to indicate the shuffle and quantize settings, several additional buttons on the front panel to aid in programming, and a shared filter on the toms and congas, as well as the kick drum. There were a handful of Rev. 2 LM-1's with both engraved buttons and shuffle LEDs but these are extremely rare.

Cost-cutting measures were introduced to later Rev. 2's such as removing the engraved buttons and adding the drum names to the front panel, removing the sync input jack and sync output knob from the back of the machine (the current quantize setting became the default sync output rate), removing the low volume stereo outputs, decreasing the size of the play/stop button, and replacing the raised buttons with sealed buttons (flush with the surface) that were impossible to clean. In fact, the LM-1 service notes indicated these buttons had to be replaced if they went bad.

Influence

Because of the Linn LM-1's versatility, it superseded its original purpose as an accompaniment tool and became a fully-fledged rhythm section for many synthpop and progressive acts. Synthpop is a subgenre of New Wave and Pop music in which the Synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument Progressive rock (often shortened to " progressive " " prog " or " prog rock " is a form of Rock music that evolved Along with the Roland TR-808, which was released around the same time, it is widely credited with legitimatizing drum machines which, with a few notable exceptions, had previously largely been considered toys by most professional, mainstream musicians. The Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer was one of the first programmable Drum machines ("TR" serving as an Initialism for Transistor Rhythm

It was thought for a time that the LM-1 would put every session drummer in Los Angeles out of business, and caused enough of a stir that many leading session drummers (such as Jeff Porcaro of Toto, for example) went out and purchased their own drum machines and offered "programming" services (Porcaro used an LM-1 on George Benson's 1982 hit "Turn Your Love Around"). Jeffrey Thomas Porcaro ( April 1, 1954 – August 5, 1992) was a highly regarded session drummer and a founding member of the George Benson (b March 22 1943, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania) is an American musician whose recording career began at the age of twenty-one " Turn Your Love Around " is one of many major R&B Jazz and Pop hit singles for George Benson.

In some ways the most important and lasting of the LM-1's various features is its sounds, which remain powerful and characteristic and a familiar staple of 1980s pop music. Linn acknowledged that his lack of audio engineering know-how may have contributed to his drum machine's unique sound - many of the samples contain playback frequencies above the Nyquist frequency which, although it results in aliasing under normal circumstances, contributes much to the "sizzle" of the LM-1's sound. The Nyquist frequency, named after the Swedish-American engineer Harry Nyquist or the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem, is half the Sampling frequency This article applies to signal processing including computer graphics [2]

As of 2007, LM-1's have sold for as high as $6,000 on the used market, depending on condition, revision, and/or modifications. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. The typical price for a used LM-1 in functioning condition is currently around $2300. Those that were owned or used by famous musicians or that contain rare add-on cymbal boards or other custom modifications tend to sell for much higher.

Linn introduced the successor to his revolutionary machine in 1982. Year 1982 ( MCMLXXXII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link displays the 1982 Gregorian calendar) The LM-2, also called the LinnDrum, contained more sounds (including cymbals), more options for programming sounds (step programming mode), and 5 programmable trigger inputs, but was a step back from the LM-1 in that it removed the ability to tune all of the individual drum sounds (hi-hat, bass, cowbell, tambourine, sidestick, and many other sounds were no longer tunable). It retailed for $2,500 less than the original LM-1 and although it added some additional features, the cost-cutting measures were quite notable. Although the LinnDrum helped make electronic drums more affordable for the common musician, they are still not as revered as the LM-1 and generally can be found on the used market for much less.

Notable songs and artists which have used the LM-1

External links

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