LinnDrum
More info
- Creator
- Roger Linn
- Released
- 1982
- Manufacturer
- Linn Electronics
- Type
- Drum machine
- Predecessor
- Linn LM-1
The drum machine with sampled real drums that gave 1980s pop its drum sound.
Roger Linn's first machine, the LM-1 of 1980, was the first drum machine to play back digital recordings of real drums rather than synthesised analogue sounds. It cost around $5,000 and sold a few hundred units. The LinnDrum (LM-2) followed in 1982: cheaper, with more sounds — cymbals among them — and far more common. Combined with quantisation and swing, it let you program a drum part that sounded almost like a drummer, only mercilessly in time.
Linn Electronics folded in 1986, after its successor the Linn 9000 was plagued by bugs and cheaper rivals took the market. Roger Linn moved on to Akai and designed the MPC60, and sampled LinnDrum sounds turn up in nearly every drum library today.