Roger Linn's New LinnStrument

Roger Linn, the creator of some of the modern drum machine with the LinnDrum and later the MPC60, is at it again. Roger has developed a brand new instrument that is as much a human instrument as it is electronic with his new LinnStrument.

A few years ago Roger was awarded a Technical Grammy for his lifetime achievement in truly groundbreaking designs, and he's trying to revolutionize the industry once again with his new instrument as much as  the LinnDrum did back in 1982.

The LinnStrument goes beyond what a typical synth keyboard can do in that it's touch sensitive, so if you wiggle your finger you'll get vibrato, and slide it along the unit you'll get a nice portamento.

The "keyboard" splits so both hands can play different instruments or loops, and it's designed along a grid system rather than piano-style for easy transposition.

The LinnStrument is slated for release at any time and should cost around $1500. You can find more information and a number of great videos here.

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The History Of The Drum Machine

DJZ has a great article on the history of the drum machine that I've posted below. It's not complete by any means, but still gives a good insight to a machine that really did change musical history.

"Save for using an actual human with sticks or sweaty palms, there is nothing more beneficial to modern electronic music than the invention of drum machine technology. Hip hop, new wave, disco; the sequencer with a rompler/rhythmic sample — the drum machine — made it all possible.

While we can all thank drum machine innovators from the 30s throughout the 60s — Leon Theremin’s Rhythmicon, Harry Chamberlain’s Rhythmate, Raymond Scott’s Rhythm Synthesizer — for their pre-computerized rhythmic prowess and dedication, it wasn’t until the pre-set 70s that drum machines came into their own. The Eko Corporation’s ComputeRhythm, Ace Tone’s Rhythm Producer FR-15, the PAiA Programmable Drum Set and the late great Roland CR-78 made early disco what it was. Yet it was the 80s of early house, electro-dance music and new wave that set the basic drum patterns for where we are today.

The Linn LM-1 Drum Computer of 1980 and its immediate follow-up, the cymbal-crashing LinnDrum, were the first true drum machines to use digital samples. From the Minneapolis sound of The Time and Prince in the United States to UK giants The Human League’s pop coming-out party, Dare, the LM-1 was the sound of a generation, a cheaply crisp and densely snapping set of pulses that got its drive from two chips that when triggered simultaneously gave the compu-rhythm a certain fleshly kick to it.

The Roland 808 only advanced that devil-in-the-flesh feeling, which was weird because it did not use clean, digitally sampled sounds, but rather analog-created bumps and grinds, continuous signals with noise as part of the transfer. The 808 had pre-loaded grooves such as open hi-hats, closed hi-hats, and cowbells along with a big, thick kick drum and dense snare beat. Afrika Bambaataa is probably the first most famous proponent of the 808 as is all early house music. 808 State isn’t just an English electronic act – it is a state of mind and a position of being.

The Roland 909, on the other hand, was a half-breed: semi-analog and semi-sample-based – not as open to noise and fuzz as the 808 – with a drum kit’s real arsenal of hits and kicks along with a sequencer. It was the first MIDI-equipped drum machine and, like the 808, had greater capacity for storing whole tunes rather than just percussive tics.

The Yamaha RX 5 had its built-in sounds, 24 to be exact. But through a series of envelopes and triggers, you could affect the attack and the decay of each sound, therefore giving each percussive sound its own character feels and flaws. It also had a kitsch factor that not every drum machine had in that it offered door slams, gunshots and ricochets.

The Oberheim DMX – this was the sound of the later 80s, hits by Eurythmics, the System and New Order, the kick drum on the Police’s “Every Breath You Take” and the chalky snap of Phil Collins’ “Sussuidio.” Easier to program than all previously made drum machines, the O-DMX was the realest sounding drum machine as it sampled the tone and crack of real drums, along with tuning functions for each percussive voice. Along with creating variations of time and pace prevalent among real drummers, the O-DMX did one thing no other drum machine did previously: it offered a swing function. That is the improvisational heft of all drummers – the rate and particulars of how a drumming man or woman swings. This was truly the start of the brave new world of the drum machine; a real duty now for the future move.

For all of history’s drum machines, now easily manipulated and inexpensive, the most popular is still the 808. Kayne West titled his most robotic and romantic album yet after it (808s & Hearbreak). Producer Timbaland hasn’t just used 808s, he’s got a song named after it. So does Bassnectar (“The 808 Track”) .

It’s the tinny thump that you watch David Byrne dance to in the Jonathan Demme Talking Heads documentary, Stop Making Sense. It’s the thin, sexy click of Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” and by Japan’s Yellow Magic Orchestra on the clattering “Thousand Knives.”

It is the rough thump of Arthur Baker and the Beasties’ Licensed to Ill. The Fresh Prince liked it back in the day, and Ke$ha likes it today. Kraftwerk used it in the “Computer World” 80s and during last year’s series of shows at the Museum of Modern Art. It was the sound of the Bronx and Berlin and beyond. It is the past and the future."

Here's the link to the original article. Below is a nice overview of the Roland TR-808, the machine that started it all. 

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Tech's Contributions to Rock n' Roll

MSNBC has an interesting post today called "Tech's Awesome Contributions To Rock n' Roll". They got some of it right, but missed out on some things that made me scratch my head. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, they're probably trying to be as accessible as possible so they avoided some of the insider stuff, but we don't have to do that here. So here's my version of the most awesome tech contributions to rock n' roll.

Leo Fender's Telecaster - not the first electric guitar but the one that set the stage for everything guitar oriented that we know today.

The Woodstock Sound System - as the MSNBC article points out, when The Beatles last toured in 1966, no one could hear them and they couldn't hear themselves because the sound systems were so inadequate. Just 3 years later, Terry Hanley's sound system at Woodstock allowed at least some of the 300,000 to hear what was going on. From that moment on, sound system design began to rise to the level of sophistication that it is today. Some say we've even regressed a bit since the 80's-90's but that's a discussion for another day.

Stage Monitors - When I first started playing in bands, you heard yourself by pointing the sound system a little towards the stage and hope that you'd hear a little bit. Of course, this would never work on a large stage in a large venue, so the art of stage monitoring was born. Now it's taken for granted that a performer can not only hear himself, but get the perfect mix to compliment the performance. Indeed, monitors were a huge advance in the art of performance.

The Mutlitrack Recorder - Thanks to recently departed Les Paul for this one. Les figured out not only how to pack 8 tracks on to a piece of magnetic tape, but how to monitor off the tape so you overdub and stay in sync with the previously recorded material. It's something that we so take for granted today, but where would our recordings be without it?

The LinnDrum - Finding a great drummer was a real pain once upon a time. It seemed like it was always the drummer that couldn't keep time (what a contradiction) and that meant that you would never get a great recording. Roger Linn fixed that with his stand alone drum machine called the LinnDrum. Now you didn't need a drummer to get some great, solid drum tracks (but you did need a programmer). Drummer's kicked and screamed about how it was putting them out of business, then adapted and found that playing along with it actually improved their skills. Great little drum machines are cheap these days, and as a result, it's improved the time of most drummers by about a thousand percent. In fact, it's pretty hard these days to find a drummer at any level who can't play along with a drum machine or click track any more (which was really hard to find there for a while). Thanks, Roger!

The Fender Bassman Amplifier - although MSNBC declared the Marshall guitar amp as the innovator, Jim Marshall was just trying to copy Leo Fender's original Bassman amplifier. He couldn't get it exactly right because he couldn't source the same parts in England, which turned out to be to everyone's benefit. But the original 1959 Bassman amplifier is still held in great esteem, and many claim it's still the best guitar amp every made.

Soundtools (later called Pro Tools) - when the two channel digital audio workstation by Digidesign called Soundtools came out, it was looked down upon by the hard-core pros of the world. It didn't sound very good and was a bit clunky to use, but a few of us saw the future. And it wasn't that long before the future was here with the multitrack version called Pro Tools. Again, the industry was slow to adopt a DAW as the centerpiece of a studio, but almost overnight Pro Tools made boat anchors out of the $150,000 Sony 3348 digital tape machines (you can't even give them away today). Pro Tools lead the way for the home studio revolution as well, making it possible to have a studio far more powerful than The Beatles ever had for just a few thousand dollars. Of course there are lots of other DAWs, and most of them are fine pieces of digital architecture, but it was Soundtools that turned the tide from an analog studio to a digital one.

These are just some of the examples off the top of my head. Can you think of anything else?