Drum Machine Trivia

[NickNack]

From the liner notes of Hard to Find 45s on CD: Sweet Soul Sounds:

Little Sister followed up the success of "You're The One" with "Somebody's Watching You", a cover of a song from Sly & The Family Stone's 1969 album, Stand! It was another track written, arranged and produced by Sly Stone and, as with Little Sister's first single, Sly also played organ, guitar, and bass on the record. "Somebody's Watching You" is of additional historical note due to Sly's use of a then little-known electronic instrument called a drum machine. In fact, Little Sister's second single was the first American Pop record to hit the charts that utilized the rhythmic electronic device. For better or worse, recordings featuring drum machines became extremely popular during the Disco era, and continue to be used today by many Rap and Hip-hop artists. After the success of "Somebody's Watching You", Sly incorporated the drum machine into the Family Stone's million-selling smash, "Family Affair".

[markydefad]

Hey Nicky!!!

Thanks for the tip on that CD. I found it yesterday at Amoeba in the "oldies" section. Probably woulda missed that one if not for your 411. I only listened to the Little Sister track so far--but it sounds great!!!! I'd known this track before the Boystown Gang remix (but I didn't know who did it or where I heard it) --so they musta played it back in St. Olaf on the radio during my college years!!!! :P

I learned that it was Sly Stone's sista singing on that one on this board in the early days of posting.

[paul]

Interesting Nicky.
This brings to mind Quinny's post about the death of pop music. This machine came in before Disco and for all we know, disco existence wouldn't have changed the inevitable.

[ol'skinflint]

the use of drum machines. They can produce perfect percussion sounds and eliminate the need for a human drummer. It all depends on how they're programmed. For the most part, I REALLY don't like the way they're used in rap and hip hop today. They sound like the xerox machine where I work.

[BrunoRepublic]

Drum machines per se are completely obsolete, having been replaced by samplers (and now soft-samplers) years ago.

There really are only 4 noteworthy drum machines:

Roland's CR-78 was the first programmable drum machine (i.e. you could create your own rhythms, instead of just playing preset patterns), some time in the late 70s. This thing sounds nothing like drums at all, but has a unique quality (you can hear it mixed with live drums on Roxy Music's "Same Old Scene").

In the early 80s came the TR-808, which remains a staple of hip-hop music. The sounds are all synthetic, and has the (in)famous boooooommmmmm for the kick.

In the early 80s also came the LinnDrum. This was the first drum machine to use samples of real drum sounds, so it could actually briefly fool you into thinking that there was a real drummer somewhere. Prince loved his LinnDrum, and continued to use it as the basis for many of his songs long after the machine went out of style.

Back then, sampling technology was too expensive for the masses. A LinnDrum cost about 5 grand. So, around 1984, Roland put out a drum machine that had samples of the most-difficult-to-synthesize sounds (hi-hats and cymbals), but synthetic recreations of the rest, to keep it affordable. It was called the TR-909. At the time, nobody wanted synthetic percussion, and the unit flopped. The advancement of technology meant that within a year, Roland could put out an all-sampled drum machine for less money, which they did. The 909 was largely forgotten until the end of the decade, when poor Chicago house musicians who couldn't afford decent gear picked them up. Suddenly, the 909 became hugely in vogue and spread to all genres of dance music, where it has remained ubiquitous ever since. There are countless hardware and software recreations of the 909, and the originals are now worth a fortune.