This video, via Alex Ball, offers his take on the story of the Linn LM-1, Roger Linn‘s pioneering digital drum machine.
The Linn LM-1 Drum Computer was released in 1980, and features twelve 8-bit percussion samples. While the LM-1’s sounds are lo-fi and limited, by today’s standards, the LM-1’s sounds are nevertheless iconic, since they are all over 80’s pop music.
If you’ve used the LM-1, share your thoughts on it in the comments!
lol, no. not the lm-1 changed everything, its successor, the linndrum did. only 525 items of the lm-1 were sold. compare that to 5,000 linndrums.
I sort of agree. It was the LinnDrum that rocked the boat commercially but the Linn LM-1 was used by early adopters such as the Human League who then salivated over the LinnDrum when it came out as they knew a good thing when they saw it from their LM-1 experiences.
for me herbie hancock´s “rockit” (dmx!) changed everything.
DMX & Drumtraks were ‘inspired’ by the LinnDrum…
The sound make the songs iconic or the other way round?
If only Behringer would clone this 😉
Bruce Forat (Former work at Linn Electronics), still provides service for these machines 🙂
Link -> http://www.forat.com/
Oh how do i love drum machines.
VERY well produced video! lets just put it down to this…the LM1 was the start of everything and the Linndrum was the one that CHANGED everything….hows that sound?
I have an lm-1 for sale