BoomChik

Roger Linn shared some renderings over the weekend of the LinnDrum II - the much-hyped new drum machine from Linn and synth guru Dave Smith.

Here’s what Linn & Smith have to say about the LinnDrum II status:

I’m sorry to report that we won’t be shipping in 2008 and I can’t yet offer a new estimated ship date. The good news is that it’s turned into a significantly more powerful and creative product.

The bad news is that we’d prefer not to release details of the new design because it’s so cool that I don’t want to show our cards to the competition. However, I do want to thank all those who wrote in with suggestions because this interactive design process has very much helped to change what we thought the product originally should be into what we now know you really want. 

For those of you who are new to LinnDrum II, its new subtitle is “Beat-Centric Digital Audio Workstation with Integrated Analog Synthesis”. Inspired by how the MPC product line that I (Roger) originally created for Akai has evolved a new genre of musical instrument, LinnDrum II aspires to raise the bar beyond the current crop of high-end pad-oriented music production station products in order to enable musicians around the world to better realize the next wave of beat-oriented music.

By now, you’re probably drooling uncontrollably, so here are a few more gear porn shots of LinnDrum II designs that got dumped:
Read more…

Every year at NAMM, some of the sexiest gear and software that is shown is stuff that isn’t available. Typically, about time for the summer NAMM show, companies announce that they are finally shipping the product.

In addition to the products that actually ship, though, there are items announced that you never hear about again. We’re still drooling over a virtual analog keyboard that Kurzweil announced in 2004, the Kurzweil VA1.

This year, Dave Smith and Roger Linn, two electronic music gear pioneers, provided the sexiest vaporware of the 2007 NAMM Show, showing an artist’s rendition of a possible product, the Boomchik drum machine.

Here’s what Dave Smith has to say about the drum machine concept: Read more…