when drum machines first appeared...

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...what was your reaction to how it sounded?
exciting and futuristic perhaps?
or about the same reaction anyone who heard drum machines for the first time would have had if he/she was born at the time they first appeared?
or maybe you had a different reaction!
please share.

― buyabiznatch (buyabiznatch), Sunday, 14 May 2006 06:01 (twenty years ago)

― jäxøñ (jaxon), Sunday, 14 May 2006 06:23 (twenty years ago)

Well, when did they actually appear? I heard something, I can't remember right now what it was, but it was far enough back that I was like "wait - they had drum machines back then??" Maybe if I think about it some more I'll figure it out.

― honorary joy division roadie (Bimble...), Sunday, 14 May 2006 06:30 (twenty years ago)

Okay I think I've figured it out now. It's an early 70's Fleetwood Mac song. Album is Mystery To Me from 1973, and the song starts with the sound of what certainly sounds like a drum machine to me. It's called "Forever". But the credits make no mention of programming or anything like that. So part of me just wants to think I was wrong and this is some entirely non-drum machine brilliance and I was fooled.

I'm far too young to talk about the advent of drum machines the way the original poster wants. By the time I would have noticed drum machines as a youngster, they were coupled with other synth noises and wouldn't have stood out on their own.

― honorary joy division roadie (Bimble...), Sunday, 14 May 2006 06:49 (twenty years ago)

if it was a drum machine in 1973, it wouldn't have been programmed. Rhythm Boxes existed for decades before that, they usually came along with church-type organs by brands like Wurlitzer or Univox (later Korg I think?) and Acetone (later Roland I think?) You didn't program them, you selected Bossa Nova and picked a temp. Sly Stone used one, George Mcrae used one on Rock Your Baby. Programmable drum machines didn't arrive untill the late 70s/early 80s I think when the Roland CR-78 gave birth to the Roland TR-808, though I'm sure there was some crazy older units and of course the use of analog synthesizers with sequencers to create drum patterns (see Kraftwerk). Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing is generally considered the song to make drum machines "ok" for the mainstream.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Sunday, 14 May 2006 07:37 (twenty years ago)

I find that last sentence funny.

Was there a drum machine on Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams?

― honorary joy division roadie (Bimble...), Sunday, 14 May 2006 07:45 (twenty years ago)

> Was there a drum machine on Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams?

But of course. The Movement Drum Computer. Its highly distinctive kick and snare sounds can be heard particularly clearly on Love Is a Stranger. Dave Stewart continued to use it for several years - I can hear it on Here Comes the Rain too. The Thompson Twins also owned one - check out Love on Your Side.

You can see a photo of this impossibly exotic and cool-looking device here:

http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/fa/751/0/

― Palomino (Palomino), Sunday, 14 May 2006 09:03 (twenty years ago)

http://www.kawachi.zaq.ne.jp/monospin/column%20image/raymond%20scott.jpg

― Unlimited Toothpicker (eman), Sunday, 14 May 2006 13:50 (twenty years ago)

dan selzer OTM. also: "why can't we live together" by Timmy Thomas may have predated Geo McCrae?

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Sunday, 14 May 2006 14:41 (twenty years ago)

HEY WHOA WHOA WHOA
it's interesting and i guess beneficial trying to figure out when exactly they first appeared, but I was more interested in what you thought of theyre presence. I'm interested because I was born in 1986 and wasn't around when the shift was made from real/live drums to synthetic drums. I was wondering if they sounded cool or whether they sounded a little bit cheesy or...fuck it--I don't know. Like I said I wasn't around so my intention with this thread was to get a better idea of what you guys thought they sounded like.

― buyabiznatch (buyabiznatch), Sunday, 14 May 2006 16:30 (twenty years ago)

Robin Gibb's Robin's Reign album from 1970 uses some of those organ beats, too. Very odd.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Sunday, 14 May 2006 16:45 (twenty years ago)

I remember always thinking drum machines sounded beautiful (still do) + giant 80's gated drum machine sounds >>>> giant 80's gated acoustic drums. Drum machines in music in the early-mid 80's were especially classic ( Mantronik's productions//Jam & Lewis//New Order//HIP HOP!).

― Jay Vee's Return (Manon_69), Sunday, 14 May 2006 18:40 (twenty years ago)

They had "always" been around when I became aware of them.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Sunday, 14 May 2006 18:40 (twenty years ago)

Well, Summer/Moroder's "I Feel Love" thrilled & fascinated me as a 9-year old, but I didn't really know enough about the actual physical process of making MUSIC to realize that it was all-electronic (drums includedor what the implications were - I just knew it sounded wonderfully futuristic. By 1979-80, when I practically listened to the radio 24/7 I became aware of the synthesizers which were making a huge impact on the charts, and I was impressed with all the manner of sounds they could make. But this was before the rise of the drum machine per se, which I didn't realize was an entirely separate instrument until maybe '83-84. But unlike synths, drum machines NEVER sounded exciting to me - I considered them functional at best, annoying at the worst. To my raised-on-rock (and pop, and disco) ears, the variety of timbral possibilities was far too limited (compared to a r*e*a*l drummer) to be truly interesting, as far as pure sound goes.

But the fact that ANYBODY could buy one to use as a framework to make their own recordings, without having to rely on a human being with too much ego to accept a role as glorified metronome - THAT'S exciting, at least in theory.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Sunday, 14 May 2006 20:55 (twenty years ago)

My impression now is that the average pop consumer didn't notice and wouldn't have cared about the proliferation of programmed percussion during the '80s. For one thing, I would argue that the public had been well primed for the sudden ubiquity of the metronomically accurate drum machine, as great pains had been taken in studios during the disco era to prevent drummers from varying their tempos even slightly while recording. Production teams like the all-conquering Chic Organization prided themselves on the split-second precision of their playing, and of course Stayin' Alive, one of the biggest-selling singles of the late '70s, is based around an unvarying eight-bar tape loop of a session drummer.
It was the "serious" music press, as ever, that was most reactionary, spewing nonsense about computers sucking the vitality out of music. Even the frothy pop bible Smash Hits was occasionally sniffy about their use. I remember a review c. 1986 of a Style Council single, in which the journalist snootily queried why the sleeve proudly featured a photo of the drummer's kit, "given that he seems intent on playing exactly like a machine".
I'm too young to really remember the days before drum machines ruled the earth, but in any case, as a technophile, I revelled at the time in the popularisation of the technology. The TIK-a-tik-a TIK-a-tik-a hi-hat pattern in the in intro to West End Girls is one of the most exciting sounds I've ever heard.

― Palomino (Palomino), Sunday, 14 May 2006 21:23 (twenty years ago)

I know this is quite a long way into drum machine world, but something I was wondering: was Prince's clack-a-clack sound (that rhythmic part found on heaps of his songs - When Doves Cry, Paisley Park etc) a pre-set kind of thing that not many others bothered to use/ I think it's genius, and I also associate it strongly just with him...

― paulhw (paulhw), Sunday, 14 May 2006 21:35 (twenty years ago)

It's the rimshot sample from his LinnDrum, tuned down and sometimes fed through a Boss flanger effect pedal.

― Palomino (Palomino), Sunday, 14 May 2006 21:41 (twenty years ago)

Album cover with baby = thank god for ILM. Where would I be without this ridiculous board?

To try to answer the original poster's question, I think these sorts of sounds sounded immediately cool and hip because they were so different and futuristic sounding. That said, I think the drum machine in and of itself probably crept into the average listener's consciousness only slowly.

― honorary joy division roadie (Bimble...), Sunday, 14 May 2006 21:44 (twenty years ago)

this guy is great
http://www.keyboardmuseum.org/d_machines/vdrums.html

― dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Sunday, 14 May 2006 23:21 (twenty years ago)

That guy's CD-ROM of classic drum machine sounds is my favorite sample library.

― Jay Vee's Return (Manon_69), Sunday, 14 May 2006 23:45 (twenty years ago)

thanks bunnybrain. now i want a Mattel BeeGees Rhythm Machine.

― zappi (joni), Monday, 15 May 2006 00:15 (twenty years ago)

I remember hearing one those early Ween albums and thinking that maybe drum machines weren't so bad.

― JB Young (JB Young), Monday, 15 May 2006 03:27 (twenty years ago)

One of the earliest dedicated drum machines, I believe, was the Bentley Rhythm Ace. Don't know when it came out, but it was used on the 1973 album Journey by Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come. I seem to remember being mildly impressed with the sound of it when I first heard it (circa 1977). Bit lacking on top end, though.

― eyesteel (eyesteel), Monday, 15 May 2006 11:50 (twenty years ago)

i wasn't born when they appeared.

― the confusing situation Enrique currently endures (Enrique), Monday, 15 May 2006 11:58 (twenty years ago)

'family affair' has a drum machine, no? that's like 1971.

― the confusing situation Enrique currently endures (Enrique), Monday, 15 May 2006 11:58 (twenty years ago)

There's drum machine / rhythm composer on "Peking O" on Can's "Tago Mago" - the first rock album that was made entirely using drum machine / Bentley (and other instruments) was Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come "Journey", '73. I like sound of drum machines, but, particularly in th e70's, someone had to know how to do it well, or it gets boring.

― So Ho La (So Ho La), Monday, 15 May 2006 12:35 (twenty years ago)

how can anyone have a drum machine thread and not include the king of synth questions Startrekman...

I still like to know how prince got the "KUH" sound he used in his songs from 1982-1988 or how Jummy Jam and Terry Lewis got that glass sound they used in all their songs or how Larry Blackmon got the high snare sound he used in "word up"

― The Startrekman (Startrekman), Wednesday, 17 May 2006 03:26 (twenty years ago)

'family affair' has a drum machine, no? that's like 1971.

Yeah, that and Little Sister's version of "Somebody's Watching You," both recorded around the same time by Sly and Co., is how I understood it.

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Wednesday, 17 May 2006 03:34 (twenty years ago)

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