Equipment

Drum machines

In general:

Drum machines are sequencers with a synthesizer, sampler, and/or a sample playback (rompler) component that is tailored to reproduce the sounds of drums and other traditional percussion instruments, as well as produce unique sounds (usually percussive in nature) and to compose drum beats. Sample playback drum machines are the most common.

Early drum machines:

Early drum machines were referred to as "rhythm machines" because they only played preprogrammed rhythms such as mambo, tango, etc. The first rhythm machines were included in organs, in the late 1960s. The first stand-alone drum machine was released around 1970 by a company then called Ace Tone, and was called the Rhythm Ace. This was a preset-only unit; it was not possible to make user-programmable rhythms. A number of other preset drum machines were released in the 1970s.

One of the first programmable rhythm machines, which allowed the user to create their own beats, was the Roland (Ace Tone's new name) CR-78, which came out in 1979. Roland then came out with the Boss DR-55 later in 1979, which was a fully programmable drum machine for under $200. The DR-55 had all of four sounds and memory for only 16 rhythms.

Digital samples:

In 1980 the first drum machine to use digital samples, the Linn LM-1, came out. Costing $5000, its distinct sound can be heard on many records from the early 1980s, such as The Human League's Dare and Men Without Hats' Rhythm of Youth. The famous Roland TR-808 came out months later; while the TR-808 did not have digitally sampled sounds, it was a good deal more inexpensive. It was considered a poor man's drum machine.

Drum machines using digital samples were a good deal more popular than the TR-808 in the early 1980s. Its sound only became truly desirable in the late 1980s, about five years after being discontinued. The sounds that are particular to the TR-808 have become pop music clichés, heard on countless recordings.

Synchronization:

Because these early drum machines came out before the introduction of MIDI in 1983, they used a variety of methods of having their rhythms synchronized to other electronic devices. Some used a method of synchronization called DIN-synch, or synch-24. Some of these machines also output analog CV/Gate voltages that could be used to synchronize or control analog synthesizers and other music equipment.

Drum machines can either be programmed in real time (the user hears a metronome and plays beats in time with the metronome) or in step time, where the user specifies the precise moment in time on which a note will sound. By stringing differently-programmed bars together, fills, breaks, rhythmic changes, and longer phrases can be created. Drum machine controls typically include Tempo, Start and Stop, volume control of individual sounds, keys to trigger individual drum sounds, and storage locations for a number of different rhythms. Most drum machines can also be controlled via MIDI.

By the year 2000, stand-alone drum machines became much less common, being partly supplanted by general-purpose hardware samplers controlled by sequencers (built-in or external), software-based sequencing and sampling, and music workstations with integrated sequencing and drum sounds. TR-808 and other digitized drum machine sounds can be found on archives on the Internet. However, traditional drum machines are still being made by companies such as Roland Corporation (under the name Boss), Zoom, Korg and Alesis, whose SR16 drum machine has remained popular since the early 1990s.

There are percussion-specific sound modules that can be triggered by pickups, trigger pads, or through MIDI. These are called drum modules; the Alesis D-4 is a popular example. Unless such a sound module also features a sequencer, it is, strictly speaking, not a drum machine.

Programming:

Drum machine programming can be done (depending on the machine) in real-time: the user creates drum patterns by pressing the trigger pads as though a drum kit were being played, or using step-sequencing: the pattern is built up over time by adding individual sounds at certain points by placing them, as with the TR-808 and TR-909 along a 16 step bar. For example, a '4 to the floor' generic dance pattern could be made by placing a closed high hat on the 3, 7, 11, and 15th steps. Then a kick drum on the 1, 5, 7, and 13th steps with a clap on the 5 and 13th. This pattern could be varied in a multitude of ways to obtain fills, break-downs and other elements that the programmer sees fit, which in turn can be sequenced- essentially the drum machine plays back the programmed patterns from memory in an order the programmer has chosen.

If the drum machine has MIDI In and Out connectivity, then one could program the drum machine with a computer or other MIDI device.

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