Drum machine
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument that creates percussion sounds, drum beats, and patterns. Drum machines may imitate drum kits or other percussion instruments, or produce unique sounds, such as synthesized electronic tones. A drum machine often has pre-programmed beats and patterns for popular genres and styles, such as pop music, rock music, and dance music. Most modern drum machines made in the 2010s and 2020s also allow users to program their own rhythms and beats. Drum machines may create sounds using analog synthesis or play prerecorded samples.
While a distinction is generally made between drum machines and electronic drums, there are some drum machines that have buttons or pads that allow the performer to play drum sounds "live", either on top of a programmed drum beat or as a standalone performance. Drum machines have a range of capabilities, which go from playing a short beat pattern in a loop, to being able to program or record complex song arrangements with changes of meter and style.
Drum machines have had a lasting impact on popular music in the 20th century. The Roland TR-808, introduced in 1980, significantly influenced the development of dance music, especially electronic dance music, and hip hop. Its successor, the TR-909, introduced in 1983, heavily influenced techno and house music. The first drum machine to use samples of real drum kits, the Linn LM-1, was introduced in 1980 and was adopted by rock and pop artists including Prince and Michael Jackson. In the late 1990s, software emulations began to overtake the popularity of physical drum machines housed in a separate plastic or metal chassis.
History
Rhythmicon (1930–1932)
In 1930–32, the innovative and hard-to-use Rhythmicon was developed by Léon Theremin at the request of Henry Cowell, who wanted an instrument that could play compositions with multiple rhythmic patterns, based on the overtone series, that were far too hard to perform on existing keyboard instruments. The invention could produce sixteen different rhythms, each associated with a particular pitch, either individually or in any combination, including en masse, if desired. Received with considerable interest when it was publicly introduced in 1932, the Rhythmicon was soon set aside by Cowell.Chamberlin Rhythmate (1957)
In 1957, Harry Chamberlin, an engineer from Iowa, created the Chamberlin Rhythmate, which allowed users to select between 14 tape loops of drum kits and percussion instruments performing various beats. Like the Chamberlin keyboard, the Rhythmate was intended for family singalongs. Around 100 units were sold.Wurlitzer Side Man (1959)
In 1959, Wurlitzer released the Side Man, which generates sounds mechanically by a rotating disc, similar to a music box. A slider controls the tempo. Sounds can also be triggered individually through buttons on a control panel. The Side Man was a success and drew criticism from the American Federation of Musicians, which ruled in 1961 that its local jurisdictions could not prohibit Side Man use, though it could not be used for dancing. Wurlitzer ceased production of the Side Man in 1969.Raymond Scott (1960–1963)
In 1960, Raymond Scott constructed the Rhythm Synthesizer and, in 1963, a drum machine called Bandito the Bongo Artist. Scott's machines were used for recording his album Soothing Sounds for Baby series.First fully transistorized drum machines – Seeburg/Gulbransen (1964)
During the 1960s, the implementation of rhythm machines had evolved into fully solid-state from early electro-mechanical with vacuum tubes, and also size was reduced to desktop size from earlier floor type. In the early 1960s, a home organ manufacturer, Gulbransen cooperated with an automatic musical equipment manufacturer Seeburg Corporation, and released early compact rhythm machines Rhythm Prince, although, at that time, these sizes were still as large as small guitar amp head, due to the use of bulky electro-mechanical pattern generators. Then in 1964, Seeburg invented a compact electronic rhythm pattern generator using "diode matrix", and fully transistorized electronic rhythm machine with pre-programmed patterns, Select-A-Rhythm, was released. As a result of its robustness and enough compact size, these rhythm machines were gradually installed on the electronic organ as an accompaniment of organists and finally spread widely.Keio-Giken (Korg), Nippon Columbia, and Ace Tone (1963–1967)
In the early 1960s, a nightclub owner in Tokyo, Tsutomu Katoh, was consulted by a notable accordion player, Tadashi Osanai, about the rhythm machine he used for accompaniment in the club, a Wurlitzer Side Man. Osanai, a graduate of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Tokyo, convinced Katoh to finance his efforts to build a better one. In 1963, their new company Keio-Giken released their first rhythm machine, the Donca-Matic DA-20, using vacuum tube circuits for sounds and a mechanical wheel for rhythm patterns. It was a floor-type machine with a built-in speaker, and featured a keyboard for manual play, in addition to the multiple automatic rhythm patterns. Its price was comparable with the average annual income of Japanese at that time.Next, their effort was focused on the improvement of reliability and performance, along with size and cost reductions. Unstable vacuum tube circuits were replaced with reliable transistor circuits on the Donca-Matic DC-11 in the mid-1960s. In 1966, the bulky mechanical wheel was also replaced with a compact transistor circuit on the Donca-Matic DE-20 and DE-11. In 1967, the Mini Pops MP-2 was developed as an option for the Yamaha Electone, and Mini Pops was established as a series of compact desktop rhythm machines. In the United States, Mini Pops MP-3, MP-7, etc. were sold under the Univox brand by the distributor at that time, Unicord Corporation.
In 1965, Nippon Columbia filed a patent for an automatic rhythm instrument. It described it as an "automatic rhythm player which is simple but capable of electronically producing various rhythms in the characteristic tones of a drum, a piccolo and so on." It has some similarities to Seeburg's slightly earlier 1964 patent.
In 1967, Ace Tone founder Ikutaro Kakehashi developed the preset rhythm-pattern generator using diode matrix circuit, which has some similarities to the earlier Seeburg and Nippon Columbia patents. Kakehashi's patent describes his device as a "plurality of inverting circuits and/or clipper circuits" which "are connected to a counting circuit to synthesize the output signal of the counting circuit" where the "synthesized output signal becomes a desired rhythm."
Ace Tone commercialized its preset rhythm machine, called the FR-1 Rhythm Ace, in 1967. It offered 16 preset patterns, and four buttons to manually play each instrument sound. The rhythm patterns could also be cascaded together by pushing multiple rhythm buttons simultaneously, and the possible combination of rhythm patterns were more than a hundred. The FR-1 was adopted by the Hammond Organ Company for incorporation within their latest organ models. In the US, the units were also marketed under the Multivox brand by Peter Sorkin Music Company, and in the UK, marketed under the Bentley Rhythm Ace brand.
Early preset drum machine users
A number of other preset drum machines were released in the 1970s, but early examples of the use can be found on The United States of America's eponymous album from 1967–8. The first major pop song to use a drum machine was "Saved by the Bell" by Robin Gibb, which reached #2 in Britain in 1969. Drum machine tracks were also heavily used on the Sly & the Family Stone album There's a Riot Goin' On, released in 1971. Sly & the Family Stone was the first group to have a number #1 pop single that used a drum machine: that single was "Family Affair".The German krautrock band Can also used a drum machine on their songs "Peking O" and "Spoon". The 1972 Timmy Thomas single "Why Can't We Live Together"/"Funky Me" featured a distinctive use of a drum machine and keyboard arrangement on both tracks. Another early example of electronic drums used by a rock band is Obscured by Clouds by Pink Floyd in 1972. The first album on which a drum machine produced all the percussion was Kingdom Come's Journey, recorded in November 1972 using a Bentley Rhythm Ace. French singer-songwriter Léo Ferré mixed a drum machine with a symphonic orchestra in the song "Je t'aimais bien, tu sais..." in his album L'Espoir, released in 1974. Miles Davis' live band began to use a drum machine in 1974, which can be heard on Dark Magus. Osamu Kitajima's progressive psychedelic rock album Benzaiten also used drum machines.
Programmable drum machines
In 1972, Eko released the ComputeRhythm, which was one of the first programmable drum machines. It had a 6-row push-button matrix that allowed the user to enter a pattern manually. The user could also push punch cards with pre-programmed rhythms through a reader slot on the unit.Another stand-alone drum machine released in 1975, the PAiA Programmable Drum Set was also one of the first programmable drum machines, and was sold as a kit with parts and instructions which the buyer would use to build the machine.
In 1975, Ace Tone released the Rhythm Producer FR-15 that enables the modification of the pre-programmed rhythm patterns. In 1978, Roland released the Roland CR-78, the first microprocessor-based programmable rhythm machine, with four memory storage for user patterns. In 1979, a simpler version with four sounds, Boss DR-55, was released.
Steely Dan recording engineer Roger Nichols developed a 125kHz/12bit sampling drum machine and audio sampler in 1978 that he named Wendel, which was used on the “Gaucho” album in January 1979 for drums and percussion.