Drum machines have been the beating heart of electronic music for over sixty years. This session discusses the key developments that turned these electronic instruments from limited auto-accompaniment boxes to sophisticated genre-defining groove machines.
We’ll look at how rhythm machines were first aimed at the home organist and came loaded with the ballroom and Latin dance rhythms of their day, and how creative musicians did their best with these first-generation machines to create the first wave of 1970s electronic music. Furthermore, we will see how the technology progressed from unwieldy electro-mechanical, valve-based units to the flexible, software-based machines of today that paved the way for electro, house, techno and so much more.
There is also a live demo in Ableton Live on how early, but iconic and still relevant drum machines such as the Roland TR-808, actually synthesize their sounds; knowledge of which should help any producer of electronic music get under the hood of these sounds and to take the concepts further in their own music.
