Roger Linn changed the way we all work today.... fact!

There had been drum machines before and there had even been programable drum machines in the form of the Roland CR78 and the TR808. However, where these drum machines used synthesised and 'artificial' sounds, Roger Linn pioneered by being the first to provide sampled acoustic sounds of a 'real' drum kit that could be programmed and sequenced into quite authentic sounding rhythm tracks.

His first offering, the LM1 was outrageously expensive but captured the imagination of many cutting edge musos of the time. People like Peter Gabriel, Human League, Ultravox and many others. But it was the 'Linn Drum', the LM2 that was to be more commercially successful.

It featured 15 sounds... yes... a staggering 15!!! ... that included kick, snare, sidestick, hi-hats, toms and so on and the LM2 also offered crash and ride cymbals as a result of increased memory capacity at lower cost. Of course, nothing amazing by today's standards but at the time, the Linn Drum was nothing short of revolutionary and almost single-handedly, Roger Linn changed the way we construct and create music.

Despite its high price, the Linn Drum became the rhythmic backdrop for the '80s.

The Linn Drum led to the development of the ill-fated Linn 9000 but this development was taken over by Akai Professional and evolved into the highly successful MPC series of sampling drum machines.

Samples kindly donated by Petrit.