Comments on: Top Ten Drum Machines of all time

By: Clayton C

Clayton C — Fri, 13 May 2011 09:20:00 +0000

@J Swails- I’m sure he didn’t mention the SP-1200 and MPC-60 because those were “groove boxes” (drum machine/sampler/sequencer combos.) The boxes mentioned above are strictly drum machines.

By: J Swails

J Swails — Wed, 04 May 2011 14:43:00 +0000

Notable but missing:

e-Mu SP-12/1200: A signature 12-bit sound used on countless recordings of the 80s-90s. Still in high demand. First drum machine with SMPTE sync. I personally know of three producers today from whom you would have to pry their SPs from their cold dead hands. It really should have been included on this list. (Korg Electribe? Really?)

Alesis HR-16: the first low-cost digital drum machine. Much more notable than the SR-16, which replaced it.

Oberheim DMX: as Funkmeister88 says.

Akai MPC-60: One of the best selling of all time, what Roger Linn did after his company went belly-up. It did verything the Linn9000 could do, but not break down every other day.

By: Funkmeister88

Funkmeister88 — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 19:00:00 +0000

You missed the Oberheim DMX..the fattest drum machine of all time. Some people would debate that the Linn drum (not LM-1) is better, and it’s also killer…but the DMX had a MIDI mod available for it…

Also the Linn 9000 was quite a great piece…It was a precursor to the whole MPC craze and many producers felt it had better swing mode.