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Home , 808 Mafia, Drum machine, Greg Errico, Ikutaro Kakehashi, Lex Luger (musician), Rhythm King

How The Revolutionized

A Senior Thesis

Presented to

The Faculty of The Music Business Entrepreneurship and Technology

The University of the Arts

In Partial Fulfillment

Of the requirements for the degree of

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE

By Joshua Ayers

May 7 2020

Over the past few decades, the has revolutionized the music industry and helped shape where is today. A drum machine is an electronic that produces sounds as well as other percussive instruments. Drum may create sounds using pre recorded samples or using analog synthesis. The drum machine emerged in the late 20th century most popularly with the LM-1 and the TR-808 which helped the development of genres such as , dance, house, acid and the most popular . Producers such as , ,

Lex Luger, South Side and , to name a few, are among the influences that have taken the drum machine to the next level.

The history of the drum machine starts with Sly Sylvester Stone. Sly played a pivotal role in the development of soul, , rock, and hip hops throughout the 1960’s and

70’s. Even in today's music, his influence is everywhere from artists such as Anderson

Paak and Thundercat. Sly continues to be sampled by hip-hop producers today. His music has been sampled over 800 times (Pepper,The sample legacy from Sly and the

Family Stone) making him one of the most sampled artists in music. Sly Stone is without a doubt an innovator in every sense of the word. One of his greatest contributions to music is the use of the drum machine.

Legend has it, bandmates of the Family Stone started to get frustrated with Sly’s behavior (drug addiction) and some of them stopped taking calls from him, including . As a solution to finding a drummer, Sly stumbled upon the

MRK-2. “The Maestro King MRK–2 is a handsome groove box with a row of ​ ​ ​ brightly colored buttons reminiscent of a TR–808” ( Heath, Gear Tribute: The Maestro ​ ​ Rhythm King MRK-2, Sly Stone’s Favorite Drum Machine) Back then, drum machines ​ were never looked at as instruments.They were used to accompany organists and other instrumentalists as documented in Joe Mansfield book BeatBox: A Drum Machine. They ​ ​ were pretty much glorified metronomes until Sly came along. Sly was the first person to use the drum machine as an actual instrument. The first person to use one on record.

“With their weirdly burbling toms and anemic snares, the Rhythm King’s sounds don’t resemble “real” . The Latin preset , which fascinated Stone, felt woozy and off-kilter. Here was an unexpected foundation to an emergent funk aesthetic that

Stone would eventually share globally on There’s a Riot Goin’ On, but Stone Flower is ​ ​ where he first got to experiment” (Wang, Sly Stone, the Original Rhythm King). The drum machine changed the way the world heard drums, let alone percussion.

A decade later, a new artist by the name of Prince, would take Sly’s same methods with the MRK-2 and apply it to a new drum machine called the Linn LM-1 Drum ​ . In 1979, guitarist Roger Lyn created the first sample based drum machine.

There were only 525 created and the starting price was $5,000, which is about $17,600 in today’s time. was coming to an end and Prince knew he had to come up with a new, refreshing sound the music industry had never heard before and the LM-1 was his secret weapon. The LM-1 was the first drum machine to use digital samples. It even featured rhythmic sequencing such as swing factors, shuffle, accent and real time programming. There were a lot of artists that would later use the LM-1 such as Michael

Jackson, and Peter Gabriel but no one used it like Prince did. “Unlike other artists who merely programmed a simple beat and let it repeat as-is, Prince manipulated the LM-1's preset sounds, aggressively finger-drummed patterns and fills, and—as you'll read more about below—used the machine's individual and stereo channel outputs to run the one-shots and patterns through effects.” (Carlozo, Prince’s

Drum Machine: How His Use of the Linn M1 Heralded a New Age of Pop Rhythm

Culture).

Prince also did something not even the inventor Roger Lyn ever imagined of doing with the LM-1. Prince connected his effect pedals to the machine which created a totally unique sound from anybody else using the machine. In an interview Izotope did with Dr. Susan Rogers, Rogers explains how he “He liked to take a percussion mix that would come out of the output of those little faders and run it through his Roland and

Boss effects pedals. So, let’s say for example, the hi-hat, , , and claps might all be running through a Boss pedal where we could add distortion. We had that heavy metal pedal, the brown one. He had the orange distortion pedal, and the , the blue one” (Rogers [Izotope] In the Studio with Prince—Getting His Sound). ​ Following the success of the LM-1 there were a number of drum machines invented shortly after. Oberheim introduced the DMX which had similar features to the LM-1like the use of samples and the swing feature. There was also the ​ ​ Circuits Drum-Traks and Tom, the E-mu Drumulator, the Yamaha RX11 and the ​ SpecDrum by Cheetah Marketing, which was an 8 bit sampling drum machine. The ​ SpaceDrum was also one of the cheapest drum machines made at the time starting at roughly $30 compared to other drum machines like the LM-1 that were priced for thousands of dollars. But in1980, there was another drum machine that would change music forever, the Roland TR-808.

Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer, commonly known as “the 808”, was created by

Japanese engineer/inventor and was one of the first drum machines manufactured by Roland from 1980 to 1983. It was one of the first drum machines that let users come up with their own patterns rather than using pre existing patterns such as the LM-1 features. Another feature that made the TR-808 different from its competitors was that it was completely analog. It produced its own electronically manufactured ​ sounds rather than using samples of drum kits meaning it was the absolute first of its kind.

“The “TR” in TR-808 stands for Rhythm, and the 16 onboard sounds that it ​ is capable of pumping out are all created through analog circuitry.” (Owen, TR-808

Drum Machine Flashback). The TR-808 featured 16 percussive sounds: , ​ snare, toms, , , claves, handclap, , , , and hi-hat

(open and closed). It had its own futuristic sounds as many would say. The TR-808 ​ ​ ​ “incorporated a number of groundbreaking features including volume knobs for each voice, multiple audio outputs,and the immediate precursor to MIDI” (Kirn, Keyboard

Presents: The Evolution of Electronic ). Users could also up to 32 ​ ​

patterns using the step sequencer, place​ accents on individual beats, set the tempo and ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ time signature including unusual signatures such as 5/4 and ⅞. The 808 was priced at ​ US$1,195 in 1980 which is equivalent to $4,005 now in 2020. But when it came out, had yet to reach the mainstream resulting in a low amount of sales. Roland ended up selling under 12,000 units ultimately becoming a failure. Roland ended production of the 808 in1983 after the semiconductors became impossible to restock.

Despites its commercial failure, the TR-808 soon built a for producers who couldn't afford the LM-1.By the time they were dicontinued the 808 had dropped down to prices as low as $100. “ techno producer Juan Atkins bought "the first ​ 808 in Michigan" when he was still in high school, using it for his band Cybotron….The

808 was the perfect tool for his music, a "hi-tech funk" inspired equally by

Kraftwerk and George Clinton, and was a cut above the primitive DR-55 drum machine he'd previously had” (Thomas,The Roland TR-808: the drum machine that ​ revolutionised music). Roland credits Yellow Magic , a japanese electronic group, to be the first to use the TR-808 in a live performance with 1000 Knives in 1980.

They were also the first to feature the TR-808 in a record called BGM in 1981.

Over the course of the 80’s the TR-808 would continue to grow in popularity because of its unique unusual sounds, specifically its deep growling booming bass drum which would later get the nickname, “the 808”. In 1982, and the Soul Sonic ​ Force had recorded their hip-hop track Planet Rock which became a massive success.The song combined elements of hip hop and dance music. It also featured a ​ ​ sample from ’s ‘Trans Europe Express’, that would essentially give birth to electronic music and would shape the sound of hip hop and techno. The 808 was the ​ driving force behind it all. Producer Greg Brousard from Angeles remember’s going to a local store and playing the TR-808 after hearing Planet Rock for the first time. "I programmed the Planet Rock beat and fell in love with this machine," he remembers dewily. "It blew me away. Everything sounded a bit toy-like, but at the same time it made you want to dance. I bought it right there on the spot" (Thomas). That same year,

R&B singer released his first hit single “” which also features the

808. The 808 broke down walls between genres. In 1987, the 808 was used for Whitney

Houston’s massive pop hit "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)". ​ ​ The 808 was becoming the cornerstone for upcoming electronic music genres, especially hip hop Artists such as LL Cool J, Public Enemy and The were known for subsequently using the 808. Hip Hop producers were continuously coming up with new techniques to take the 808 to the next level. Super producer Rick Rubin is known for popularizing the technique of lengthening the decay of the bass drum decay of the 808 and tuning it to different pitches essentially using it as a bass line which is still a very popular technique used to this day in . In the 90’s when the east coast started drifting away from the 808 and started using other machines like the MPC

60, the south started to take over the sound with artists such as Lil Jon and Young

Jeezy. In 2008, rapper/ producer Kanye West dedicated an entire to the use of the 808 by using it on every track entitled “808’s and Heartbreaks”. Hip Hop producers such as and Southside of and are credited for introducing the latest genre of “Trap” to the world which the 808 bass drum is a big element of the overall sound. Trap producers and also rely heavily on the 808 sound. Now, the 808 was everywhere, from Hip Hop and R&B to and even ​ country. In 2019, Lil Nas X just scored the longest number one billboard hit with his single “Old Town Road Ft. Billy Ray Cyrus” which was a mix of country and hip hop music and of course, featured a strong 808 hit. The 808 has become a fixture in hip hop ​ culture and a depth defining aspect of the genre. It’s one of the most influential sounds in popular music and ist still as crucial as ever.

After the 808, Roland came out with the TR-909 in 1983. It was their first drum machine to use digital samples and MIDI which synchronizes devices by different manufacturers. Similar to the 808, the 909 was also a failure. It retailed at the same price as the TR-808, US$1,195 in 1980 which is equivalent to $4,005 now in 2020),and ​ sold less than 10,000 units. But it became a big success years later with techno music, house and acid music.

By the early 2000’s standalone drum machines became less common with the progression of digital audio workstations that had built in sequencers, samplers and even their own melodic instruments and drum sounds. Midi controllers are a popular thing now, a median between hardware and software products such as Native

Instruments Maschine and Ableton’s Push are the closest things that we have to drum machines. Drum machine sounds can now be found in sample packs all over the internet.

The drum machine has been a staple in the music industry for over 40 years now.

It’s hard to think about where music would be without it because it's influence is so prominent in all of today’s popular music. Before the drum machine, everything was hands on and rap was straight loops. You had to be able to play an instrument; however with the drum machine you can just play it. Marvin Gaye was said to have liked the 808 ​ because he could use it himself without the help of other musicians or producers.You don’t have to be a musical genius in order to play the drum machine, you just have to love music. So, where in the world would we be without the drum machine? In the ​ words of Kanye West and the infamous 2005 Grammy speech for best rap album “I guess we’ll never know”?

Bibliography ​

Pepper, Jack. “The Sample Legacy of .” The Vinyl ​ Factory, 16 Mar. 2018, ​ thevinylfactory.com/features/sample-legacy-sly-and-the-family-stone/.

Mansfield, Joe, and Dave Tompkins. Beat Box: A Drum Machine Obsession. Get ​ ​ On Down , 2013.

Wang, Oliver. “Sly Stone, the Original Rhythm King.” Medium, Cuepoint, 11 Jan. ​ ​ 2015, medium.com/cuepoint/sly-stone-the-original-rhythm-king-da29241897b5.

Heath, Harold. “Gear Tribute: The Maestro Rhythm King MRK–2, Sly Stone's Favorite Drum Machine.” Reverb.com, 14 Jan. 2019, ​ ​ reverb.com/news/gear-tribute-the-maestro-rhythm-king-mrk2-sly-stones-favorite-dr um-machine.

Rogers , Susan. “In the Studio with Prince-Getting His Sound.” IZotope, 24 Jun. ​ ​ 2016, www.izotope.com/en/learn/an-interview-with-dr-susan-rogers-part-1-of-3-princes-s ound.html. ​

Beaumont-Thomas, Ben. “The Roland TR-808: the Drum Machine That Revolutionised Music.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 6 Mar. 2014, ​ ​ www.theguardian.com/music/2014/mar/06/roland-tr-808-drum-machine-revolutioni sed-music. ​

US], OV Valle [Roland. “TR-808 Drum Machine Flashback - Roland U.S. Blog.” Roland U.S., 26 Feb. 2015, www.rolandus.com/blog/2014/02/13/tr-808/. ​

Kirn, Peter. Keyboard Presents the Evolution of . Backbeat ​ ​ Books, 2011.