Cult VIP/36 10/2/06 11:13 am Page 2 –/––/–CULT VIP: ROGER LINN / Text by TIM NOAKES Doctor Beat ml-60 ‘1984’ ml-60 ‘1984’ ml-60 ‘1984’ Thanks to Roger Linn, programmable drum machines have become the centre of modern music production. Here, the inventor recalls how his creation pushed Prince, Stevie Wonder and Dr Dre to the top of the charts, but left him at the whim of shady businessmen. Every Monday night, Roger Linn drives from but soon got distracted by the rock’n’roll heard about the invention of computers, a his house in the north Berkley hills down to the revolution. Combining his passion for guitars and development that eventually spurred him on to Caffe Trieste coffee shop to soothe its patrons technology, the 14-year-old Linn took an after- form his own company, Linn Electronics. with mandolin renditions of traditional Neapolitan school job at a guitar shop in Hollywood, where “A friend of mine took me to The Computer songs. When the weather’s good, he even invites he learnt how to install pick-ups. A few years Store, which was the only place in Los Angeles people up to his house to listen to folk music. So passed, by which stage he had gained a reputation that sold them. It was run by these proto-typical it comes as somewhat of a surprise to hear that for fusing together existing guitar FX pedals to nerds who used words like bits and bytes, RZA, one of hip hop’s most illustrious producers, produce unique sounds. Fanny, an all-girl megawatts and gigahertz. I was intrigued. Then regards the un-assuming mandolin player as one underground rock group, bought his first product another shop popped up into existence near me, of “the true foundations of hip hop”. – a customised distortion pedal. so I bought one for $3,000. I was convinced that Linn, you see, isn’t only a mandolin virtuoso. “They were happy with the sound but at there was art inside that box and I was the one That’s just his hobby. What he’s really known for that stage, I hadn’t learned how to make things that had to pull it out. It was on that computer is inventing the world’s first programmable, digital reliably,” Linn recalls some 35 years later. “I later that I wrote my first drum machine programme.” drum machine. Without him, artists like Brian heard that they regularly intercepted baseball Basic analogue drum machines such as Eno, Prince, Dr Dre and Kanye West would have commentary at their gigs!” Ikutaro Kakehashi’s FR1 Rhythm Ace were already found it a lot harder to push back the boundaries By the time he turned 20, the Mini Moog being produced, but they lacked authentic drum of popular music. Yet somewhat ironically, Linn’s synthesiser had started to infiltrate rock, and sounds and forced users to rely on 16 preset drum legacy stems not from an infatuation with guitars, Linn got a gig playing guitar and synths for Leon patterns – great for bossa nova organ solos, but but from beats. Russell, the session player who had arranged Ike not so cool to rock out to. ml-60 ‘1984’ The son of an opera singer and a music & Tina Turner’s “River Deep, Mountain High” “Leon used these cheap drum machines to professor, Linn took up classical guitar as a child before becoming a solo star. Then in 1977, Linn help him overdub,” the 50-year-old recalls. 2 DAZED & CONFUSED DAZED & CONFUSED 3 Cult VIP/36 10/2/06 11:13 am Page 4 –/––/–CULT VIP: ROGER LINN In 1988, Akai launched the MPC 60; a square drum machine with 16 large rubber pads, which could sample 26 seconds worth of audio. It BEATS, TIMES & SPLICE effectively gave the producer the means to make beats, sequence instruments and sample new sounds all in the one machine. “I had noticed that people were starting to sample big chunks of other people’s records,” the inventor says. “I thought it was odd that they were using a machine that should be used for drums and just looping a segment, you know, basically standing on the shoulders of giants. Instead of creating every note they took all these little snippets and arranged them in provocative new ways.” Over the next few years, hip hop artists like A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, The Pharcyde and Gangstarr traded in their SP12s and moved up to the MPC 60 in an attempt to make their music more than just loops. Unfortunately Akai’s sales didn’t immediately reflect this trend, and Akai let Linn go. It was a bad move. As hip hop and dance continued their cultural ascendancy, the MPC lent its distinct human “groove” to more chart hits. Realising that they had made a mistake, Akai persuaded Linn to come back to design a more powerful MPC. In 1994, they launched the MPC 3000, a machine that basically doubled the power of the 60 by adding more memory, sample space and Pushing all the right buttons: Linn with his first MPC in 1987 effects. Hooked by its looks and features, Dr Dre, The Chemical Brothers and DJ Shadow each Tracing its influence from the 80s to the present day, six bought one and began pushing it to its limits, resulting in some of the most progressive albums trendsetting hip hop producers assess the impact of of the last decade. Roger Linn’s creation on the art form and their careers. Beat master: Linn at the XXXX Namm show “I’m embarrassed to say it, but when hip hop and dance came along my musical tastes were D J P R E M I E R R Z A D J S H A D O W leaning in a different direction,” Linn says Producer for Gang Starr, Jay Z, Solo artist, soundtrack composer and Solo artist and producer for UNKLE, “I still think it’s funny that I’m considered to be so responsible for apologetically. “I still think it’s funny that I’m Notorious B.I.G and Group Home. producer for the Wu Tang Clan. Solesides, Cage and Paris. considered to be so responsible for hip hop “After making the first Gang Starr album “I know Roger Linn baby pa. I used the “When I got it home I remember hip hop, as I don’t know it all! I prefer gypsy jazz” because I don’t know it at all! I prefer gypsy jazz.” on an EMU SP 12, I ended up buying a Ensoniq ASR to make my career but if thinking, ‘I can’t believe I actually own After another communication breakdown at used MPC 60, and I’ve stuck with it ever there’s ever a hip hop hall of fame he an MPC!’ That night I stayed up till 5 in “If you record a track with a bad drummer and Linn’s other key innovation was the You Want Me Baby” by The Human League and Akai, Linn left for good and set up Roger Linn since. Some people listen to music but has to be inducted within the first year. the morning just figuring out how to use his timing is off, then the drummer who comes in introduction of sampled drum sounds instead of Prince’s “When Doves Cry” started to appear. Design, a company dedicated to inventing and they don’t give a fuck about the drum He’s like the guy who made the piano. it. I had this feverish anticipation of how to overdub his part is going to have to match the the thin sounding noises of previous machines. A few months later, Roland unleashed the developing guitar technology, which he still runs machine or the equipment. I do. If He’s a genius that should never stop I could start making my ideas come to wavering tempo. He used to say He knew about digital recording, and figured that TR 808, a cheaper analogue drum machine that, today. Akai went on to make five more advanced someone was to introduce me to Roger getting props. It’s like how Grandmaster life. After Entroducing came out, a lot of ‘I wish I could change the beat to have the bass the answer was to store digital recordings of drum thanks to its booming bass kick and cutting snare, models of the MPC, and in late 2004, the company Linn I’d be like ‘Oh shit! You the man, Flash came with the scratch – these people started coming up to me with drum here or the snare drum here.’ I’m sure that sounds on computer memory. Although memory would go on to become synonymous with dance was bought by Jack O’Donnell, the owner of you the truth! We turned your invention guys are the true foundation of our questions about it like ‘How did you lots of people thought that would be a great idea, was very expensive, the storage for only a handful music. Yet Linn maintained his own course and Numark and Alesis, who stopped the inventor’s into a funky beat machine!’” culture. Even to this day 80 per cent of manage to chop that beat up like that?’ it’s just that nobody else decided to make it!” of single drum strikes would be affordable, just. developed an improved model called the Linn royalty payments. hip hop is produced on that machine.” It showed me that people really listened Using an existing Roland soundboard, Linn Drummer Art Wood came to his house and Drum, followed by the Linn 9000 – an 8-bit drum While thousands of beatmakers can still be P E T E R O C K to how my records were produced.” designed a rudimentary computer interface; recorded various percussive hits, which Linn machine (think early computer game soundtracks) found hunched over their beat generators hoping Solo artist and producer for Nas, R J D 2 a visual grid that triggered drum sounds at mapped into the system.