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. "I tried to contact Prince a couple of times but never heard back. "Prince's hits made such an impact because of his creative use of the LM-1," Linn told me in a 2017 Reverb interview. Just how did Prince turn pop music's first sample-based drum machine into a magic box? While notoriously secretive about his studio techniques, Prince did leave behind clues as to how he doctored the LM-1 to create his own percussive planet. "Drum machine aficionados regard Prince as some sort of Hendrix of the LM-1," the Guardian proclaimed in 2009, an apt description if ever there was. Where others might be just as happy using some other drum simulator, Prince played his LM-1 like a man possessed, as though mounting and mangling a real drum kit. Prince, though, made the LM-1 such an integral part of his music that it's impossible to imagine his most beloved songs without it. Other artists-including Peter Gabriel, Stevie Wonder, and Michael Jackson-would all make amazing music with the gadget the Human League's 1981 smash single "Don't You Want Me" compelled countless music fans wonder, "What's that sound?" And as the LM-1 supercharged his career, Prince propelled the modern drum machine into the spotlight. Yet given the hits the Artist coaxed out of its sliders, knobs, buttons, and chips, his LM-1 goes down as one of pop music's best gear investments. Notice the array of individual outputs with tuning knobs. Even now, when a rare original model pops up on Reverb, one can go for anywhere between $4,000 and $10,000.
Only 525 were ever made, and used LM-1s were just about impossible to find when Prince landed one-meaning he likely paid the equivalent of $17,600 (plus tax) in today's money to get it. Not that this secret weapon came cheap when Linn introduced it in 1979, he priced it at $5,000. (Linn has no recollection what became of it.) Still, you could say the Linn LM-1 Drum Computer was a gift-wrapped box of creativity for another young inventive genius, one Prince Rogers Nelson.Īs the cornerstone of Prince's soul-funk-rock-cosmic funhouse, the LM-1 guaranteed that his music would stand apart from that of his contemporaries. That makeshift container would be an odd bit of music history if still around today. When a young hotshot guitarist named Roger Linn first took his prototype drum machine to swank rockstar parties in Los Angeles, he was so early in the building process that he had to jury-rig the contents into a cardboard box.