Call Bruce Forat in Los Angeles. He built that machine himself in the 80s. He can diagnose it for you over the phone. He's the leading expert on The Linn.
All the gear was stored in a barn on a farm near to Rolands studio. I remember having a hell of a time trying to find items for Roland back in the 90's
I really hope a quality (no corners cut) version of this comes out! --- One things I gotta say though... The FIRST thing I would do if I was powering up a Tears for Fears drum machine would be to PRESS PLAY and see if any of those famous patterns are still in it.
I love you Behringer, this is a machine I would die for. Love the sound and the layout. Add tuning to all instruments including clap. I hope you build it!
The first version, the LM-1 is the proper one used by more artists. With the great ability to radically retune each drum. That was used by more famous artists such as Prince etc. The LinnDrum was a more cost effective version with less features.
Not at all. The Linndrum was used by tons of famous artists around the world. It’s as “proper” as you need it By the way Prince used the Linndrum too, although more frequently associated with the LM-1 Also, The LinnDrum in some ways was better than the LM-1: the addition of crash and ride cymbal samples, five external trigger inputs and the ability to replace built-in sounds with new sounds on EPROM chips. The LinnDrum sampled sounds from 28 to a 35 kHz sample rate
You couldn’t be MORE wrong. The Linn Drum was THE sound of the 80’s: everyone, almost literally everyone, used the Linn Drum. The LM-1 was much more rare, on the other hand. There were only a few hundred made, and the price was way out of reach for everyone besides a few of the biggest artists (Prince, Peter Gabriel) and major studios. There’s a reason Prince’s drums stand out so much as “his” sound: there are very few popular records that had a LM-1 on it. The sound of the first half of the 80’s big records (Think Madonna’s self-titled album, Thriller … or even most rock records used reverb or gated Linn Drums as the main drums or to beef up live drum playing) was predominantly the Linn Drum … until the mid-80’s digital takeover. Go do some research, or listen to records from 82-86. The second biggest drum machine was the DMX/DX, which also were used all over pop records, but had more of a presence in black music like rnb, funk, hip hop (“sucker mcs”!) and electro/dance music. The DrumTraks and Drumulator were used less, but can still be heard on a lot of records (“shout” by Tears for Fears is the Drumulator rock EPROMs). And the TR 808, 707, 606, and 909 were less used in most of the 80’s strangely, but all became staples of dance, house, techno, electronic music in the late 80’s and 90’s. (“Beat it” is a good use of the 606 in a pop record; there are only a few big pop songs using the 808, and you’ll hear them for every demo of a vintage 808 on RU-vid. I don’t know any pop songs off the top of head that used the 707 or 909 … until the 90’s and 2000’s. “The Bridge is Over” and “PSK” are two hip hop songs from then 80’s that have a 909, but those were hardly mainstream; same with Run Dmc’s “together forever”, or the Beasties last minute of “the New Style”, or “hold it now, hit”, or LL Cool J “radio”, which all feature Rick Rubin using both the 808 and 707. Long story short: the LM-1 was rare and unique. In terms of big, big records with the LM-1 used … it’s pretty much all Prince, with few exceptions.
The rebuild needs two USB Ports: One for a computer when you want it (the usual type B) - the other one (type A) for one of those tiny, non protruding USB sticks... Maybe that second port should be under the hood, so you get that vintage feeling when swapping sounds... just kidding.
I had an opportunity to buy the Oberheim 'DX' that belonged to _Huey Lewis and the News._ I never knew why they didn't have the more feature-packed DMX.
Does this mean the LinnDrum clone release date gets closer!??? Please make it have the exclusive LM-1 usability as well!! 💜💜💜💜🔊🔊🔊 PS: I love Tears for Fears. Met Curt Smith in 2018 and went to see them live in Amsterdam last year and they delivered a supreme quality show 🔥 PS: Is this the actual LinnDrum that Roland Orzabal used to write Shout with/on. Or is this an additional one they used while on tour, or is that one and the same machine? Is there any provenance on that? Either way: Much love to you, Uli & crew....🏆
You Create Your Reality ik maak geen oude hits maar tijdloze nummers 😎🔊💜 - Zowel toen als nu (en alle tijd ertussen in) produceer ik een deel van m’n songs zelf en een deel van m’n songs samen met anderen. Als anderen de beat leveren overzie ik ook vrijwel altijd de productie. Daarnaast ben ik groot fan en liefhebber van drum machines en synths. Plus van oorsprong niet alleen een lyricist maar ook een toetsenist. Thanks voor de interesse 🏆💜
It was leaked ages ago that they were working on a Linn remake; it's codename is the LMX. In some of their other demo videos they've used a Linn snare in the background, as another obvious hint to the linn remake.
MCBrainpower Prince drew inspiration from a very unlikely source: he was on record expressing his fascination with the percussion sounds of the Cocteau Twins who used a number of the early drum machines and did unheard of things at the time(early eighties) such as run them through guitar amps and other things that left engineers shaking their heads. Prince was so enamored of their sound and the distinct production of Robin Guthrie that he tried to sign them to his label.
2:26 Awwwwwwww mannnn!!! It has the Art of Noise toms and not the Prince/Peter Gabriel toms. But did your hear that hi-hat🤤🤤🤤 man, there ain’t nothing like a LINN.
I bought a used LinnDrum machine in 1985 for $1500 and gave it to a friend of mine in Los Angeles around 1996. I probably did 500+ sessions with it. There was a ground lug that connected the top and bottom parts of the chassis. It came loose and then the thing would shock the shit out of you if you touched one side of the metal chassis. The other cool thing was that it had external pad inputs that I connected to a Simmons kit. Sounds on an ePROM plugged into ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) Sockets... Crazy!!!
I also had the linndrum up to 1993 when it also suffered malfunction as it burned out the service boards . Was costly to repair & parts here in england were hard to find.
Either sound Rom is shot, the addressing or data lines are not pulling the data in properly or as mention the eproms need reseating. If it has a NICAD battery, that may have leaked and is causing a short
Joe Bartholomeus never have I ever had an eprom loose “charge” (which is technically not correct but let’s go with it :) ) even those that had no stickers on the quartz window. It was always an addressing or data read issue for me; bad solder joints or bad sockets. And I’ve come a cross 1000s of micro controllers and microcomputers. Those EPROMs in my experience are indestructible except for corrotion on pins breaking solder joints.
Dang - I would add this to my home studio instantly - I love the sound of these 1980s drums - please include the extra eprom sounds from Tears for Fears in the actual release - extra fx would sweeten the deal - saturation on the overall output, built in compressor, maybe some super 80s digital reverb/chorus.delay on a bus with individual control for level per drum part -
@Active Username loading samples of the output into any sampler isn't how you recreate the linn. You need ROM data and you need the supporting hardware to turn that ROM data into sound. The closest clone we have right now is the VPROM by Aly James that uses ROM data and simulated circuits, and its night and day when compared to sample packs, especially the free running oscillator used for the hat. Having a clone of its esoteric sequencer would be fantastic, too, as it's non-standard resolution (48ppq I think) gives it a lovely groove, and its just nice to program overall versus a DAW with a pad controller.
@Active Username This completely NOT the case. I have used a Linn many times, and even compared to running samples off a VST sampler. It sounds nothing the same. The Linn is alive and has it's own sound due to the circuitry and technology. Samples aon a computer sound sterile and lack of magic in comparison.
@@guntheriscariot3064 Yeah, they were aftermarket chips made by Digidrums (an early incarnation of Digidesign who made ProTools before Avid bought them). I’ve owned two Drumulators, one with those chips. It’s rumored that the “Rock Drums” kit is sampled from “...Levee Breaks”, but others say that’s an urban legend.
This video gives some insight into the cloning process. Some people think you just scan the kit through a copying machine. Looks like a huge undertaking
Exactly. Obsolete chips, redesigning for surface mount, engineering a more reliable design (though this LINN doesn't seem too bad considering it's been on the road then left to rot in storage). Reliability is a biggie because we take it for granted these days but a lot of seventies and early eighties electronics was very fragile and not well made despite people these days wetting their panties over "hand soldered". I was properly trained but some other technicians could barely tell which end of the iron was the hot end!
I was just coming to RU-vid behringer to randomly ask that they do a LINN DRUM CLONE in their clones line up and what do you know Boom they already on it haha. Can't wait
Hopefully Behringer will replicate this bad boy!! Same timing, da conversion and audio path are crucial to the sound! And don’t forget the wooden side panels 😎
I bought a LinnDrum on eBay for $400 back in 2014 and sent it to Forat Music to restore and he never sent it back to me after multiple attempts to contact them.
It would be really easy to make one with today’s microcontrollers with the immense storage they have and processing speed. But I hope we (Behringer) will take a more traditional route with counters and EEPROM(s) so we can add samples on certain address lines. And a simple noisy 8 BIT ladder ADC around 1% resistors. That gives it this analog drift. Even if we just program the counters and the samples in an FPGA I’m fine with that, it doesn’t need to be discrete TTL logic chips. But those address counters with their own stepless clock is what makes it breathe.
I owned exact the same Linn a good 10 years ago the minus was you can't tune all the sounds only if you swap the eprom . And the play in sync need a extra enter on the start button. I forgot wat the clock rate was i know it was not the same rate from my Oberheim dx
