LinnDrum, or LM-2, went into production in 1982. LM-2 is an updated version of the LM-1, with added crash samples and cymbal rides. Unlike Roland TR series, the drum machine used 28-35 kHz samples of real acoustic drums. Thus, LinnDrum appeared to be a revolutionary instrument that offered beat makers a completely new kind of sample.
The drum library comprises 15 sounds: bass, snare, rim shot, hi-hat, crash, ride, tom, kabasa, tambourine, congas, cowbell and clap.
The interface contains individual controls for each sample: sliders with volume level adjustment, panning, and pitch knobs for individual snare, volume, conga and hi-hat release. Moreover 15 individual outputs are provided for each sample.
The sequencer has a few innovative features, such as swing, quantization and internal memory. 2 bar patterns can be recorded in real time, or in step mode with or without quantization. There are also 42 preset drum patterns. The patterns, if desired, can be transformed into songs for which there are 49 memory cells. Unused patterns can be moved to the cassette tape. The unique sound of the instrument appealed to such musicians as: a-ha, Stevie Wonder, The Human League, Jean-Michel Jarre, Jimmy Edgar, Jan Hammer, Peter Gabriel and Prince.
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