Roger Linn on How Prince Made The Drum Machine Cool

Amongst his copious innovations, Prince's championing of the drum machine as more drum than machine redefined sample-based production across the board. The instrument, in his case the Linn Electronics LM-1 (a predecessor to the LinnDrum,) would eventually become synonymous with "genius period" Prince, punctuating some of his biggest hits . Instant-recall drum palettes that were crisp, cold and dry, effected by any number of guitar pedals on any given Sunday, yet still as singularly Prince as any other part of the cut.

Roger Linn, creator of the seminal LM-1, recently reflected on The Purple One's integration of his hardware into the foundation of The Paisley Machine. Though he'd never met Prince in-person, Linn was keenly familiar with the catalog (particularly the big ones -- "1999" and "When Doves Cry") and grateful for the new sense of cool brought to his sonic experiments through Prince's all-angle-takeover. You can hear the full interview along with a grip of testaments to the LM-1's timelessness in our Purple Politics playlist. Subscribe to our Spotify channel for even more selections.

>>>Hear Roger Linn's full interview with transcript (via thecurrent.org)