There are a few products in the history of electronic music that can be described as “monumental.” Roger Linn’s LM-1 drum computer was one of those monoliths. Linn’s engineering genius crafted a machine which used real samples of kicks, snares, rimshots and the rest which, in his famous turn of phrase, did not sound “like crickets” as competing products did. The LM-1 also incorporated quantizing, originally a “bug” that Linn recognized could become the drum machine’s greatest feature.
Only 525 Linn LM-1 drum machines were ever built, though the recipients were well-placed and the LM-1 filled some of the most innovative pop records of the 1980s from the likes of Prince, Gary Numan, Michael Jackson and Devo. Linn would go on to create a number of groundbreaking products including the MPC.
Fast forward several decades and a man who was cleaning out a storage room asked engineer Joe Britt if he would like to have one of those 525 manufactured Linn LM-1s he found inside. A self-described ’80s kid, Britt had been studying the LM-1 but could only understand so much without getting his hands on one.
“I think other folks had talked about building a clone of the LM-1 for a while, but it just hadn’t happened,” he writes. “When I got started on the project, I was worried — I thought, ‘I better hurry up and do this before someone else does!'”
As a result — and with the great Roger Linn’s blessing — Britt is knocking together a redesigned and expanded LM-1 based upon the original chips and schematics. According to Linn, Britt “remained faithful to the original hardware circuit, but 1) replaced the original sound ROMs with RAM chips, then 2) added a Teensy CPU board and software that could take control of the original circuit and computer when he wanted to load different sounds into the sound RAMs. He also replaced the original front panel 3-position pan switches with full-rotation pots — with illuminated shafts — that could act as either full pans or pitch controls.”
Renamed the “Luma-1” (after the canine mascot at his day job), Britt’s passion project appears to be nearing conclusion. The Luma-1 will not be a mass produced project — Britt has announced they will be releasing a small number of fully built Luma-1s for release at the eye-watering price of $4499 (which is actually still $500 cheaper than the original LM-1) with kits for the soder-ly inclined to wire together themselves to follow.
