The original sampling drum machine was created by Roger Nichols in 1978 for now-somewhat-forgotten 70s band Steely Dan. It was called "Wendel" and it received its own platinum record.
The Steely Dan people were notoriously obsessive about drum timing, which was a bad thing to be when all you had were human drummers.
So when they said "It's a shame we can't build a machine to move the drum parts back and forward by milliseconds" Nichols said "I can do that if you give me $150,000." It took him a few weeks.
It was an S100 system connected to a video-grade DAC/ADC sampling at 12-bits and 125kHz - which was incredible tech for the late 70s.
He also built a commercial Rubidium atomic clock for use as a digital timebase in recording studios. (Because why not?)
The Steely Dan people were notoriously obsessive about drum timing, which was a bad thing to be when all you had were human drummers.
So when they said "It's a shame we can't build a machine to move the drum parts back and forward by milliseconds" Nichols said "I can do that if you give me $150,000." It took him a few weeks.
It was an S100 system connected to a video-grade DAC/ADC sampling at 12-bits and 125kHz - which was incredible tech for the late 70s.
He also built a commercial Rubidium atomic clock for use as a digital timebase in recording studios. (Because why not?)