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Comment by TheOtherHobbes | Hacker News Reader

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?)

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>"The original sampling drum machine was created by Roger Nichols in 1978 for now-somewhat-forgotten 70s band Steely Dan.

Steely Dan has been a continuous staple of AOR and classic rock radio since their first album in 1972. There was even a huge resurgence of their popularity with the whole "yacht rock" movement. They even won three Grammys for 2001's "Two Against Nature" 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."

This is not correct. Steely Dan's stable of studio musicians were the best in the business. Their drummers on this album Rick Marotta, Steve Gadd, Jeff Porcaro and Bernard Purdie would all be considered perfect time keepers. The impetus for the creation of the "Wendell" was not to make up for precision in time keeping, it's primary function was as a drum sampler. This would then allow Becker and Fagen the ability to obsessively control things like inflection - a softer high hat here, a different snare accent there, after the drums were recorded. It's primary function was not a source of time keeping. For example it's actually Rick Marotta's drum playing you hear on "Hey Nineteen", just sampled via the Wendell and then compiled from many different takes.

Grocery stores are closed for a few months and everybody forgets about Steely Dan.

The Last Mall seems relevant these days.

https://youtu.be/H0LRHUwEnFk

> now-somewhat-forgotten 70s band Steely Dan.

That's a well-known classic band and I don't think they are nearly forgotten, as you say.

Just because they're not required-classic-pop-learning for kids these days doesn't mean much.

Do It Again gets radio airtime to this day.

While I was teaching myself electronics over the course of a year or so, I would listen to the classic rock station as background music. After about a month of listening I noticed I could tell which song would come next. Their playlist was about 48 hours. There are only so many classic rock hits after all. When Do It Again would play, it felt like that was the start of the playlist.

One of the most important bands of all time regarding where they took song-writing as well. So yeah, not forgotten at all... also one of the most impactful and relevant North American bands (one that you'll be taught stuff from if you take a good Modern Song Writing program in a serious institution :) )

> now-somewhat-forgotten 70s band Steely Dan

That's a little like saying "now-somewhat forgotten 60s band, The Rolling Stones". Steely Dan is one of the very most highly respected rock bands in history.

Since we're being pedantic.

Steel Dan's last live tour was 1974.

Rolling Stones wrapped up a 3-year tour last year.

I'll forego arguments about original line-ups, solo performances, etc.

According to Wikipedia, Steely Dan toured on and off well past 1974 with their last live shows with Walter Becker in 2017 who died later that year.

But fine. Obscure 60s band, The Beatles.

This back and forth could be best portrayed by a Tech Moan puppet skit.

Steely Dan is quite a lot more than just a rock band. It was more like a pop band with formidable song-writing. Both founders were very well versed in the tradition of Jazz and the harmonic development that you can find on a ton of steely dan's songs is way, way beyond what you'll find on traditional rock legend bands (Beatles, Zeppelin, etc.)

> Steely Dan is quite a lot more than just a rock band. It was more like a pop band with formidable song-writing.

They're hard to place, that is certain. But you are completely right, their melodic and harmonic content (and famously their anal-retentive perfectionism) was far, far beyond anything else. There's a reason they're held in such high regard in the industry.

> The Steely Dan people were notoriously obsessive about drum timing, which was a bad thing to be when all you had were human drummers.

The irony to this is today's drumming plugins add variance to sounds and timing to make the recordings sound more "human".

That depends on the genre, just as before. With house, hip-hop (most of it anyway) or any other style with funky, playful atmosphere, you want swing in your patterns. With techno, synth pop, post-punk, or any of many other styles that have robotic, cold aesthetic, you want drums programmed straight to the grid, and often without any sincopation in the patterns, too.

The swing that you are describing, and the jitter (“variance”) that GP is describing are different things. :)

Yep, swing is still always within the same timing window and doesn't fluctuate. I mean yeah your 8th note repeating midi hihats with swing won't hit the beat with a perfect precision but the interval between the notes will still remain the same. Beats with swing can still sound mechanic.

The humanizing features OP mentions (like what Ableton live has) introduces random amounts of shifting timings or velocity, which is very different. If you want swing, you'll still have to add that separately.

Wendel was neat, but I think the best-named drum machine was the one put to use by Sisters of Mercy:

"Doktor Avalanche"

https://www.discogs.com/artist/463064-Doktor-Avalanche

"The good Doktor is renowned as the only member of the Sisters of Mercy to have remained with Andrew Eldritch through the many incidents of in-fighting, splits and new line-ups. "

Although, as the linked to page explains, he has been incarnated in several different forms (i.e. he hasn't always been the same drum machine).

I can still vividly remember the `woah, what is that?!?' of hearing the Sisters of Mercy song Body and Soul coming out of my older brother's room.

Sisters Of Mercy have quite a lot of information on their website about the equipment they use, including a page dedicated to the various Doctor incarnations:

http://www.the-sisters-of-mercy.com/tech/doktors.htm

Everyone knows about Steely Dan!

Because why not?

Well, other atomic choices for atomic clocks actually clock too slow to to use (looking at you quartz), or too impractical (cesium). Rubidium is the only choice for clocking audio in.

Reminded me about "How Computers Ruined Rock Music": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFaRIW-wZlw

I don't know: I like some of Rick Beato's content, but I don't agree with him about this. The music industry has been putting out low-rent manufactured music for decades[0]. Computers are just another tool they've used to do that, but computers have also been used to help create great music.

[0] Seriously, there's a bunch of great music from the 60s - and that's what everybody remembers - but there's also a ton of absolute pap from that same decade. You just don't hear it too often any more (thankfully!).

> there's also a ton of absolute pap from that same decade

While this is no doubt true, the rate has plummeted from (say) 15% greatness to 0% greatness among commercial music. The business model has changed, with 360 contracts and producer-centric, sales-hyper-focused development. There's great music out there, but it's not being produced by the big labels any more, and that's something truly, and unfortunately, new.

I agree 100% but it clearly wasn’t computers or quantization that caused the shitward turn. I love Rick Beato as well but I think he’s conflating two different issues on this one.

Well, yes and no. Ultimately this was all caused by Napster, iTunes, Spotify, and the near-death experience they caused in the music industry. I think the labels were forced to change their business models because of them. Computers and digitization of music made those distribution services, and near-death experiences, possible.

If you're hearing Steely Dan is now-somewhat-forgotten you're overdue for fresh contemporaries.

Wow, never heard this story before. Thanks for sharing!

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