I’d like to say that the first drum machine that I ever programmed was a Roland TR-909 that I picked up for £50 in a car boot sale in the early 80s, and then sold last week for the to say that. The truth is, that it was an Alesis HR16, in a box that was shaped like a telephone (rumoured to be that shape because Alesis found a job lot of old telephones in a skip, although I might have just made that up). To be honest, it was actually a rather joyous thing and a machine with extreme sample pitching, a feature (kind of) carried forward to my long-time favourite piece of drum software, Microtonic. As ever with music software, we can chortle at history, wonder at how much it cost back then and then gloat about what we use now and how little we paid for it. And why not?! So that’s exactly what we’re doing in this issue which is all about beats. We have three drum machines as giveaways, thousands of samples and a stack of tutorials on all sorts of beat creation: from basic to Kate Bush, mixing to Bambaataa. The emphasis is on saving you time and, more importantly, cash. So if you don’t already have the beats, we’re supplying them free in a variety of ways. Think of it as saving your pennies for more important things in life. Like car boot sales and bargains. I’ll see you at the next one on Sunday at 6am. I’m sure I’ll be able to grab that elusive 909 if I get there early…
