Nothing is more synonymous with Hip Hop than the sampler – a cornerstone on which Hip Hop is built. Without Kool Herc’s beat juggling of “breaks” from Soul, Disco, Jazz and Funk records there would be no Hip Hop and none of the countless breakbeat inspired genres that spawned off the back off its legacy.
It’s not controversial to say that the 1980s was an utterly transformative decade in music. Over the next how-ever-long it takes me I want to chronicle some of the music, year by year, that means something to me from a truly iconic decade.
When searching for this topic recently I was disappointed that well written articles had missed out one or two notable drum machines, or more thorough lists lacked examples, so here’s my short but sweet list of examples of the drum machines I think are worthy of inclusion.
I’ve been categorising my breakbeats folder by tempo for an upcoming project (more on this another time). The process involves selecting certain breaks, importing them to Logic, cropping them to exactly one, two, four or eights bars and detecting the tempo.