Modified Linn LM-1

images via this auction. via Bill.

"Extremely rare, only 500 were ever made. This is the machine that changed the way we record, and became the voice of pop music in the eighties. It’s the classic sound heard on Prince’s When Doves Cry, 1999 and others. It was used by The Human League, Art of Noise, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, and just about everybody else back then. It was the first programmable drum machine to feature samples of real drums. It retailed for $4995.00, and is the only piece of equipment that I ever paid list price for—there was a waiting list, and I was lucky to get one! Yes, I am the original owner. Auction includes the original owner’s manual.

About this particular unit, serial no. 00331: It has been sitting in its Anvil case in the garage for about twenty years. Sad, but true, how fickle we are with equipment. It worked perfectly when I put it away, and after bringing it back to life, I am happy to say that it is about 97% fully functional. Here’s what’s going on:

The batteries are possibly (probably) dead, and one of the connecting leads has come away from the battery pack. It appears that a screw is missing. Not being a tech, I don’t want to risk hooking up this lead in case I’m wrong. I don’t have a schematic for the machine, and probably couldn’t read it if I did. Therefore, the machine will not retain anything programmed into it when the power is turned off. Be that as it may, the unit still records, and functions as it did back in the day. I haven’t gone through and tested every single function such as swing, and linking up patterns, but recording a pattern works fine. The sliders on the mixer are a little bit dirty, and the upper conga will disappear from the mix sometimes because of this. It comes back from moving the fader up and down, so I assume a good cleaning will take care of that. I haven’t tested the individual outs, they need cleaning as well. After sitting in the Anvil case all that time, some of the foam from inside the case dried up and stuck to the outputs. The left and right stereo outs work fine, as do the pan switches for each individual channel.

Long ago, I had the machine modified to allow more chips to be installed, and there are three switches on the back panel that change the kick, congas and snare. There are two kicks installed, and the snare channel has a nifty fingersnap sound when one of the switches is thrown. There is also a ¼” unlabeled jack on the back that I have no idea what it’s for—it was all a long time ago.

Cosmetically, it’s not too bad; a few scratches on the top panel, most likely from other gear being set on top of it. This machine was only used in the studio, and only transported in the case, but it IS 25 years old, and shows some wear and tear that you can see in the photos."