MXR 185 Digital Drum Computer

via this auction

"The MXR 185 Digital Drum Computer was a noble but brief attempt by MXR to break into the once burgeoning market of the drum machine frenzy in the early 80s. The Founder of MXR and also Alesis, Keith Barr, saw the potential for an "in" into the market and decided to consult both Roger Linn and Tom Oberheim on the design concepts of a proper digital drum machine. At the time of the development of what was to become the 185, Roger Linn who reveling in the glory of the LM-1, was just putting the finishing touches on the LinnDrum and Tom Oberheim who already had massive success with the DMX was looking to make improvements with the DX. The MXR 185 was one of the EARLY drum machines and was directly modeled after the Linn and Oberheim concepts. Unfortunately, the MXR was unable to recreate the allure of the Linn and DMX which were already de facto staples in the music industry. Though this drum machine definitely embodies the essence of the earliest drum machines, it really didn't offer anything that made the buyer want to change what they had and with MIDI popping up on the scene at this time, MXR was just a little behind in what was a very high-pace and ferociously competitive time in the electronic music instrument industry...

First off, this unit is really clean. This would be perfect for a museum or for a Rompler Mod project. The sounds are thick and chunky like a Linn and just dripping with character. The unit does NOT have MIDI though there are MIDI to PPQ converters out there to make it run on MIDI. The sequencer section has a couple of limitations like: You can't change programs while the sequencer is running. You have to press stop, change patterns and then press start again. The unit does not like corrupt patterns. I have confirmed that the CR2032 memory battery in this unit is dead so if the unit sits long enough with no power, the memory starts to fault and then you will have to program the pattern again. All this unit really needs though is someone to take it under their wing and give it a purposeful life again. It's very cool, very rare and very clean."