rare birds: Elka Drummer One

video upload by ohm_studi_ohm

"Quick demo of an Elka Drummer One I just serviced. Every single electrolytic capacitors were replaced. You really HAVE to do it on those units, otherwise it doesn't sound like it should, and deserve. There is no way the bad quality capacitors italian manufacturers used in the 60s and 70s could still be in shape 50 years after. And it impacts the sound a lot in those analog drum machine, especially the attack and decay of the sounds.
Apart from that and trimmers that need attention it is a quite well built unit and easy to service.
I tuned the sound with quite long decay, I like when the sound, especially toms and congas, are bouncy. You could of course make them tighter if you like.
It's a pity the unit doesn't have more patterns that use the Cowbell and Conga sound. There is only one pattern using them each.
It is however easy to add MIDI or trigger input should you want to play the sounds as a regular drum expander.

Please note there is a slight distortion at some point in the video, it doesn't come from the Elka but from the Teisco Vocal 120 mixer it is plugged in, which has some very dirty gain attenuator switches i never manage to really clean, so eventually i'll replace them. Anyway, here is the Elka Drummer One.
Listen with headphones or decent speakers !"