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"Allen & Heath's records suggest only 140 of these instruments were completed, some with MIDI functions, some without, and some with 64K RAM as specified in the handbook.
This example has MIDI and 256K RAM.
AHB released this machine in the early 80s - you can read my article about it in the
August 2004 issue of Sound on Sound, which is available online. I'm also including this issue of the magazine with the drum machine. (Incidentally, at some point during creating that article I was given the wrong name for one of the project members - it should be Simon Bohanon, not Simon Jones, as the sound engineer).
Features:
The Inpulse One is exceptionally pleasant to program - if you look at the pictures you'll see the zoned, large control panel, and the step-sequencer method of programming in action. The pads are velocity sensitive, and designed to be played with sticks - former Argent drummer Bob Henrit was a consultant during the development of the Inpulse One.
The sounds are quite compressed, very early 80s Cure in feel.
MIDI implementation is patchy. You can assign each pad (16 voices in all theoretically) to a range of keys and play the pad across that range with pitch variations, but it doesn't send MIDI note data - it appears to send MIDI timecode. It has a timecode display as well; I haven't fully explored this feature since I have no use for it.
It has 256K RAM, which should allow for some fairly impressive sounds!
It has individual outputs, trigger inputs, mix output connections, as well as tape I/O, pedal and MIDI interfaces. Stereo placement can be adjusted per pad (copy one sound to another pad, pan them left/right, and make sequences with panned drums!), volume and accent can be set in programming mode as can pitch. Patterns can be chained into songs and it has a substantial memory for these.
Built like a tank - as you can see, the PSU is an example of how well made this drum machine is. There is nothing else like it, and probably never will be again."
