Roger Linn invented the LM-1, the first sample-based drum machine, then followed it with the LinnDrum, which appeared on Prince's Purple Rain and 1999, Tom Petty records, and Queen releases throughout the 1980s. Those are not his most important contributions.
That distinction belongs to the MPC, built in partnership with Akai. The MPC redefined how producers compose, sequence, and perform, and its influence runs directly through modern hip-hop, electronic music, and studio production. The full piece gets into how Linn thinks about that legacy and what his actual working process looks like today.
The interview is worth reading not for the career retrospective but for the specifics: how he limits himself to one browser tab, how he frames the relationship between tools and creativity, and what a 40-year veteran of music technology actually worries about now.
[READ ORIGINAL →]