Identify this Analogue Percussion Machine...

[YooDooRight]

Can any vintage gear enthusiasts help me identify a drum machine from the early/mid 70's?

I'm looking to re-create that 'brash' analogue percussion machine sound that bands like Suicide, Harmonia, Kraftwerk and Brian Eno used. I've had various suggestions (Bently Rhythm Ace, Korg Minipops, Roland CR-68 ec) but after downloading samples into Logic, none of them seem quite right.

If you search for 'Veteranissimo' on the itunes store you can hear a free snippet of Harmonia using this very drum machine.

There are also some free Suicide samples here:
http://mog.com/music/Suicide


I've tried creating my own using Korg Minipops samples i downloaded but im missing that harsh shaker/hihat sound that is typical of these bands and the overall analogue compression factor is lost... my results are typically flat and lifeless sounding. How can i recreate this machine on a Mac with all its cheap analogue charm?

 

[Kirk Markarian]

I read that they used an organ drum machine to make these sounds, but if you have the samples of the Korg Minipops, you might want to try heavily compressing the hi-hat/shaker sound that you have, and include a very short delay time, to simulate a cheap reverb. Delay in the milliseconds range.

Another thing you could try is using a light-overdrive plug-in, and then a short room reverb over the whole sample mix.

When trying to emulate bands like Suicide, etc., keep in mind that that had really cheap equipment. That being said, the radio-shack reverb plug-in, and other types of lo-fi plugins will help you get a lo-fidelity sound. I used to use Reason 2.5 to sequence, and they had a great multi-distortion unit that would compress and distort and emulate tape saturation. Made some nice sounds out of that.

Many lo-fi music sounds are generated by terrible reverb and delay units, and tape recorder pre-amps. I hope some of these ideas might help you.

Also, if you are getting a flat and lifeless mix on the samples, you could also try some light panning of the stereo mix of the drums. I recall listening to Suicide, and the drums weren't exactly dead center, they had a "spatialized" sound to them, but it was subtle.

 

[altitude909]

Maybe a MFB-502

http://www.mfberlin.de/Produkte/Musikelektronik/MFB-502/mfb-502.html

very lofi

 

[Somnium7]

An awesome source for cool lofi drum sounds is really cheap old PC soundcards. You can pick up these junky old soundcards for dirt or even free if you know where to look. Borrow someones PC and swap these old cards in and sample the percussion sounds from them.

Another good source is toy instruments. In my local thrift store I go to the toy isle and try out all the toy instruments and buy the ones with the coolest sounds. Some of my favorite percussion sounds come from these.

While your in the thrift stores keep an eye out for old rhythm boxes for home organs. The nastiest bass sound I ever heard came from this crappy little fake wood box with buttons called the Rhythmatic 2000. The one I used to own had a tear in the speaker cone which made it sound incredible with the volume cranked.