About 10 years ago, a disgruntled pianist in Los Angeles named John Wood began a popular bumper sticker campaign with the slogan, "Drum Machines Have No Soul." Not everyone was convinced, including producer Eric Sadler.
"Drum machines don't run themselves," Sadler says. "It's the people who put into the drum machines that give the drum machines soul, to me. I've definitely given some drum machines some soul."
Sadler was part of The Bomb Squad, the production team behind Public Enemy, which used drum machines — among many other devices — to help shift the sound of pop music in the late '80s.
Here's the thing: The earliest drum machines were never intended to be studio recording devices. Take Wurlitzer's 1959 Sideman, one of the first commercially available drum machines. It used vacuum tubes to create its percussive sound, and was intended for organ players who perhaps didn't want to pay a drummer to join their lounge act.