Linn 9000

Linn 9000
Linn 9000 integrated digital drum machine and MIDI keyboard recorder.
Manufacturer	Linn Electronics
Dates	1984-1986
Price	US $5,000 ($7,000 fully expanded)
Technical specifications
Polyphony	polyphonic 13 voices
Timbrality	multitimbral 18 voices
Synthesis type	8 bit Digital Samples / 11 kHz - 37kHz
Storage memory	100 Drum Sequences, 100 MIDI Sequences - 10,490 notes
Effects	Individual level, pan, tuning for all sounds
Input/output
Keyboard	18 large (1.25 inch square) velocity and pressure sensitive rubber pads
External control	MIDI In/Out/Thru, Foot Switch x2, Foot Controller x1 (hi-hat), Sync Tone In/Out, trigger outputs x2, trigger inputs x6

The Linn 9000 is an electronic musical instrument manufactured by Linn Electronics as the successor to the LinnDrum. It was introduced in 1984 at a list price of $5,000, ($7,000 fully expanded) and about 1100 units were produced.

It combined MIDI sequencing and audio sampling (optional) with a set of 18 velocity and pressure sensitive performance pads, to produce an instrument optimized for use as a drum machine. It featured programmable hi-hat decay, 18 digital drum sounds, a mixer section, 18 individual 1/4" outputs, an LCD display, 6 external trigger inputs and an internal floppy disk drive (optional). The Linn 9000 had innovative and groundbreaking features and would influence many future drum machine designs. But chronic software bugs led to a reputation for unreliability and contributed to the eventual demise of Linn Electronics.

The Linn 9000 would get a new lease on life when Forat Music and Electronics purchased Linn's remaining assets, fixed all of the bugs, added new features and dubbed it the Forat F9000.

The Linn 9000 would be Roger Linn's first attempt to create an integrated sampling/sequencing/MIDI work station. He would draw heavily on the Linn 9000 and the Sequential Circuits Inc. Studio 440 when he designed the Akai MPC60, released in 1988.

The Linn 9000 was plagued with problems from the beginning.

On early models, the power supply over-heated the CPU and had to be replaced under warranty. The original Linn 9000 operating system was mostly written in an esoteric high-level programming language called FORTH with some machine language. In early versions, some of the FORTH code produced unacceptable delays in user interface functions and was rewritten in machine language. But the operating system had numerous bugs and it was common for the machine to lock-up and lose data.