From "The Billboard Book of Number One R&B Hits" :

...Roger Linn, a guitar player who worked with Leon Russell, almost joined Rufus, according to keyboard player David "Hawk" Wolinski.

"He dindn't sing, and that's why we didn't get him. But he had this drum machine invention that he wanted a lot of people to invest in,

and we didn't, being the visionaries we were." Although Linn didn't become part of the group, he contributed to Rufus' fourth Number

One Single, "Ain't Nobody"...

Wolinski, further in the article :

..."I came up with this goofy, little stupid beginning idea, a crazy thing. And then all of a sudden i attached a sequencer to it. If you recall,

at that time there were no sequencers. I had serial number 11 Roger Linn Drum Machine. I sat down with this drum machine [and] had this

little groove. I wanted to write a song." Not happy with he straight 4/4 dance music that was predominant at the time, Wolinski wanted to

write a song people could dance to that didn't follow the pack. "I didn't want the bass to hit at the same time as the bass drum. And i tried

to write his really weird thing...As soon as i came up with the idea, the rest of the song fell down immediately."...

[Edited 6/26/10 6:50am]

Wow. Can you imagine the possibilities?!

This is really interesting. I would watch a documentary on this guy and his invention. The Moog doc was excellent, btw.

Found these :

http://eng.mytrace.tv/vid...ftqbo.html

Roger Linn Design - Desig... Industry.

What was the FIRST song/album that used to the Linn Roger.

I know this ?uestion get brought up in here every once in awhile, but so far, all I got was vague answers. Wikipedia isn't much help either.

I'm SO fascinated with that instrument, and the Rhythm Ace.

Linn, the salesman :

"Even before the LM-1 went into production, Linn was able to drum up (pun intended) buyers. They must have wondered what they were in for, though. 'I had a prototype that wasn't actually producible, basically a cardboard box with a bunch of wire-wrap boards mounted inside. But it worked. I would show it to people who had come over to my house, and they would give me 50% deposits on the finished product. On occasion, I would take this cardboard box down to somebody's session and show it to them. It was pretty hilarious."

"Later, when I had a real prototype, I'd keep it in my car. At one party, I showed it to some members of Fleetwood Mac, and I generated some sales from that.' ... 'I used to play with Leon Russell, so he bought one. Stevie Wonder bought one of the first ones. Boz Scaggs bought one. So did Daryl Dragon (the Captain), Peter Gabriel."

http://www.synthmuseum.co...lm101.html

History

Roger Linn was a semi-professional guitarist in California in 1978 when he began to develop the LM-1 as an accompaniment tool for his home studio. He had experimented with many of the preset rhythm boxes which were popular at the time, but was dissatisfied and "wanted a drum machine that did more than play preset samba patterns and didn't sound like crickets." [1] Having learned how to program in BASIC and assembly language, Linn set to work on a computer program which could play user-programmed rhythm patterns, as well as chain them together to form a song. According to Linn, the first to suggest the idea of digital samples was Steve Porcaro of Toto. Linn himself doesn't remember exactly who played the sounds used for the samples; it has been suggested that they were a combination of several Los Angeles session drummers, possibly James Gadson, Art Wood, Ron Tutt, or Steve's brother Jeff Porcaro, also of Toto. Linn achieved his sounds by using a chip, built into the machine, which converted the digital samples into analogue audio. His first prototype, manufactured some time during 1979, was a cardboard box which contained the electronic components of the drum machine. Supposedly, Linn brought this prototype to parties and jobs and marketed it to fellow musicians, including Peter Gabriel, the members of Fleetwood Mac, and Stevie Wonder, who bought one of the first units ever produced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linn_LM-1