A History of Music and Technology: Samplers and Drum Machines

The Documentary Podcast

• Episode: A History of Music and Technology: Samplers and Drum Machines
• Website: The Documentary Podcast
• Feed URL: http://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p02nq0lx.rss
• Duration: 00:50:28
• Published: 2019-06-18 12:12

Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason explores how samplers and drum machines created new musical genres. During the 1980s, samplers and drum machines fuelled a new wave of music from hip hop to house to techno. In this programme we hear from the inventors behind this landmark technology and reveal how it first found traction with millionaire rock stars, rather than hip young DJs, due to its huge expense. We learn how cheaper Japanese products – first deemed a commercial flop - were then re-discovered, re-used and abused by dance floor innovators who created new musical genres which could never have existed without this technology.