A: (updated 2023) Of all the ways to lose huge amounts of money, making a prototype of your idea is one of the most effective. First, there's a very good chance that others (and possibly many others) have thought of your product idea before, and the reason it isn't already on the market is either 1) others don't find it as valuable as you do, or 2) the necessary engineering or material costs would make it sufficiently expensive that few would buy it. Second, I only create products of my own design.

The first thing to do is to learn the true value of your product idea in the marketplace. One of the biggest mistakes people make is to think that everyone will value their idea as much as they do. First document your product idea, including a clear text description, drawings or 3D renderings and a realistic customer price. To arrive at the realistic customer price, don't use a price you'd like it to sell for, but rather what it must sell for considering the total parts cost, development cost, manufacturer profit and retailer profit. Then take an objective survey of people you know and don't know, asking them not if they like it but rather would they definitely buy it at the realistic price you've given. To insure they aren't just telling you what you want to hear, tell them it's someone else's idea, not yours, and don't appear to like or dislike it.

If you still want to make a prototype, try to find a way to make it for no more than $1000 and ideally for free. If you're not technical and you have some friends who are, get them excited about it and ask for free help in exchange for future payment if you make any money later. Important: try to avoid designing new circuit boards, embedded software (software that runs on the small computers inside self-contained products) and metal/plastic mechanical housings. Very commonly, people start doing this thinking they'll spend only a few thousand dollars then later find they've drained their relatives' savings only to teach themselves how difficult it is.

If you've asked to have a call with me about learning about developing a product, I'm sorry but such a discussion is a bottomless pit and my time is limited. However, if you are sufficiently interested, there are many low-cost resources for learning hardware and software development, and you're welcome to enroll in my annual Stanford workshop mentioned above.

For many music product ideas, it's possible to--by yourself--create a functional prototype by connecting and reconfiguring a variety of existing low-cost hardware and software music/audio products. It won't be pretty but will be functional and therefore allow you to prove your concept at low cost and therefore give a better demonstration of its usefulness. For hardware and human interface (buttons, knobs, sliders, drum pads, etc.), use existing low-cost Midi control surfaces. To prototype the software function, it's often easier to use graphic programming environments like Max/MSP, Max for Live, or the free PD. For prototyping hardware and software, the low-cost Teensy and Audio Adaptor controller boards from www.pjrc.com is excellent and includes their Audio Library, a graphical tool for programming audio processing and synthesis. The Daisy Seed board from www.electro-smith.com is also excellent and has 24-bit audio in/out on the board, and similarly includes a library of audio processing and synthesis functions.

You might also consider taking an annual one-week workshop that I co-teach at Stanford university's CCRMA computer music school, in which students create their music project ideas based on the Teensy platform. (That site also contains links to helpful resources for low-cost hardware/software development tools.)

Regarding presenting your idea to a music products company so they will pay you a royalty and design/manufacturer it for you, this is a highly unlikely scenario. While companies are always interested in their customers' free suggestions, it's very unlikely that they will pay anybody for anything unless they absolutely have no choice. Often they will politely decline to hear your idea because 1) customers' products ideas are rarely unique, and 2) if they were already planning the same idea, they don't want you to later accuse them of stealing your idea. However, if they truly feel it's worth spending their money to make your idea into a product and they feel you have the necessary skills to help them, probably the best scenario is that they may offer you a job.

Regarding how to patent your idea, getting a patent is another great way to lose lots of money. You can't actually patent an idea but rather only the implementation of an idea. And it's unlikely that your idea is sufficiently unique -- or is not obvious to someone skilled in the field of your idea-- that a patent would do you any good. Also, having a patent doesn't prevent anyone from stealing your idea but rather simply gives you a better case for infringement if and when you must hire an expensive lawyer to sue them.

My best recommendation is to use some of the aforementioned tools like Teensy to make a functioning prototype of your idea, then put it in a stock metal or plastic box, drill holes for knobs or other controls, screen-print the front panel, figure out any other details, then build 10 or 25 of them and sell them yourself on your web site, all in evenings and weekends without quitting your day job. Don't worry about business licenses or regulations because no one will care until you're making significant money. In this initial phase, you'll learn how much others value your idea, and whether your design needs to be changed. Then only once you're confident that people value your design, you can look into manufacturing and expensive up-front costs like custom parts.

Having written the above, it is also true that there are few things more personally gratifying than the exhilaration of creating and using a product that came from your own idea. The good news is that, armed with a willingness to learn some of the inexpensive tools I've described above as well as a little self-honesty, you stand a better chance than ever before of turning your idea into a functioning prototype. If people like it, maybe make a few more, place an ad and sell them yourself while you figure out how to make it cheaper and prettier. Regardless of whether it makes you money or not, you will have taken a fascinating journey, learned valuable new skills, influenced the art of music-making and made a personal contribution to the world of ideas.

A: (2026) I appreciate the value that some people place on these old products and the famous songs that they were used to create. I do too, and I was very lucky that they were so successful. I'll always cherish those products and the music that creative artists used them to make.

First, I couldn't reissue the MPC60 or MPC3000 because though I designed them with Akai, they were Akai products. But I'm very impressed with the features, price, rhythmic feel and audio quality of the current MPCs. I have an MPC Live III and I find myself using it over a DAW when I want to make music. Here's a video I made about the Live II.

And regarding reissuing the LM-1 or LinnDrum, you can buy a recreation of the original LM-1, a design that perfectly recreates the original circuitry and sound, but adds modern features like loadable sounds, USB, MIDI, front panel pitch and pan pots, and more, but added in such a way that they have no effect whatsoever on the LM-1's circuit, rhythm feel or sound quality. It's called Luma-1 and is designed by my good friend and superb design engineer Joe Britt, and manufactured and sold by another friend and skilled engineer Andrei Kudryavtsev through his company Deft Audio. You can learn the story here and buy one here.

Regarding me personally making reissues, I'm less interested in drum machines than I was in the 1980s, I've always been more interested in the future and new ideas than in the past and nostalgia, and the current popular focus on reissuing old products sometimes feels to me a little like "Make Drum Machines Great Again" :) Also, from an engineering perspective, it's very tedious and boring to recreate a product for which the parts no longer exist, and not particularly fun for me. It's a good thing that Akai is making excellent new MPCs, and that Joe Britt has recreated the LM-1 while adding modern features.

A: (2023) I had been working on a new drum machine with a working title of "LinnDrum II". I'm sorry to say that I've stopped working on it. In future I may partner with a larger company to resume development, but I have no current plans to do so. Here's why:

People often say they want only a simple drum machine, but when asked for details I've often found that they really want a drum machine that appears to be simple and gives them an alternative to computers, but which has most of the modern hardware and software features of computers and software. This makes sense for a machine that records your music because music is highly individual and  people have different needs for how they create, edit, perform and mix their music, and for how they move it to and from other devices. However, making a self-contained device that has most of the functions of computer software is a complex development task, and I found the project to be too large, expensive and complex for my little company.

I must admit that I'm less interested in drum machines than I was in the 1980s. The focus of my interest these days is on new and better human interfaces for music performance, which is what I'm doing with my LinnStrument products. To me, this feels like the future, in the same way that my old drum machines felt like the future back in 1979.

Most of the cool new things that LinnDrum II would have been able to do can be done now with LinnStrument and computer software. Here's an example:

https://youtu.be/HHWrSs8o1V4

A: After high school, I worked as a session guitarist, songwriter, recording engineer and synthesizer programmer. After kicking around in various bands, my first professional gig was playing guitar on tour for Mary McCreary in 1974 at age 19. Mary was an artist for Leon Russell's Shelter Records. Within a year, Mary was added as the warm-up act on Leon's tours in 1975. During those tours, Leon and Mary fell in love and eventually married, and I got to know Leon, bonding around music and technology, and he eventually hired me as a recording engineer, general music tech nerd, and touring guitarist for the Leon and Mary Russell tour in 1976. During that time, I engineered Leon's albums Will O' the Wisp and The Wedding Album, as well as some engineering for others, including The Gap Band and guitar and engineering work for Dwight Twilley's song Sincerely.

Around 1977, after stopping work with Leon, I did various guitar and engineering work in LA, but also bought my first computer and started learning how to code, focusing on music applications and some games. But I also did some songwriting, including co-writing Eric Clapton's Promises in 1979 and Quittin' Time, which was later re-recorded in 1990 by Mary Chapin Carpenter. I also enjoyed making some instrumental tracks, usually unfinished, like this one.

A: Yes. My father taught music theory and composition at the University of Southern California, and my mother played piano and sung light opera. But growing up in the 60s, music was a big part of young people’s lives, and I was drawn to guitar and the music of the day, especially the Beatles.

A: I have only a high school diploma, though I later studied humanities but no engineering. However, when you’re very curious and motivated, you tend to absorb information very fast. Also, the 1960s had a big focus on the future and the emerging technology of electronics and computers, which I found to be fascinating. Arthur C. Clarke has a wonderful quote: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." It was magical to me.

A: When creating my early songwriting demos in my teens, I could play guitar, bass and some keyboards, but drums were always the most difficult for me to play and record, so I sought a better solution. Then while working with Leon Russell, I liked how he would use the early drum machines of the day in recordings in order to keep the timing steady, then erase the drum machine track. However, the drumbeats of these early machines were fixed and the sounds were poor. Leon mentioned his desire for a programmable drum machine and mentioned that he had discussed this idea with the Roland company. After I stopped working with Leon Russell, I bought an early computer and wrote some programs for music and games, including one for programming drumbeats, which I discuss on this page under the "Linn Electronics" tab.

A: This may surprise you, but I generally don't listen to music with drum machines, preferring music made with skilled drummers. The reason is that I value the spontaneous interaction between human musicians, and how they react to each other's dynamics, sensitivity, tempo, and ideas. I've sometimes smiled when thinking how I'd describe a drum machine to other musicians in human terms:

"This drummer is deaf and blind, so he can't hear, see or react to you in any way, including even basic things like following your tempo or dynamics. For these reason, you must always follow his tempo and tell him exactly what to play for all sections of the song." :)

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A: Around 1977, I  bought an early computer and was writing various software programs for music and games, just for fun. One of those was a programmable drum and bass machine, which permitted entering your drumbeats in step time into a grid on the computer screen, and made drum sounds by wiring my computer to an analog drum sound circuit board from a Roland drum machine. This was used for the drums on Leon Russell's 1979 album Life and Love. Though the prototype permitted programming your own drumbeats, its sounds were poor. I had become aware of the emerging technology of digital recording, which stored audio digitally as numbers on tape. Given that a drum machine only needed to store a short recording--perhaps only a 1/4 second-- of a bass drum, snare drum, hihat and few others--it occurred to me that one sample of each of these sounds could be stored in a small amount of computer memory, then a software sequencing program could trigger the playback of these individual drum samples as needed to play the programmed drumbeat. This evolved into a functional but ugly prototype consisting of a cardboard box containing some circuit boards. In early 1979, I showed this prototype around to LA musicians, asking for 50% deposits toward a finished $5000 drum machine called "LM-1 Drum Computer" that I eventually released in 1980 (later than promised) from my new company Linn Electronics. I built 10 units, then 25, then my friend Bob Easton of 360 Systems offered to help me with manufacturing. He also became an important mentor for me, helping fill in the gaps in my self-taught engineering knowledge.

A: Two main things:

1) Instead of the poor quality synthesized drum sounds that were common on early drum machines, the LM-1 introduced digital samples of real drums, resulting in higher sound quality.

2) Instead of fixed drumbeats, the LM-1 permitted the user to program his own drumbeats, as well as arrangements of those drumbeats. To make the programming intuitive, I created a system of real time recording, where you would tap drum buttons in real time to a metronome. To correct the player’s timing errors made while tapping the buttons, I invented something called timing correction, which would move your tapped entries to the nearest 16th or 8th note. And to add a human feel similar to talented drummers, I invented swing timing, which added subtle degrees of swing timing to the entered drumbeat.

A: Real time programming is more intuitive than step time because musicians already know how to play rhythmically. Step Time forces you to do a mental conversion from something you already know to something that the computer prefers.

That said, the problem with real time programming is that people can make timing errors, or can't play the desired parts with the timing or feel of a skilled drummer. So I needed to come up with a way to let people record their beats in real time, while also correcting their timing errors and adding a human timing. My invention of Timing Correction -- now commonly called Quantize-- fixed the timing error by moving real time entries onto the nearest 8th or 16th notes. And my invention of Swing Timing gave their programmed beats a human feel by moving their real time entries onto subtle degrees of swing timing.

A: Some of the more prominent users include Leon Russell, Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Giorgio Morodor, Prince, Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, the Human League, Peter Gabriel, Michael Jackson, Steve and Jeff Porcaro of Toto, Gary Numan, Bruce Hornby, Tears for Fears, Steve Winwood, Tina Turner, Genesis, Phil Collins, Steve Hackett, Fleetwood Mac, Queen, Paul McCartney, Heaven 17, Don Henley and many more that I've forgotten.

A: Only around 525, but they were all in the right hands. Note that the $5000 price in 1980 is equivalent to around $18,000 in 2026, so few could afford it.

A: It was the 1981 hit "Don't You Want Me" by Human League. It was very exciting hearing it on the radio. Although I wasn't a good enough guitarist to play on hit recordings, hearing the LM-1 on hit songs gave me a nice feeling of playing on them.

A: They were all played by my friend and former bandmate Art Wood, who had played in the 70s for artists including Gary Wright and Peter Frampton. The sessions were funny. Art would set up a drum in a closet in my house, then I'd record a few strikes and pick the best one. It's amazing that Art's single strike of each drum is heard on so many hit recordings.

A: My friend Bob Easton warned me that I needed to make a less expensive drum machine before other companies released one. So I made the LinnDrum, which sold for $3000 instead of the LM-1's $5000 price. The LinnDrum added crash and ride cymbals, longer sample lengths, changeable sound chips, and five inputs for drum pad triggers.

A: I've never made a product called LM-2. For some odd reason, some people refer to the LinnDrum as "LM-2", even though "LM-2" appears nowhere on LinnDrum and "LinnDrum" is printed in large letters on the front panel. Go figure. 

A: Around 5000 units. After a year or two, I reduced the price to $2500 to better compete with sampled-sound drum machines from Oberheim and Sequential. 

A: It added user sampling of sounds, MIDI, a multi-track MIDI sequencer, SMPTE sync, velocity and pressure-sensitive drum pads, an alphanumeric display, a modular architecture with card slots, a programmable mixer, and SMPTE sync. It sold for between $5000 and $7000 depending on options. A total of around 1100 units were sold. 

A: It was an attempt at a redesign of the Linn 9000 for better reliability and manufacturability, similar in it's rack-mount design to the LinnSequencer, a product we released in 1985 but I never liked. Linn Electronics closed down before the MidiStudio was finished. About 6 units were made but never sold. 

A: The short answer is that I (Roger) was a lousy businessman with a particular talent for bad decisions. For example, while developing the LinnDrum, I discontinued the LM-1, thinking no one would want it after LinnDrum was released, then LinnDrum was late and I nothing to sell for around 6 months. Then I repeated the same dumb mistake by discontinued the LinnDrum while the 9000 was in development, which was again late and I had nondthing to sell for a few months. And the 9000 was too complex and difficult to build, resulting in many software bugs, repairs and returns. Finally, having grown to 55 employees and dwindling sales of the 9000, we simply ran out of money and had to close down in February of 1986. 

The 9000 was my first product that I didn't develop myself, thinking that other trained engineers were better than I was, and that I should focus more on running the company. In retrospect, I should have kept my focus on product development, kept the company small and my expenses low, and recognized that I'm simply not interested in being a businessman and will never be good at it. In my current company Roger Linn Design, I designed the LinnStrument, AdrenaLinn and my part of the Dave Smith Tempest mostly by myself; I have no employees, I work at home, I use subcontracted manufacturing and shipping, and I ask a few smart engineer friends to help me as needed with the things I don't know. 

A: It is a faithful recreation of my old LM-1 Drum Computer, using the identical digital and audio circuits and therefore possessing the exact same sound, but with added modern features like loadable sounds, USB, MIDI, front panel pitch and pan pots, and more, but added in such a way that they have no effect whatsoever on the LM-1's circuit and sound quality. Luma-1 is designed by my good friend and superb design engineer Joe Britt, and manufactured and sold by another friend and skilled engineer Andrei Kudryavtsev through his company Deft Audio. You can learn the story here and buy one here.

A: When my first company Linn Electronics closed down in February of 1986, it was a difficult time for me and I wasn't sure what I would do next. Then around May of 1986, my friend Stephen Paine, co-owner of my London dealer Syco Systems, contacted me to say that the new Akai Professional company, a music products spin-off of the Japanese Akai consumer electronics company, was interested in working together. I met with Tommy Moore, the owner of Akai's US distributor International Music Corporation, which went well. I then flew to Tokyo to meet the people at Akai, who wanted to develop a high-end sampling drum machine and MIDI sequencer with me, similar in function to the Linn 9000. I then created product specifications and drawings for two products-- a high-end sampling drum machine and MIDI sequencer with the code name "BigDrum", and lower-cost simpler drum machine with the code name "LittleDrum". They liked the BigDrum idea and we started development, which eventually became the MPC60. I developed the overall functional design, user interface and LCD screen contents; my software engineer Alan Trimble created the software with help from me and a few others, the sound chip was designed by David Cockerell in London, and Akai in Tokyo created the circuit boards and and mechanical design to my specifications. The MPC60 used 12-bit sampling, with quantization noise reduced by high frequency pre-emphasis during sampling, with matching de-emphasis on playback of its 16 voices. 

I enjoyed the process, which allowed me to focus on the product development while Akai did all the boring stuff like sales, marketing, manufacturing, finance, service, etc. The MPC60 was introduced in 1988 at the NAMM show at a US price of $5000 for 13 seconds of mono sampling time, expandable to 26 seconds. Though people liked it, it was too expensive and Akai later reduced the price to $3500. 

At a subsequent NAMM show, I was showing the MPC60 and was surprised when someone asked if the memory could be expanded past 26 seconds. I asked why, saying that 26 seconds was enough to hold lots of drum sounds. He said that he wanted around two minutes of stereo to sample loops from existing recordings for use as a basis for a new song. I thought "why would anyone want to do that?". Oops. The era of sampled loops was emerging. 

A: The ASQ10 Sequencer was released around the same time as the MPC60. It was essentially the MPC60's MIDI sequencer without sound generation.

A: It was a cost-reduced MPC60, internally the exact same MPC60 inside, but with a cheaper plastic chassis, a headphone jack, a fixed-position LCD screen, and some new software features that could be loaded into the original MPC60. To my amazement, Akai simply told people it was a new MPC, which resulted in reviewers testing it to determine what the differences were. I told Akai that they may as well have called it the "MPC60/PC/HP", because it was merely an MPC60 with a Plastic Chassis and a HeadPhone jack. :)\

A: Yes, but a very pleasant surprise. Hip Hop had a strong emphasis on drumbeats, which was a value I shared. I was very pleased at how creatively the Hip Hop musicians used my Swing feature, as well as how dynamically they played the touch sensitive pads, to create very natural-sounding beats that formed a strong foundation for their recordings. 

As I watch popular music change from decade to decade, I notice that the themes and styles change, but popular music is usually rhythmic. I suspect the reason is that historically, it has largely served as the background for dance. Dance requires a metronome that allows the dancers to dance in sync. And good thythmic music makes people move, inspiring them to dance. Mozart has some very good dance tracks. :) And dance is often how people meet and fall in love. So in a sense, it could be said that popular music is the birdsong, the mating call of the human species. 

A: The MPC3000 was an evolution of the MPC60, with up to nearly 6 minutes of stereo 16-bit sampling time, 32 voices, digital effects, dynamic digital filters, and a faster processor and improved sound chip.

A: In the mid-1990s, Akai was tiring of paying my sales royalty and tried to reduce or stop my payments, even though the MPCs were their biggest seller. I challenged them and they continued to pay, but the relationship soured. Starting with the MPC2000, they took my name off the product and continued development without me.