Simmons (electronic drum company)

After Landscape and Spandau Ballet appeared on Top of the Pops with the instrument, many other musicians began to use the new technology, including A Flock of Seagulls, Howard Jones, Jez Strode of Kajagoogoo, Roger Taylor of Duran Duran, Darren Costin of Wang Chung, Steve Negus of Saga, Bobby Z., Rick Allen of Def Leppard, Thomas Dolby, Prince, Phil Collins, Neil Peart of Rush, Bill Bruford, Talk Talk, Tangerine Dream, Cameo, Jonzun Crew, Depeche Mode, Jean-Michel Jarre, Donna Summer, Yukihiro Takahashi of Yellow Magic Orchestra and Vangelis.

[citation needed] They became a popular element in disco records, especially after the release of music from Star Wars, and can be heard on songs by The Jacksons and Rose Royce.

Around 1978 while working for the company Musicaid in St Albans, Dave Simmons developed a device with similar capabilities to the Syndrum and Synare, which he called the SDS-3.

Sibi Siebert counterpart of Baz Watts, both clinicians for Simmons, was travelling from Stockholm to Barcelona to show and play the kits.

After visiting and demoing the SDS-V to music stores in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Chicago, he secured orders from them all.

Manufacturing was ramped up quickly in time for the NAMM Music Expo in Chicago and after staging a series of demos featuring Bill Bruford, dozens more music store owners from all over the country signed up to this electronic revolution, and that expansion quickly established the Simmons name in the rest of the US.

[citation needed] During the lifetime of the SDS-V, Simmons also produced a compact trigger unit about the size of a suitcase, containing seven small pads.

[7] Used in conjunction with the SDS-V brain, this allowed players to add Simmons sounds to an existing acoustic kit without incorporating a set of full-size pads.

Following the success of the SDS-V, Simmons expanded their range in 1984, with another modular rack-based brain called the SDS-7,[9] which features digital sampling sounds on EPROM for the first time, expandable up to twelve modules, and redesigned pads, featuring a skin of rubber to make playing a little easier.

[17] These products were aimed at acoustic drummers who wanted to add a couple of Simmons pads to their kit on a budget.

Some of these products also feature the run generator, which allows drummers to play a descending drum roll with a single pad hit.

In 1985, Simmons introduced the SDS-9,[18] a hybrid digital/analog brain with three changeable EEPROM channels (kick, snare, and rim) and analog-synthesized toms.

Another brain was introduced in 1986 called the SDS-1000,[20] and was, in effect, the same sounds as the SDS-9 (without the ability to change the EPROMS) in a slim 1U, MIDI-enabled, rack mountable unit.

Rather than knobs and switches, it features a 9" monochrome CRT screen with a GUI controlled by a trackball, similar to the early Mac OS.

[citation needed] Primary users of SDX included Bill Bruford (with ABWH and King Crimson), Joe Hammer (Jean Michel Jarre's drummer) and also Danny Carey with Tool.

By the time of the launch of the SDX, the company had seen a dramatic fall in their sales as drummers abandoned electronics to return to their acoustic kits.

[citation needed] Their final kit was released in 1989, called the SDS-2000,[24] featuring sounds from the SDX library, digital effects, further refined pads,[25] and a new company logo.

[27] This system saw a commercial decline in the face of competition from companies such as Roland and Yamaha, and the evolution of musical styles from the 1980s into the 1990s.

However, some of the kits' designs feature traces of the familiar hexagon shape, similar model numbers, and built-in samples of the classic Simmons sounds.

The newly designed kit employed mesh heads - the first in the Simmons line to do so - which were tensioned with a standard drum key.

As a visual reminder of the classic Dave Simmons-designed systems offered in the 1980s, although the SD2000 had round, tensionable, mesh heads, they were mounted in hexagonal frames reminiscent of the SDS-5 pattern.