Simmons SDS-V

Burgess pioneered the use of the SDS-V, triggering the prototype version with a Roland MC-8 Microcomposer in 1979 to make Landscape's groundbreaking computer-programmed futurist album From the Tea-Rooms of Mars... To the Hell-Holes of Uranus.

This idea was developed from dealing with the problems of audio spill via the microphones on a live stage and was fleshed out via an article he wrote for Sound International Magazine in 1979 called "Skin and Syn".

For live applications he realised some sort of sound memory would be essential so they came up with the cost-effective idea of four (adjustable) presets for each module which were preloaded so, even without programming experience, something decent could be coaxed out of it.

Subsequent versions of the SDS line introduced rubber pads that were kinder on drummers but many felt that the later revisions of the electronics lacked the character of the original SDS-V.

Many other prototype shapes were tested including batwings and triangles, and there were a very limited number of production kits made that were known as the Rushmore headkits that featured fiberglass faces as the body/shell of the 'drum'.