At another, the band set up a drum machine and weighed down the keys of a synthesizer before leaving the stage.

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With the right app, an iPhone could track the sun, sync shopping lists, be a drum machine, take restaurant reservations, be a cash register.

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John also invented the first mass-produced programmable drum machine Roger Linn often gets the credit, but always corrects interviewers who ask him about it.

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It functions as a wonderful mix of the mechanical and the organic, as a steady drum machine and languid pedal steel ring out side by side.

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He's only the man behind the modern day drum machine and the original MPC-60, and he's also the man behind the concept you're inevitably peering at above.

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In keeping with this strategy, known as deliberate practice, I bought a drum machine and finally conquered (or at least came to terms with) my oldest nemesis, rhythm.

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The influences of Air and Godrich are easy to distinguish in "The Operation, " which adds a metronomic drive of analog drum machine to the simmer of synth pads and intertwining guitar and piano.

NPR: Lamenting a Love That Gets Under the Skin

We all in the band know how to use a fairly famous drum machine called the MPC, made by Akai, which actually these days, quite an old-school way of writing beats and rhythms if you're not using a live drummer.

NPR: Fat Freddy's Drop Blends Reggae, Soul And DJ Culture

This is a drum machine.

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Thirty seconds later, it might seem more like one guy in a vast room, skidding between machines set too far apart, trying to trigger samples and stab a few notes out of a guitar or spit some unintelligible lyrics into a microphone on his way toward the drum machine.

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