Doktor Avalanche started life as a Boss DR55 'Doctor Rhythm'
machine... but ours was always called 'Doktor Avalanche'.
That DR55 was a far more primitive device (even) than the DR55s of
today. If we can remember rightly, it had only four sounds: kick,
snare, rimshot and hi-hat. One mono output, of course. For
programming, it had an eight-beat stave, and sequencing was performed
by switching on the fly between the few patterns it would hold in RAM.
The DR55 had no non-volatile memory or offload facility for storing
these patterns when the power was off. Still, reprogramming it was
quick enough, as it held so little. It certainly sounded primitive,
the biggest problem being the inability to separately treat the sounds
of kick and snare, which lacked any kind of attack... unless one
turned the volume up to excruciating levels, which of course one did.
It didn't sound bad, exactly, just ... primitive.
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