Today my father gave me this original James Last vinyl record from 1985: “Aren’t these the drums you are interested in, son?” “Indeed!” I put the record on the player but too bad all drums had been acoustic. So the pads had been chosen for a particular purpose: the contrast between old and modern. This record cover (which provoked a constant grin in my face) is a perfect proof that in 1985 Simmons must have been the synonym for technology and future. I wonder why they showed 3 SDSV pads on the front cover but a white SDS8 on he back?
Mission SDS4
March 19th, 2012Since I’ve been started my collection in 2003 I have missed half a dozen opportunities to get an SDS4. They were too expensive, too far away or both. When I recently noticed a pick-up only auction ending on an early Friday afternoon I scented my chance. I checked my war chest, prepared for a one-day ride to Hastings, south England. I calculated the travel costs and set my limit. And I was lucky! I think it was a real bargain if you know how much had been paid for this particular unit before and that this is one of about 100 units ever built by Dave Simmons himself. And the SDS4 closed the last gap in my Musicaid product portfolio.
4:24am
still dark in Germany
must be the right way
Eurotunnel terminal
boarding
after 400km
it’s dark inside the tunnel
England!
God save the Queen!
11am GET – arrival in Hastings
right before the big moment
here we are
And the winner is….
February 28th, 2012Thanks to David Levine for providing those two rare Grammy ads from Simmons Group Centre:
Dave Levine worked for Simmons Group Centre for several years as the Advertising / Promotional Director. He was responsible for many of the Ads they produced themselves for Modern Drummer Magazine, Musician Magazine, et al. I am looking forward to (hopefully) meet him at this year’s booth in Frankfurt
Simmons Racing
February 20th, 2012Thanks to Steve Watts who directed me to this long time forgotten topic… The driver of the Mitsubishi is Andy McLennan. The driver of the VW Golf (the last two pictures) is Charlie Morgan.
“(http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.stacey1) ANDY McLENNAN BEGAN HIS INVOLVEMENT IN MOTORSPORT AS A MECHANIC IN THE BRABHAM FORMULA 1 RACING TEAM. AS A DRIVER, HE HAS BEEN CLASSIC SALOON CAR CHAMPION & HELD THE BRITISH RECORD FOR 24HOUR ENDURANCE DRIVING IN A PRODUCTION SALOON CAR. IN THE MID 80′s ANDY WAS CLASS B CHAMPION IN THE MONROE PRODUCTION CAR CHAMPIONSHIP’S.
ANDY’S STARION WAS SPONSORED BY SIMMONS SYNTHESISERS, THE MANUFACTURER THAT MADE THE WORLDS FIRST ELECTRONIC DRUM KIT. SIMMONS USERS INCLUDED CULTURE CLUB, THE POLICE, GENESIS, THE THOMPSON TWINS & MANY OTHERS.
ANDY HAD MANY IMPRESSIVE RESULTS INCLUDING SEVERAL OUTRIGHT VICTORY’S IN THE ROUNDS OF THE 84 85 UNIROYAL PRODUCTION CAR CHAMPIONSHIP. THIS IS TODAY’S EQUILEVLENT OF THE BRITISH TOURING CAR CHAMPIONSHIP. ANDY HAD MANY BATTLES WITH COLIN BLOWER BUT THEY REGULARLY CAME 1ST & SECOND OVERALL BEATING CARS AS CAPABLE AS 3 LITER OPEL MONZA GSE, ESCORT RS TURBO, TOYOTA SUPRA, ASTRA GTE. ROVER 3500 SDI”
Source: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.stacey1
Source: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.stacey1
Source: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.stacey1
Source: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.stacey1
Source: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.stacey1
Source: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.stacey1
Source: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.stacey1
Source: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.stacey1
Source: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.stacey1
Source: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.stacey1
Source: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.stacey1
Source: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.stacey1
Source: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.stacey1
Source: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.stacey1
Source: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.stacey1
Source: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.stacey1
Source: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.stacey1
Source: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.stacey1
Source: Charlie Morgan ( drummer for Elton John & Kate Bush and a few others!)
Source: Charlie Morgan ( drummer for Elton John & Kate Bush and a few others!)
“
SDS7 Cymbal Pads
February 11th, 2012When I saw an “SDS7 cymbal pad” on Ebay last year, I thought it’s a fake. I haven’t seen any advertisement where a pad like this had been mentioned. But they really existed for a short period of time. Finally I found a brochure published by Simmons Group Center. One of the last mysteries is cleared up….
And this is what Glynn Thomas, former CEO of Simmons Group Center, USA, responded:
“…it was good to see that ad we produced for Modern Drummer magazine and featured our own version of a Simmons Cymbal. Sadly, Dave Simmons didn’t like us producing our own version of a Cymbal and vetoed it. So only a few prototypes were actually made, and then quietly dropped. The “rack” was our idea ( actually Dave Levine designed it with the cooperation of Ultimate Systems ) and was very very successful for Simmons Group Centre…”
Germany’s second Electronic Drummer Meeting
September 19th, 2011After the success in 2010 we decided to organize a second edition of our electronic drum meeting. Once again the idea was to give electronic drums a focus and the enthusiasts a platform to present their DIY projects. Commercial providers were more than welcome. We are happy that companies like Alesis, Drum-Tec, 2Box, Korg, Wronka Drums and R-Drums proactively joined our event.
And once again we were lucky that we had great performers like Sibi on his Simmons SDSV with a spectacular oversized headphone-like monitor system custom-built by Föön Audio Systems (by far the coolest drum fill I have ever seen/heard…). We had Daniel Schild who demonstrated the Korg Wave Drum family and we had Marcel Bach who performed his cutting edge drum technique on an Alesis DM10 Pro kit. Last but not least R-Drums, provider for DIY parts (trigger mics, rubber foam cones, …) demonstrated the conversion of a cheap low-tec mono pad into a perfect working stereo mesh head pad. (all videos made and edited by drumxound.de)
Here are some impressions:
Sibi performing on his SDSV
Sibi performing on his SDSV
compact analog solution realised with a Nord Modular synth, Pearl DRX1 and Simmons SDS8
Jörg Remmer demonstrating his Modular kit
Daniel Schild explaning the Korg Wavedrum Family
very cool: compact power amplification specially designed for Wavedrum
compact Jobeky kit
Drum-Tec Diablo series with new finishes
Drum-Tec Pro series
2Box Drumit5. Probably the most realistic acoustic sound for the money
Acoustic kit equiped with DDrum triggers and Toontrack Superior
Acoustic kit equiped with R-Drums trigger systems
Alesis DM8 and DM10 Pro
DIY project
DIY project
“Drums Of Darkness” kit by Wronka Drums. Completely custom made … of metal
Analog BBQ 2
August 9th, 2011After Analog BBQ 1 in 2009, synth collector and musician Thomas P. Heckmann invited us (Michael Buchner, Oli Rubow and me) to combine a fine BBQ afternoon (with hex shaped slices of cucumber) with a guided tour through his forrest of vintage synthesizers. A really impressive conglomerate of electronics… It’s a pleasure to share some impressions:
hex shaped cucumber
Simmons salad
BBQ master Thomas “at work”
Simmons wall lamp
Oli trying a Syndrum
Thomas demonstrating one of his countless magic add-ons
Michael (can’t hide his true emotions)
Genesis’ SDSV
The “Simmons corner”
about 5% of Thomas’ Star Wars collection
For a more detailed gear list of Thomas’ synths please see http://www.troperecordings.de/gear.
Thanks to Thomas and his girl friend Natasha who have been great hosts!
Pilgrim’s journey to England
July 14th, 2011If I’d say I have never been interested in meeting Dave Simmons, I would have lied. I didn’t take much effort contacting him though. However I did not refuse to contact him last year in association with the production of AD Reelmachines. Finally, after 8 years of collecting, we met personally at his house in England for an interview which is supposed to be published in a German drum magazine soon. I thought he felt quite blandished that there are still a couple of freaks who keep his gear at the surface of awareness. Furthermore he is still (or again) following the e-drum development with much interest.
It wasn’t very hard to convince my wife of this trip: “Darling. you wanna go shopping in London?” So I organized a nice 3 day trip:
- Thursday: Travelling to Kings Lynn/Norfolk
- Friday: Shopping in Kings Lynn, in the evening seeing Howard Jones performing on the Market Place, between soundcheck and concert: interview with Jonathan Atkinson, his drummer (Jonathan is actually the guy who’s taking two of my SDS9 pads on tour with Howard)
- Saturday: Trip to London. Shopping, shopping, shopping, dropping wife at the Airport at the early evening
- Sunday: Trip to Dave Simmons’ house
As usual the weather in England is perfect whenever I go there. A Howard Jones fan asked me to move there. The 800km are done in short 12 hours drive. In the early evening we arrived as Ramada Kings Lynn, a nice and very British hotel with great (and heavy) english breakfast. The next morning we went shopping downtown and I was abused as a living hallstand. I had to carry up to 25 pieces peak and I was glad when my wife asked me to bring her back to the hotel. Then I went back to the Market place where Jonathan was already setting up his eletronic drum kit: Today he used his own DDrum4 as a midi frontend (on tour he often uses a borrowed TD-20, but only for midi) triggering an ESX24 software sampler in his Mac Book. The samples are the original percussion sounds taken from Howard’s 2 inch tapes from the 80s. Funny enough that the original sequences are now played by a live drummer! Jonathan invited me to a local pub and we did a nice interview which will also be published later this year.
After the soundcheck I picked up my wife, we had lunch and enjoyed another concert by synthesizer legend Howard Jones afterwards.
Saturday. Again english breakfast. All diet efforts of the last 5 years for nothing. We are leaving for London. To my wife’s fret Oxford Street is devided by the currently running anual CSD parade 
It takes endless 30 minutes to “cross the street” through the underground and cross the street.
Again my destiny is to play the living hallstand… I can still feel the muscular soreness from yesterday. After this hard shopping day I bring my happy wife to the airport. For the last night I will stay on my own in a picturesque B&B near Stansted.
The next morning the sheep on the neighbouring meadow woke me up … at 4:45am. I use that time and start writing down the recording of Jonathan’s interview until breakfast is ready. Another cloudless sunny day.
At 8am I am leaving for Dave Simmons 300 year old farm. What a nice place! Master Dave is already waiting at the car park smiling (no, I wasn’t late). Beside the main house the farm features several barns which are partly developed. First I get a guided tour. Dave shows me the original workbenches where the last products of “Simmons Digital Music” had been manufactured until 1999.
Somewhere in the garden there’s a freight container with all remaining documents and parts from the Simmons era: circuit diagrams, endorsee correspondance and stuff like that. All on the way to rot…
Dave is showing me his small airplane which he built himself. “Where did you get all that knowledge from to built an airplane?”. He responds “I got myself a book” with a self-confident smile. What a guy…
We are doing the interview in the garden. We are talking about the beginning, Musicaid, how it was like to develop electronics at that time. What happened to the early prototypes; We are talking about endorsee policy, the rise and fall of Simmons Eletronic drums, the SDX and it’s huge number of innovations which have not been adopted in today’s electronic drum systems for whatever reason. We talk about Guitarcenter and Dave’s visions and plans.
Time runs much too fast… At the end I think we were both happy that we met. Dave Simmons is a very friendly, open minded gentleman genius. A short but intensive trip to England has ended much too early. I feel assured that my strange hobby is the best soeone can have 
To be continued…
Musicaid SDSV
June 6th, 2011Last week a guitar player told me about the unique opportunity to buy a Fender Stratocaster from the Pre-CBS area for a “tip amount” of only €3000-5000. That reminded me of the fact that the Simmons history was devided into the Musicaid- and the Simmons Electronics epoch. OK, probably this comparison is misleading, but still there are parallel aspects. I got my first (complete and mint) SDSV produced as Musicaid. There are some obvious differences (I have not opened it yet so there will be likely some more inside, specially concerning the modules):
- The outer cover is made of imitation leather instead of bended sheet metal
- The inner frame is not yet zinc-coated. That might lead to major rust occurence depending on the storage environment
- The frame is slightly bigger so a sheet metal cover from a later device would not fit over a Musicaid SDSV frame
- The knobs used for the modules and mixer section are a bit bigger and different to later SDSV devices
- no rubber feat on the bottom for desktop use
- the panels show “Musicaid EP” instead of “Simmons”
- The pushbuttons are red instead of black
From the Complete Simmons Drum Book by Bob Henrit: “… At roughly the same time that Simmons products were becoming a force to be reckoned with, disaster struck. In November 1981 the Musicaid company collapsed. They were desperate for some development money so that SDS.5 could be produced in significant quantity, but were unable to raise the necessary funds from an associate investment company who already had a financial interest. The company was burdened with unwasted general music stock and eventually went into voluntary liquidation. Musicaid could have been saved for as little as £20.000 – a minute sum to secure the future of such a world-beating product, however at that time it was impossible to raise. They still had faith and hope, but precious little charity!
Dave Simmons understandably looks upon this time as being the most traumatic of his life. His workforce were on the dole and had a very lean Christmas at the end of 1981, and he not only had to deal with irate creditors, he had to try to sort out the future too. He was certain that SDS.5 was a world-beating product, but in the light of Musicaid’s demise, he not surprisingly found it extremely difficult to persuade people to invest in it. His only hope was his personal bank. Ultimately it was his wife Kirsty who was able to persuade the bankers to part with the £10.000 necessary to start a completely new comapny and go ahead with production. A company called ‘Clipfinch’ was bought ‘of the shelf’ for £100, and once things began to tick over nicely its name was duly changed to Simmons Electronics. …”
Particularly this device was a guest of my museum in 2010 when the former owner asked me for an expertise. It had been originally delivered with the wooden pads I wrote about last year. At that time I changed a set of pure white and mint SDSV pads for these wooden collectibles. He wanted to keep the brain (or sell it for more money I was willing to give…) and recently sold it for no less than €1500. The buyer was desperately looking for an SDSV for years. He tried it with Roland mesh head pads but soon found out that the brain demands sharp trigger pulses from rock hard SDSV pads in order to avoid destorted sounds. So we made the deal that he gets one of my newer Simmons SDSV, 5 module standard version, with a higher serial number (#502), complete with pads, sands and cables and I get the Musicaid SDSV in mint condition. A good deal for both parties as far as I can estimate. What do we learn? Finally Simmons gear end up in my house…
