Drumtraks

The Drumtraks, also referred to as the Drumtraks Model 400, is a drum machine released by the American company Sequential in 1984. It was one of first drum machines on the market to feature MIDI control, after the Roland TR-909.

Development
The Drumtraks was Sequentials first drum machine and their first sample-based product. It was designed at Sequential in San Jose by Dave Smith, Steve Salani, Donna Murray, and Chris Meyer, who wrote the MIDI software. The units were built in Japan which allowed Sequential to keep the pricing down.

Features
The Drumtraks features 13 percussion voices: bass drum, snare, snare rim, toms 1 and 2, crash and ride cymbal, open and closed hi-hat, handclaps, tambourine, cowbell, and cabasa. Each sound has a trigger button allowed them to be played live or in record mode. The user could program tempos and tempo changes, set levels of individual voices and each sound's pitch.

Release
The Drumtraks was released at the beginning of 1984 and retailed for $1295 in the US and £995 in the UK. Sequential manufactured approximately 8000 Drumtraks units.

Sequential promoted the combination of the Six-trak analog synthesizer, Drumtraks and the Model 64 sequencer as the 'Traks Music System', which formed a MIDI workstation allowing analog synth sequencing with sampled drum sounds and computer control.

Daft Punk used a Drumtraks on "Short Circuit", from their 2001 album Discovery. Tame Impala used one on their 2015 album Currents.