Linn 9000

The Linn 9000 is a drum machine, which was introduced by Linn Electronics in 1984 and designed by Roger Linn as the next step to the successful LinnDrum. Like the LinnDrum, it has 8-bit drum samples (many of which are the same), an on-board mixing panel etc. plus MIDI sequencing and sampling possibilities. However, despite its advanced features, its chronic software problems led to stalling sales and therefore the company's demise.

Peter Gabriel purchased a new Linn 9000 prior to making the So album in early 1985. It became his go-to instrument for writing songs and developing reference tracks for the musicians alongside a Prophet-5, an Emulator and a Fairlight CMI. Considering the album was almost a year in the making, only few of the Linn parts Peter programmed made the final mix. Specifically on songs like "Big Time" and "That Voice Again", the Linn 9000 percussion sounds were blended with real drumming from Stewart Copeland and Manu Katche (respectively).

After that, the Linn 9000 was used for the So tour, replacing the LinnDrum he used on the previous tour. Peter programmed most of the rhythms into the Linn, for songs like "Shock The Monkey" and others which relied on drum machines. Drummer Manu Katche would play to Peter's Linn patterns live, but he found the patterns rhythmically complex to play against - such as "Shock The Monkey" among others. He'd encourage Peter to drop out the Linn parts on some songs during the So tour rehearsals - "Red Rain" being one example.

In the late 1980s, Peter upgraded to the Akai MPC-60 (another Roger Linn design), which was a step up from the Linn 9000's features.

Quotes
"'The only new things [on the album] were the Emulator II and the Linn 9000, though I didn't have time to get into the Linn properly before I started recording. Part of the catch with these things is that you do need time to get to know them. If the equipment arrives after you've started recording, you have to take it out of the studio to get to grips with it, which I didn't feel like doing in this instance.'"