The LinnDrum II, a collaboration between Roger Linn of MPC fame and Dave Smith of analog synth renown, appears to be DEAD. The “MPC for the new millennium” – as some have described it – doesn’t seem to have enough juice, on several levels, to garner a viable release.
The LinnDrum II was initially touted as a new musical instrument for the real-time creation and improvisation of beat-oriented music, both in live performance and in the studio, but there just didn’t seem to be enough overlap of features for the two individual camps of fanboys – Linn VS. Smith – to find common ground with the endeavor.
Here’s what Linn had to say on his website yesterday:
“We’re still hard at work but regrettably won’t be able to meet our earlier estimate of a 3rd-quarter 2009 ship date. The recent changes in the economy have caused us to rethink our design, which had become too expensive. One problem is that Dave’s customers and my customers had different views of what the product should be, so we had been working on a more elaborate design that we thought would please them both. Then the economy tanked. Oops. The other issue is that Dave and his team have been having such success with their analog synths that they’ve been spreading themselves pretty thin trying to work on both projects.
So given these circumstances, we’d prefer not to state another release date estimate at this time, but when we do we promise to post it here along with any other information we’re able to release. Also, given that Dave and his team have their hands pretty full and that a beat-oriented product is more of a Roger product anyway, we’ll probably be selling it through Roger Linn Design instead of from both companies as we had previously considered.
I’d personally love to tell everybody all the details of the product design, features and price as we did with our initial designs of the product, but there’s that pesky problem of keeping the information from our competitors. So we need to keep tight-lipped for now and regrettably can’t answer any questions. Thanks also to those who have kindly asked to place advance orders. However, we don’t feel it’s right to accept orders until we are able to release the price or more information about the product.
And now I must get back to work. 
Now you can gather from this communication that Smith bailed on the project. Whether or not Linn decides to release a MPC-like box in the future remains to be seen, but the original LinnDrum II concept is now officially dead.
Now we do know for fact that Roger Linn was contemplating creating a MPC product for the Hip-Hop crowd with a group of developers from the South, but then suddenly dropped them when Smith expressed interest in collaborating on a hybrid drum machine / synth box. Will Linn now decide to tackle that initiative now that the Southern Group has moved on with their own product??
We shall see…
