Zahlen, bitte! 3 minutes of fame for a drum machine

In the early 1970s, two songs, each about three minutes long, were released almost simultaneously, pointing the way to the future with their drum machine beats.

(Image: Heise Medien)

Oct 21, 2025 at 7:56 pm CEST

4 min. read

By

Detlef Borchers

In November 1971, two three-minute songs were released on both sides of the Atlantic, which subsequently reached top positions in their respective charts. They could not have been more different, but they had one thing in common: a drum machine played an important role in both pieces.

In "Family Affair" (3:05) by Sly and the Family Stone, recording engineer Richard Tiles mixed the track so that the drum machine accompanied the song like a beating heart; in "Spoon" (3:04) by the Cologne band Can, drummer Jaki Liebezeit played together with the drum machine. This established the device in pop music, just as the metronome, as a mechanical predecessor, established itself in classical music from 1815 onwards.

In this section, we present amazing, impressive, informative and funny figures ("Zahlen") from the fields of IT, science, art, business, politics and, of course, mathematics every Tuesday. The wordplay "Zahlen, bitte!" for a section about numbers is based on the ambiguity of the German word "Zahlen." On one hand, "Zahlen" can be understood as a noun in the sense of digits and numerical values, which fits the theme of the section. On the other hand, the phrase "Zahlen, bitte!" is reminiscent of a waiter's request in a restaurant or bar when they are asked to bring the bill. Through this association, the section acquires a playful and slightly humorous undertone that catches the readers' attention and makes them curious about the presented numbers and facts.

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Initially as an addition to electronic organs

Drum machines were constructed from the 1960s onwards by Ikutaro Kakehashi under the name Ace Tone, later Roland, as additional devices for Hammond organs. They were boycotted by the US American Musicians' Union AFM because they replaced the work of drummers. In fact, the first hit with a drum machine arose out of necessity. Australian Robin Gibb had separated from the Bee Gees in 1969 and attempted a solo career.

In the studio, his first hit "Saved by the Bell" was accompanied by a drum machine programmed by his brother Maurice. In another emergency, the US-american componist Raymond Scott had previously released his record "Soothing Sounds for Baby" in 1964, with monotonous rhythms as a sleep aid for children from one month to 18 months old, distributed by the Gesell Institute of Child Development.

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Contemporary test of drum machines from 2014: c't colleague Hartmut Gieselmann summarizes the properties of various devices.

CAN's Spoon was the theme song of the smash hit "Das Messer", a three-part WDR crime series from 1971. CAN bassist Holger Czukay called the song "the peaceful fork to the aggressive knife". The single sold so well with 350,000 copies that it landed at number 6 in the German charts in early 1972. With it, electronic music established itself in German ears, under the term "Krautrock", which Can did not particularly like. With "Peking 0", the band had previously recorded a song in which a drum machine was involved.

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Heartbeat-like drum with great influence

In the USA, Family Affair, with its pulsating heartbeat, had a much greater impact. This was also because Sly Stone and his band were among the best-known formations through the Woodstock Festival 1969. None other than Stevie Wonder used the beat of Family Affair for his political song "You Haven´t Done Nothin" from 1974, an indictment against the corrupt US President Richard Nixon. He resigned two days after the single's release to avoid impeachment in the Watergate affair.

The use of drum machines really took off with the Roland CR-78, constructed by Kakehashi. Blondie's "Heart of Glass" and The Who's "Eminence Front" are mentioned as representative of many successful songs. With the advent of microcomputers, it was natural to connect them with drum circuits. In 1987, Heise-Verlag published the translation of Roger A. Penfold's book "Computer und Musik. Rechnergestützte Synthesizerelemente in Theorie und Praxis" mit dieser Schaltung.. In 2014, c't tested drum machines under the title "Boing Bum Tschak", which was probably not entirely coincidentally reminiscent of Kraftwerk Boing Bum Tschak.

The gold record went to the drum machine Wendel. RCA Records honored it for over 1,000,000 records sold.

(Image: Gopita, CC BY-SA 3.0)

The history of drum machines and the songs created with them cannot be told without the Wendel, a mixture of drum machine and sampler, which remained a unique piece. It was developed by nuclear physicist and later sound engineer Roger Nichols for the studio band Steely Dan. Nichols began in 1976 with a Compal micro and an Intel 8080 in assembler and finally built the next Wendel for $150,000, which Steely Dan used for their overambitious album "Gaucho".

The production of the album took two years and wore out 42 guitarists and several drummers, but not the Wendel. After a million copies of Gaucho were sold, the Wendel received its own platinum record. Nichols himself received numerous other awards, including 5 Grammys for his work with Steely Dan.