Roger Linn—responsible for breakthroughs like the LM-1 drum machine and the MPC sampler line—talks about building musical tools with the same mindset: keep it simple, stay focused, and don’t drown in distractions. In an interview-style rundown of his current f
Roger Linn is the kind of figure musicians still talk about the way they talk about gear: with reverence. and a little nostalgia. He helped define what modern sampling could be. starting with the LM-1. the first drum machine to use samples. and then its successor. the LinnDrum—an instrument that became a signature sound across the 1980s.
Those machines show up everywhere in the era’s music, from hits by Tom Petty, Queen, and Tears for Fears to the artist who arguably used them the most: Prince, who leaned on LinnDrum widely on Purple Rain and 1999.
But Linn’s long track record of influence doesn’t stop at drum machines. His most notable contribution to the music world may be the MPC. He partnered with Akai to create one of the most popular and important samplers ever. and the MPC60 and its successors went on to become the tool of choice for countless hip-hop and house producers. Even J Dilla’s MPC 3000 is now in the Smithsonian—an unusual kind of acknowledgment for a piece of studio hardware.
There’s another through-line in Linn’s work that goes beyond product releases: he was an early adopter of MPE. or MIDI polyphonic expression. It’s a key feature of his LinnStrument, an expressive 3D controller released in 2014. That timing matters because it arrived three years before the Association of Musical Electronics Industry (AMEI) officially released the MPE standard.
When asked about the mindset behind staying innovative, Linn’s answers come back to focus—almost stubbornly so. “What is your most indispensable tool?” he says, and he doesn’t name a synth or a sampler. He answers with his MacBook Pro. Then he lists what he considers an underappreciated product: “My Vision Pro.” He also calls it “the most amazing product I rarely use. ” a line that lands like a quiet jab at hype.
The same restraint shows up when the conversation turns to the physical habits of everyday computing. “What sites do you have pinned to your tab bar?” he says: New York Times. “How many tabs do you have open right now?” One. “This document.”
He says he doesn’t really live online in the way many creators do. When asked which social media platform he uses the most. he answers plainly: “I don’t use social media except to announce my monthly ‘All Things LinnStrument’ email newsletter.” And when he describes a place he actually returns to. it’s not a feed. It’s a VR app on Meta Quest called Walkabout Mini Golf. where he says he goes to play mini golf. fly around. or meet friends in a private instance of a particular world.
His favorite gadget, he says, is currently VR headsets—either the Meta Quest 3 or Apple Vision Pro. He also lists a disappointment that rings familiar for anyone who has ever felt misunderstood by a design: “I’m disappointed by products that are designed by engineers who assume their customers are engineers.”.
Even his advice isn’t elaborate. “What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?” he says: “Keep it simple.”
That simplicity theme keeps resurfacing in answers that are less about gear and more about how he manages attention. “What do you do when you need to focus?” he says: “Breathe. Calm down.” When he’s “feeling stuck,” he doesn’t reach for another workflow tweak. “I try to shift my perspective.”
He says he never goes anywhere without his phone—except for an opening he admits might be possible in theory: “Maybe swimming.” And he describes his last purchases of physical media in an understated way, saying it’s been a long time and that he buys books, music, films, and other items digitally.
When the question turns to what he’d actually splurge on. Linn sounds like someone who still wants the promise of hardware—just with the right details. If someone made a VR headset “with retina resolution. very high power. lots of beautiful open worlds. but it was expensive. ” he says he’d probably buy it.
His proudest creation is LinnStrument, and his career-spanning tagline for a biopic is concise enough to feel like a mission statement: “He created tools that allowed musicians to make better music.”
Behind the anecdotes is a pattern you can almost hear in how the instruments were built. Linn gave producers and performers tools that worked. and he did it by keeping attention on what matters—samples that behave. expression that tracks. and interfaces that don’t ask users to become engineers first. Even now. he’s keeping to the discipline he praises: one tab. one document. and a steady refusal to make focus complicated.
Roger Linn MPC Akai LinnDrum LM-1 LinnStrument MPE MIDI polyphonic expression AMEI VR Meta Quest 3 Apple Vision Pro Walkabout Mini Golf J Dilla Smithsonian