Famous Extremely Musical Assembler

[stoo23]

Whilst I was aware of the Machine, it's creator and it's initial use etc, I was Not aware until a reference in a YouTube video I was watching by the creator, that allowed me to realize that it was written in assembler and therefore figured you guys would probably be interested, especially as many of you would have invariably heard, listened to and perhaps enjoyed it's resultant output   
Roger Nichols Steely Dan Engineer at RECW 1995

Way back in 1980 a certain Steely Dan album, entitled "Gaucho", was released to the World and was perhaps simply just Another example of 'Dan under Glass' as it were, and whilst it is Not my favourite Steely Dan album, it is still typically, pretty exceptional, with some extremely excellent tracks.

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen were/are notoriously famous for being extremely particular about timing subtlety and 'feel' as such and were very exacting in their final choices of musicians and takes etc.

Through discussions begun whilst recording "Aja" and prior to recording "Gaucho", one of their engineers, Roger Nichols, suggested he could create a Drum Machine / Sampler & Sequencer, that (Unlike ANY drum machine at that time and few since until more recent times), allowed almost infinite shifting (in time) of the various 'Parts' of the 'Kit', Snare, Kick etc,.. during and in certain parts of the Song, to Provide the same inherent feel a human provides, instead of it being simply a Robotic 'Perfect' Metronome.

The resultant 'digital drum replacement' machine created by Nichols, was known as "Wendel" and was used extensively on Gaucho, with the First track to feature Wendel, being "Hey Nineteen".
Hey Nineteen

Whilst Wendel Could produce some Sounds, it's function, was Mainly to utilize Recorded 'Samples' of Real Drums, Played during sessions and on Gaucho specifically Jeff Porcaro and Bernard Purdie were used and their 'Playing' could 'trigger' Wendel to Output it's samples to the console and recorder.

Various drummers are Credited on All tracks of Gaucho, as the samples used, were originally by those players, so therefore were credited. Specifically Rick Marotta, for "Hey Nineteen".

Why is this All of possible interest here?
Mainly as Roger Nichols begain writin g what eventually became 'Wendel' in assembler on a COMPAL 80 with 56k memory and a 1.8mHz 8080.
Wendel, eventually ran on a portable s-100 based unit powered by a 3mHz 8085 processor.
The programs were written in 8085 assembler. The I/O was analog, the converters were TRW microwave converters with a Teledyne 4858 sample and hold amplifier.
The resultant unit could truly reproduce HiFi Audiophile quality output due to it's Native sampling frequency of 125kHz at 12bit,.. pretty damn awesome really for late 70's era, Gaucho being released late in 1980.

A truly 'formiddable' machine, created by an extremely capable and famous recording engineer and arguably, a real Game Changer for the Music industry.

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[jj2007]

Fascinating stuff

5:40

it was at the same time that Roger
Lynn was building the Lynn
um lm8 or whatever the first Lynn
machine was Roger Lynn and I went to the
same Assembly Language classes learning
to write computer programs so we could
go home and build our drum machines

[stoo23]

Yeah, amazing that they were Both attending the Same classes to learn Assembly Language programming to Both 'build' Drum Machines  but as Roger Nichols says in that video, Roger (Linn), was wanting to make a Commercially saleable machine, whereas Nichols, Only had to make ONE !!

One was designed for the general musical 'populace', whereas the Other unit was to Satisfy two of the most pernickety & particularly exacting clients. Two very different scenarios and outcomes to be reached by each of them, arguably, both rather successfully it has to be said,.. although,...

Having used and recorded many tracks and sessions utilizing Linn Drums, the 2 x units realistically could almost not have come from the same Planet LOL,.. to describe them as 'Worlds Apart' is somewhat of an understatement.

The Linn drums were amazing and compared to what else was around at that time, was truly a revelation but it did  NOT have the resolution and intrinsic time shifting capabilities of 'Wendel', nor could it Sample and use real drum recordings in the same manner as Wendel, still, quite revolutionary for it's time !!

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[stoo23]

For More information about Roger Nichols: https://rogernichols.com/
A great video about Roger and Wendel:
https://youtu.be/1tPopkQvM7I

His Bio; https://rogernichols.com/bio

[zedd151]

A nice bit of 'behind the scenes' history of the group Steely Dan, and the engineer, Roger Nichols, working with them.