Vintage Simmons Drums (UK) Users Group

Hello Group, 

I'm Chris, the guy that started this group with Scott two years ago, 
back in early 2001.  ( well actually Scott created the group after 
many emails of us discussing our mutual love of Simmons drums and I 
became the groups first "member" :-)  I'm back after a long absence 
and would like to begin contributing again.

It's great to see 46 (!) members out there with the active dialogue 
and mutual technical support that you are providing each other.  
Prior to this the only internet resource for us Simmons lovers was 
the message board at www.elecdrum.com ( and trust me, I looked high 
and low :-) 

With our love of music and Simmons drums specifically it seem that we 
should have recordings of our Simmons drums by our group members.  To 
that end I have created a new 'folder' in the Files section of this 
group.  I realize that we may come up against space considerations 
with Yahoo but hopefully our industrious group administrator can cull 
the older files as we go along.  

The first file I am uploading is not an individual recording of me on 
my Simmons setup but rather a kool internal demo sequence that the 
SDS9 has built in.  These types of demos for use in the music stores 
as a sales aid are so common in synthesizers and workstations today, 
but were really unheard of in 1985 when the SDS9 was introduced!  
Once again we have proof that Dave Simmons and his group were really 
ahead of their time.

So enjoy this kool demo.  I made it direct to digital with no 
outboard processing to capture the most accurate sound of the SDS9's 
various factory presets.  Dig that "digitally synthesised" bass drum 
sound; sounds more like a finger-snap then any bass drum I've ever 
heard.  Buy you gotta love those toms; thinner and cleaner, lacking 
the heft of the SDSV or SDS8, closer to the sound of the 200, 400 & 
800 series.  

So please, convert your recordings to small MP3 files and upload to 
this new folder.  It would be great to hear what other Simmons 
aficionados are doing with these great old modules.  In listening to 
our fellow member's recordings we may hear possibilities in our own 
equipment that we have not realized.

Enjoy, 

-Chris Holloway
cholloway@...