A drum machine combines a set of percussion sounds with a sequencer that plays them in patterns. Some generate their sounds with analogue circuits: Roland’s TR-808 of 1980 is the best known, and its heavy bass drum and distinctive handclap became essential to hip hop, house and techno. The same year, the Linn LM-1 became the first drum machine to use digital samples of real acoustic drums, and sampling drum machines such as the E-mu SP-1200 and Akai MPC later let producers load any sound they wanted.
Jazz lo-fi rarely relies on brash classic presets. Producers generally favour soft sampled kits, such as brushed snares and dusty kicks, programmed with swing or loose timing, so the machine behaves more like a relaxed session drummer than a metronome.