Simmons SDS7
A modular drum brain that let you swap sounds like cartridges and talk to MIDI before most drum machines knew what MIDI was.
Overview
That module-bay approach is the whole personality of the machine. The SDS7 combined digital recordings with synthesised sounds, and both could be filtered for tailoring percussion — a hybrid design that sits at the crossroads of the sample-based and analogue traditions.
Simmons also built the MTM primarily for use with the SDS7, where it provides a fully assignable MIDI interface.
Pricing from the period puts the system firmly in professional territory. Studio Sound (October 1984, p.16) listed the SDS7 standard kit at £1,875 excluding VAT, with the cymbal package at £196, the hi-hat package at £232, additional modules at £135, and the SDS/EPB Eprom Blower at £341. The same magazine's September 1984 issue (p.90) carried the Eprom Blower at £392, so that figure moved around. The SDS6 MIDI sequencer sat at £1,250 and the Simmons Claptrap at £100. Studio Sound (July 1984, p.17) described the SDS7's remit plainly: from the conventional to the outrageous, with digital recordings and synthesised sounds combined and filtered for tailoring percussion, and the Selector Pad enabling one-touch changes. That same coverage placed the SDS8 alongside it as the low-cost route to the classic Simmons sounds, with its own integral mixer and remote footswitch. The SDS7 was the flagship, not the entry point.
Collectors chasing an SDS7 today are chasing a system, not a box. Prices for the standard kit in period were already serious money. The machine's reputation rests on that modular architecture and on Simmons pushing MIDI integration into a drum system while the standard was still young.
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