Roger Linn AndrenaLinn I

Roger Linn AndrenaLinn I, Sync Filter FX, Amps, & Beats

It’s a sequenceable filter, it’s an amp modeller, and it’s a drum machine. The AdrenaLinn is the new guitar processor from famed designer Roger Linn, best known for his classic drum machines and sequencing workstations.

The AdrenaLinn is the first product from Roger Linn Design, and was designed by a team that includes Roger himself (inventor of the LinnDrum drum machine) and Dave Smith, formerly of Sequential Circuits and probably most famous for helping to conceive MIDI. The AdrenaLinn can also be used to process synths, drum machines and just about any other sound source you care to feed into it.

The AdrenaLinn is essentially a mono-in, stereo-out effects processor in stomp-box format but is unusual in that it includes a simple drum machine based on two-bar measures, a modelling guitar amplifier of the type we’re all now quite familiar with and a sequencer-driven filter section with up to 32 steps that can work in sync with the drum machine. Alternatively, the whole machine can be locked to MIDI Clock for full integration with a MIDI sequencer. Though it is possible to create traditional filter effects such as wah and flange, the real reason for AdrenaLinn’s existence is its ability to create stepped rhythmic filter treatments. The effects on offer include synth sample-and-hold style sounds, rhythmic tremolo patterns and tuned flange patterns that pick out a musical scale from any wide spectrum input, including percussion, and other rhythmic treatments.

The signal path can route the filter into the guitar amp model, like a traditional wah-wah, which is always placed before the amp, or you can switch it and feed the amp model into the filter, which gives the filter more to work on if you’re using an overdriven model. The output of this combination then feeds a separate delay unit, which may also be tempo-locked. It’s also possible to feed the drum machine through the amp/filter section for some cool, grungy rhythmic effects. To get started, there are 100 preset drum machine patterns plus 100 preset effect treatments, with space to add another 100 of each of your own. A number of pattern swing options are independently available to the drum machine and filter sequencer which not only extends the usefulness of the factory drum patterns significantly, but also opens up rhythmic opportunities for combining a drum part of one feel with a filter sequence of a different feel.

Editing is accomplished by a fairly simple matrix system where rows of parameters are addressed via knobs at the top of the rows and selected by means of buttons down the side. You can also download an editor module free of charge (both Mac and PC) from www.rogerlinndesign.com, which brings all the parameters out to a screen of virtual sliders.