Simmons SDS-2

The missing link between the original Dave Simmons SDS prototype (which from what I've found is no longer in existence) and the somewhat successful SDS-III is the SDS-2. Like the original SDS it was just a prototype designed from spare parts and electronics lying around the workshop. In Bob Henrit's famous book about the Simmons history ("The Complete Simmons Drum Book") the only mention is a few lines on page 8. For decades people seem to have guessed that this old piece of gear was lost in the mist of time too until it suddenly surfaced on german Ebay and I managed to bring it to Sweden at a bargain price in September 2003.

Henrit writes; "SDS.2 was a fairly similar version (to the SDS, my comment) but with simple, switchable analog memory and a run generator. The concept of a console with separate pads, sensitivity and volume control stemmed from this product. The 'brain' was housed in a black box which Dave Simmons bent and shaped, painted with vinyl 'roof coat' and Letrasetted."

Simmons SDS-2 is housed in a 1U rack enclosure and is otherwise as described above; sturdy and thick metal with Letrasetted white letters. Letraset is those once popular "rub-on" letters bought in book stores etc. Today they aren't as popular due to the fact that more or less anyone has a computer and a printer of their own. The front contains twelve knobs, three switches and three jacks. The back has four jacks. 

Front pictures 1 2 3 4 5 6

If you google you run across my pages, a few Simmons sites with my pictures and clips of interviews with Stephen Morris of Joy Division/New Order who apparently was one of the previous owners. Rumours and/or text has it that he hated it so much that he sold it while on tour in Europe and this might explain the reason for it surfacing in Germany with a music store sticker on the front (now removed by me). 

The inside shows a lot of wire spaghetti and scattered components on four different boards. The right hand board is the headphone amplifier and the circuit board looks a lot more professional than the rest and is probably a ready manufactured kit included here for convenience sake. I've tested the headphone amplifier once and was about to blow my eardrums to kingdom come. So it sure works though a volume control would've been nice...

To the left of that is the power supply unit. The transformer was never screwed to the card and was only held in place by the soldering points. This was the reason for the SDS-2 malfunctioning upon arrival in my flat four years ago. When opened the blue transformer hanged by one solderingpoint. I did a "quick-fix" and added a few wires, mounted the transformer upside down and thought I ought to do a more permanent fix at a later date. Now, it's like I left it. One day... The capacitors looks like they've been changed but the regulator bears the year '79 so that is probably an original component.

The two cards on the left are almost identical and are as you might have guessed the voice cards. The differences has to do with the presets available. All IC's are socketed which might surprise you at first glance. A closer inspection gives that these were all manufactured in the late 1980's so someone has taken the trouble of updating them all with new fresh ones and socketed all - good work! The components used are what you would expect in a 1970's drum synthesiser; 741's, 3080's, 082's, 4053's and some slightly more exotic 8038's. Very crude wiring at the pin connector end.

Soundwise it does what you'd expect of submarine pings and "knock on wood-toms" but far from the punch of the SDS-III and SDS-IV and not on the same planet as the more realistic sounding SDS-V. The preset switches gives you two quite crappy sounding tom sounds in their preset mode which BTW is located upside down. Weirdest is the noise settings which doesn't sound anything like white noise at all but more like an overdrive or VCA boost sound. I've thought about handing this over to my house tech for a double check but I think it's supposed to sound like this since it's two individual cards with their own noise sources.

I've made a little sound file to show what it's capable of. It's just a loop on my Atari running Cubase, fed via midi to a Kenton Pro-4 midi converter which feeds it to the SDS-2 via the Kadi port. There are no effects whatsoever added as you may guess when you listen...

Here's a current picture of the user and abuser...

Simmons SDS-2 specifications; 

Happy browsing and don't hesitate to drop me a line at: jesperXelectronic-obsession.se

Also please bear in mind that all pictures and texts are mine so, ask before you steal or write your own stuff and take your own pictures! Feel free to link to my pages...