Juan Atkins

If you had to pick a favourite bit of gear from over the years, what would it be? "That would have to be the Roland DR-55 drum machine. It was the most quantum innovation that ever happened. If I had to pick one machine, that would be it. Being able to program a drum machine was a huge thing."

"Back then I was also using a Sequential Pro-One keyboard, a Roland RS-09 string synth, an ARP Odyssey and an ARP Axxe. And I had a Boss DR-55 and then an 808, obviously, when they first came out."

What kind of gear were you using when you did your seminal Cybotron track, Clear, at the beginning of the 1980s? "Well, I wasn't using no software! We were using a Korg SQD1 [Korg's groundbreaking MIDI recorder/sequencer], then I moved on to the Roland MC-500, one of their MicroComposers. That was a really good sequencer.

What kind of gear were you using when you did your seminal Cybotron track, Clear, at the beginning of the 1980s? "Well, I wasn't using no software! We were using a Korg SQD1 [Korg's groundbreaking MIDI recorder/sequencer],

"The sampler I really liked using in my studio was the Emu E64. I could almost use it as a recorder. It was great for doing remixes because you could take a whole vocal track and load it into the sampler, then fly it into your track. That made doing mixes a lot easier."