The Rhythmate is a piece of true music history — the world’s first drum machine, built in 1949 by Harry Chamberlin in California. Using magnetic tape loops of live percussion performances, the Rhythmate laid the groundwork for the Chamberlin keyboard and, ultimately, the Mellotron. Rare and nearly priceless today, this hand-built cabinet of tape and spools has been lovingly recreated by Rhythmic Robot for Kontakt.
The Original
Harry Chamberlin’s genius was simple: record real drummers and percussionists to tape, then replay those rhythms mechanically. The Rhythmate used a one-inch loop of magnetic tape with multiple tracks of recorded beats — jazz, Latin, shuffle, rock grooves — accessed by sliding the playback head across. Adjusting tape speed changed tempo and pitch, creating unexpected variations that are now part of its charm.
The Sound
Dense, raw, and saturated, the Rhythmate’s loops carry seventy years of wear and vibe. You’ll find:
-
Rock beats, shuffle breaks, jazz fills, Latin percussion
-
Odd time signatures (like 7/8) for left-field grooves
-
Loops dripping with 1950s atmosphere and saturation
We’ve captured every loop and expanded its creative possibilities. You can now beat-slice loops to sync to DAW tempo or preserve authentic tape-style pitch-shifting. Crossfade between tracks for mashups, filter lows out for percussive sparkle, or layer loops on top of programmed beats for hybrid grooves.
Expanded for Modern Use
Beyond loops, we’ve harvested over 1,050 individual drum and percussion hits — kicks, snares, hats, cymbals, bongos, Latin percussion, and more — all with multiple round-robins for natural variation. These give you the power to program your own rhythms while keeping the vintage oxide-and-tape character baked in.
A dedicated mixer pane gives you per-piece EQ, pan, level, and Lexicon & spring reverb sends, all fully velocity-sensitive for expressive grooves. Add in tape hiss and vinyl crackle (on their own MIDI keys) for authentic vintage flavor, and you’ve got a toolkit that’s both historically faithful and production-ready.
Why Rhythmate?
The original Rhythmate is impossibly rare — fetching over $12,000 if you can find one. With Rhythmic Robot's Rhythmate, you can bring its cult-classic rhythms, quirks, and raw tape mojo into your DAW at a fraction of the cost.
Requirements:
-
Full version of Native Instruments Kontakt v4.2.3 or higher (including Kontakt 5)
-
Kontakt Player not supported (instruments will load but time out after 15 minutes)
The Rhythmate – Rhythmic Robot: the world’s first drum machine, reborn for the modern producer.