The AHB Inpulse One is one of the rarest drum machines in the world, with less than 140 produced. The manual states that it has 30 blocks (each block of 2K) for storing sampled sounds that you loaded like a computer game, from tape, however mine has 256K RAM installed.
Buyers would get the ROM-based soundset mentioned above (9 sounds, if you could the open and closed Hi-Hat sounds as separate ones - some manufacturers do!) and a tape adding the usual cowbell, claps and a 48K (24block) crash cymbal! Sample memory is volatile, so all loaded samples were lost when the power was turned off.
The Inpulse One also offered excellent synch options such as SMPTE, clock and possibly MIDI clock (MIDI implementation isn't well documented).
Build quality is what you expect from Allen & Heath; it's a 2ft x 1ft box and weighs a ton, built into a flightcase. It's the first drum machine (excluding the Simmons Portakit, which is a little hard to include in the definition of drum machine) to offer velocity sensitive pads for playing with hands or sticks; having seen an experienced user with a Sequential Sixtrak hitting the little buttons, this must be one of the smartest innovations ever - emulated on the Roland Octapad!
Samples aren't that good, but the quality of output is excellent. The sequencer is fantastic, intuitive, and versatile. Only 4K RAM is given to the sequencer, however, I don't know how many notes this translates to.
If you have one, please email me (correcting my email address in the obvious way) - I am desperate to track down other users and to obtain some sample tapes. I can obtain new ROMs for broken machines.
Released: 1985 | 
