Drum Machines Have No Soul

Preset analogue drum machine

Eko Ritmo 20

Twenty rhythms, nine percussion voices and a footswitch for fills: the Ritmo 20 put accompaniment within reach while leaving the player room to steer. Its wooden cabinet held a preset instrument that later electronic musicians found new uses for.

Rhythm takes control →
Eko Ritmo 20, from the early-instruments illustration accompanying the Gay Cat Park interview.2026-01-16 · Decadancebook / Gay Cat Park interview materialsSource & credit ↗

The Eko Ritmo 20 reached British readers in November 1982 as a twenty-preset Italian rhythm machine with introductions, fills, a dual footswitch and a £189 price including VAT.

Sources (7)
  1. EKO Ritmo20, Electronics & Music Maker p38 ↗
  2. Cold Wave artist release page ↗
  3. Musica E Computer release credits ↗
  4. Ritorno alle origini dell’italo disco: l’avventura dei Gay Cat Park ↗
  5. Synthetic Woman MR-012 release notes ↗
  6. Fostex MTC1, Music Technology September1990 ↗
  7. Eko Ritmo20 specimen and sample-library account ↗

Source-led exhibition chapter

Eko Ritmo 20

## A preset machine at a turning point

The Eko Ritmo 20 reached British readers in November 1982 as a twenty-preset Italian rhythm machine with introductions, fills, a dual footswitch and a price of £189 including VAT. Kenneth McAlpine met it at a useful historical hinge: a substantial accompaniment instrument arriving as programmable drum machines were beginning to change what musicians expected from a rhythm box.

Source (1)
  1. EKO Ritmo20, Electronics & Music Maker p38 ↗

The Ritmo 20 did not ask its owner to write every hit. It asked them to choose a rhythm, bring it in, move it through an introduction or fill, and alter its place in a song while it was playing. That is a different kind of agency, and the panel was built around it.

Nine generators, six places in the mix

McAlpine described nine percussion generators feeding six mixer channels. The arrangement matters because the player could rebalance the rhythm without receiving a separate fader for every sound. He heard oscillator and ring-modulator designs in the metallic percussion, and praised both the timbres and the solidity of the instrument’s construction.

Source (1)
  1. EKO Ritmo20, Electronics & Music Maker p38 ↗

This is not a claim that every sound could be rebuilt from first principles. The point is more physical: a preset pattern passed through a compact mixer, leaving the musician a way to change weight, emphasis and motion in a live arrangement.

The footswitch keeps the player involved

The dual footswitch operates transport and breaks. Rhythm selections can change during playback. In use, that means the Ritmo 20 is not merely a box placed beside a keyboard. A player can choose a passage, push into a fill and return to the song without abandoning the instrument in their hands.

Source (1)
  1. EKO Ritmo20, Electronics & Music Maker p38 ↗

That working method explains why analogue accompaniment boxes can stay appealing even after more programmable machines have arrived. Their limitations can also be their invitation: decide quickly, perform the change, and make a familiar preset feel specific to the song.

A later electronic life

Thomas P. Heckmann names a modified Ritmo 20 among the instruments used on Cold Wave. Slow Motion Records credits the machine in the equipment used for Rodion & Mammarella’s Musica E Computer. Each account documents the machine at an album level; neither supplies a complete track-by-track allocation.

Sources (2)
  1. Cold Wave artist release page ↗
  2. Musica E Computer release credits ↗

Gay Cat Park identifies the Ritmo 20 in “I’m a Vocoder”. The account does not dissect the pattern or prove every sound in the finished record. It gives us something narrower and reliable: an Eko rhythm box was part of a new electronic recording long after its original accompaniment market had disappeared.

Source (1)
  1. Ritorno alle origini dell’italo disco: l’avventura dei Gay Cat Park ↗

Twenty patterns, waiting for a decision

The Ritmo 20’s story is a useful corrective to the idea that preset machines simply wait to be superseded. Its patterns arrived prepared, but its entrances, fills, balance and context were waiting for a player. That combination of constraint and touch is the reason it can still make sense in a modern electronic setup.

The machine in the record

Cover artwork for Thomas P. Heckmann — Heckmann - Cold Wave.
Cold Wave is the release Thomas P. Heckmann credited with the Eko Ritmo 20; the cover identifies the EP, not a modified circuit or individual part.

Thomas P. Heckmann / Cold Wave.

Thomas P. Heckmann explicitly names a modified Eko Ritmo 20 among the machines used for Cold Wave. The modification and track allocation remain unknown, but the credit gives the overlooked Italian box a direct, contemporary electronic afterlife.

Read Cold Wave artist release page ↗

More records in the archive

The machine keeps turning up.

Cover artwork for Rodion & Mammarella — Musica E Computer.
Musica E Computer carries Rodion & Mammarella’s Ritmo 20 credit into the visual record; the sleeve identifies the release, not a track-by-track machine allocation.

Rodion & Mammarella / Musica E Computer

Label lists Eko Ritmo20 in equipment used for the release recorded at Museo Del Synth Marchigiano.

Read Musica E Computer release credits ↗
Cover artwork for Wasted Pido — homesick songs.
Wasted Pido — homesick songs: retained release artwork gives the documented machine credit a record-world context; it does not depict the hardware, a session, or an individual track allocation.

Wasted Pido / homesick songs

Wasted Pido’s credits name an Eko Ritmo 20 among the drum machines used on homesick songs.

Read Wasted Pido — homesick songs ↗
Cover artwork for Wasted Pido — Same Shit Everywhere.
Wasted Pido — Same Shit Everywhere: retained artwork identifies the release or source-recording context, not a machine, session or sound allocation.

Wasted Pido / Same Shit Everywhere

Wasted Pido credits an Eko Ritmo 20 and Korg Volca Beats as the drum machines on Same Shit Everywhere.

Read Wasted Pido / Same Shit Everywhere ↗
01 // Accompaniment

Twenty rhythms, waiting for a player

The Ritmo 20 arrived with twenty preset rhythms, each with introductions and fills. Kenneth McAlpine met it at the hinge between two worlds: a substantial Italian accompaniment machine with a panel made for selection and variation, as programmable drum machines were beginning to reshape expectations.

Source (1)
  1. EKO Ritmo20, Electronics & Music Maker p38 ↗

02 // Accompaniment

Nine voices through six hands

Nine percussion generators feed six mixer channels, giving the player a way to rebalance the rhythm without putting every sound on its own fader. McAlpine heard oscillator and ring-modulator designs in the metallic percussion, and appreciated the timbres and the solidity of the build.

Source (1)
  1. EKO Ritmo20, Electronics & Music Maker p38 ↗

03 // Accompaniment

Fills at the player’s feet

A dual footswitch operates transport and breaks, while rhythm selections can change during playback. The Ritmo 20 makes its music through choosing, pushing into a fill and changing a passage in motion: a preset instrument with a musician very much in the loop.

Source (1)
  1. EKO Ritmo20, Electronics & Music Maker p38 ↗

04 // Accompaniment

A second life in electronic music

Thomas P. Heckmann names a modified Ritmo 20 among the instruments used on Cold Wave, and Slow Motion Records credits the machine in the equipment used for Rodion & Mammarella’s Musica E Computer. Its old rhythm vocabulary has proved inviting to musicians who know how to tilt a familiar pattern into another world.

Sources (2)
  1. Cold Wave artist release page ↗
  2. Musica E Computer release credits ↗

05 // Accompaniment

An Eko rhythm box in Gay Cat Park’s “I’m a Vocoder”

Gay Cat Park identifies the Eko Ritmo 20 in “I’m a Vocoder”. The account does not give a track sheet or dissect the pattern; its strength is simpler. A domestic Italian rhythm box is named as part of a new electronic recording, decades after its original market disappeared.

Source (1)
  1. Ritorno alle origini dell’italo disco: l’avventura dei Gay Cat Park ↗

MUSIC HISTORY

In the market

  • 1982-11: GBP 189 — UK contemporary review retail price. Ritmo20 with dual footswitch and signal lead Source ↗

On record

  • Thomas P. Heckmann — Cold Wave EP. Thomas P. Heckmann names a modified Eko Ritmo20 among the instruments used for the Cold Wave EP. Source ↗
  • Rodion & Mammarella — Musica E Computer. Label lists Eko Ritmo20 in equipment used for the release recorded at Museo Del Synth Marchigiano. Source ↗
  • Gay Cat Park — I’m a Vocoder. Duo names modified Eko Ritmo20 in the studio recording account. Source ↗
  • Davide Gatti and Graziano Ravizza / Gay Cat Park — Gay Cat Park’s early electronic practice. Gatti and Ravizza recall modifying an EKO Ritmo 20 to make a disco rhythm. Source ↗
  • Wasted Pido — homesick songs. Wasted Pido’s credits name an Eko Ritmo 20 among the drum machines used on homesick songs. Source ↗
  • Wasted Pido — Same Shit Everywhere. Wasted Pido credits an Eko Ritmo 20 and Korg Volca Beats as the drum machines on Same Shit Everywhere. Source ↗

Sources

  1. EKO Ritmo20, Electronics & Music Maker p38
  2. Cold Wave artist release page
  3. Musica E Computer release credits
  4. Ritorno alle origini dell’italo disco: l’avventura dei Gay Cat Park
  5. Synthetic Woman MR-012 release notes
  6. Fostex MTC1, Music Technology September1990
  7. Eko Ritmo20 specimen and sample-library account

The visual archive

Further visual evidence.

These displayed records are labelled by their documented role, date and source; source-only records are listed separately below.

EKO Ritmo 20Nov 1982 · Electronics & Music MakerInternal view of the reviewed EKO Ritmo 20; dedicated article and image caption support Ritmo 20, not Ritmo 12.Source & credit ↗
Sources for images shown earlier (5)
Additional visual sources (4)

Original publications and related image sources.

Machine Museum image viewer

Period image shown in the dossier.