Electronic Soundmaker & Computer Music reviewed the M&A K2.7D in August/September 1984, defining the suffix as “seven drum” and placing the kit below £800. A May 1984 review of Magic Music’s related M&A standard eight-drum outfit establishes the maker, engineer Mick West, the eight-channel control module and a £699 including-VAT RRP. The two reports describe differing configurations; they are evidence of the same M&A system family, not one interchangeable specification sheet.
Seven drums and a rack brain
The K2.7D’s name does the first bit of work for us: the 1984 review says it stands for “seven drum”. The period photograph shows the machine as a kit a drummer could approach in the usual way — pads on Premier hardware, a larger bass pad and cymbal hardware above it. But its sound-making lived off to the side in a 19-inch rack case. M&A’s design put the physical argument of a kit in front of the player, then let the electronics sit where an amplifier or mixer might normally sit.
Period press
M&A K2.7D in Electronic Soundmaker & Computer Music
Printed review p. 21, headed “The Right Angle — M&A K2.7D”, with a photograph of the exact seven-drum kit and the contemporary review text.
The whole channel, under the hand
Each channel on the rack control unit had its own trigger input and direct output, level, pan, click, noise, pitch, sweep, sensitivity and decay controls. The contemporary review also describes a choice between factory and user-defined sound states. This is not a machine whose identity can be reduced to one famous kick or tom. It was a row of independently adjustable voices, arranged so a player could shape the kit before the performance began.
A small sequencer inside the drum brain
M&A built a micro-sequencer into the same system. It addressed the first three channels with eight 4/4 patterns, and could be started or stopped from a footswitch. That is a modest rhythm accompaniment by later standards, but it changes the picture of the K2.7D. The rack was not merely translating pad hits: it could keep a simple pulse running while the drummer worked the rest of the kit, set sounds with hands free or used its pulse function as a practical metronome.
The price of a hard-wearing alternative
Everard put a seven-drum K2.7D at below £800. A few months earlier, Paul White gave Magic Music’s standard eight-drum M&A outfit a £699 including-VAT RRP, with separate five- and eight-pad configuration prices. These are different reports of different configurations, rather than a contradiction to smooth away. Together, they show the commercial aim: a serious electronic kit that was being positioned against the Simmons SDS8 without demanding flagship money.
Chris Everard, “The Right Angle: M&A K2.7D” ↗ Paul White, “M&A Electronic Kit” ↗
A company name worth following
White names Magic Music as the manufacturer and marketer, and engineer Mick West as the system’s developer. That anchors the K2.7D in a particular British workshop rather than treating “M&A” as an anonymous badge. It also helps distinguish this seven-drum K2.7D from both the eight-drum configuration in the May review and the later Ultimate Percussion products that grew from the same wider scene.
Sources
The visual archive