Premier introduced Powerpak in 1986 as its first electronic drum kit. A May International Musician review places it at that year’s Frankfurt trade show and records a five-voice, rackmountable analogue sound module, a substantial twin-frame support system and a £795 RRP. Premier’s period advertisement called it “the new generation analogue percussion”.
The kit with a frame
Premier did not enter electronic drums with a row of little pads on a desktop. Powerpak arrived as a playable kit: pads and cymbals on two black, inverted-U frames, joined by the bass-drum pad. The May 1986 review called the hardware unusually solid, and the advertisement makes the same point visually. This was an acoustic-drum maker’s answer to electronics, built for a player with sticks in hand.
International Musician & Recording World, “Premier Powerpak” ↗ Premier Percussion, “The Time Has Come” Powerpak advertisement ↗
Period press
Premier Powerpak, “The Time Has Come”
Full-page International Musician & Recording World advertisement showing the complete Powerpak kit and the line “The new generation analogue percussion by Premier.”
Premier takes the plunge
Bob Henrit’s contemporary review called Powerpak the surprise of the 1986 Frankfurt trade show and described it as Premier’s first electronic kit. That matters because Premier was already a familiar name in conventional drums and percussion. Powerpak was not presented as a replacement for that world; it was the company carrying its own hardware habits into a new kind of instrument.
International Musician & Recording World, “Premier Powerpak” ↗
Five voices, made to be worked
The rackmountable brain held five analogue voices: bass, snare and three toms. Each section offered pad sensitivity, pitch, filtering, tone and filter bend, noise-to-tone mix, attack, decay and harmonic level, alongside factory and user sound choices. The review also notes finger pads on the module for auditioning sounds while programming. It is a very mid-eighties proposition: a drummer’s kit on the outside, a small sound-design bench in the rack.
International Musician & Recording World, “Premier Powerpak” ↗
A rehearsal room built in
Powerpak’s brain included a variable-tempo click track through the headphone socket and inputs for playing along with a hi-fi source, according to the review. Those are modest details, but they locate the system somewhere useful: not solely on stage or in a showroom, but in the practice room where a player could shape a sound and work on a part without taking over the house.
International Musician & Recording World, “Premier Powerpak” ↗
The price of the first step
International Musician printed a £795 RRP in May 1986. It was not an attempt to displace every elaborate electronic kit in the market; Henrit read it as a modern alternative within Premier’s broader range. The full-page Premier advertisement is bolder: lightning, the complete kit, and a declaration that “the time has come”. Between them they preserve the real story—an established percussion company deciding that analogue electronics belonged in its catalogue.
International Musician & Recording World, “Premier Powerpak” ↗ Premier Percussion, “The Time Has Come” Powerpak advertisement ↗
Sources
The visual archive