Dave Simmons’s 1983 factory-profile account names the SDS4 as a later two-channel version of the four-channel SDS3. His 1985 interview recalls introducing it after the original garden-shed product, while a 2012 collector report describes a hand-built SDS4 as one of about 100 examples.
The machine in the record
Billy Green and ExpandiS / home recordings.
A contemporary review lists a Simmons SDS-IV in the equipment for Billy Green’s Soundscapes excerpts and ExpandiS’ I’m Not Waving ... I’m Drowning, recorded at home in 1981. The lists do not separate the tracks, but they preserve a period view of electronic drums entering private recording rooms.
Read E&MM Demo Cassettes — home-recording reviews ↗More records in the archive
The machine keeps turning up.
Dave Formula / Visage / early Visage recording sessions
Dave Formula recalls early Simmons SDS4 use, clocked from a Roland Microcomposer, during Visage recording.
Read Visage / Simmons SDS4 early recording account ↗
Stephen Morris / Joy Division / As You Said
Stephen Morris recalls triggering a Simmons SDS4 from Martin Hannett’s ARP sequencer to make Joy Division’s ‘As You Said’.
Read Stephen Morris on the Simmons SDS4 and Joy Division’s ‘As You Said’ ↗The little early Simmons
The SDS4 belongs to Simmons’s first generation of compact electronic drum systems, built to sit beside an acoustic kit rather than replace the drummer. Period accounts place the two-channel model between the early small-box instruments and the later SDS5, when Dave Simmons’s work was beginning to take on its familiar modular identity.
Two channels, two drums
The model is also seen as SDS IV. Contemporary descriptions and later Simmons material agree on its compact two-channel, two-drum character, with an early electronic-noise voice very different from the sampled drum sounds that followed in the next decade. Its modest size is the point: this was a way of adding electronic attack and colour to a player’s existing setup.
Stephen Morris, Martin Hannett and As You Said
Stephen Morris recalls making Joy Division’s “As You Said” by triggering a Simmons SDS4 from Martin Hannett’s ARP sequencer. It is a compact account of the method behind an unusual record: the drummer, an early Simmons voice and Hannett’s sequencer working as one instrument. The release catalogue retains “As You Said” in the Joy Division story; Morris’s own recollection supplies the SDS4 connection.
A sound from the home-recording frontier
In 1981, *Electronics & Music Maker* listed an SDS-IV among the equipment used for Billy Green’s *Soundscapes* excerpts and ExpandiS’ home-recorded *I’m Not Waving ... I’m Drowning*. They are small, vivid signs of these early boxes finding their way into studios before the larger hex-pad kits became the public image of Simmons.
A survivor in the used market
A 1986 *E&MM* classified offered an SDS IV package with two drums and two channels for £120 ono. The advert reads like a glimpse of the machine’s actual working life: a small electronic addition, sold on as its owner moved through a rapidly changing drum world.Source (1)
A scarce early object
A Simmonsmuseum acquisition report from 2012 describes its SDS4 as an especially scarce survivor and repeats a collector estimate of about 100 hand-built units. Whatever the precise number, the surviving instrument carries the appeal of a formative, locally made electronic-drum design.Source (1)
On record
- Billy Green and ExpandiS — Soundscapes excerpts; I’m Not Waving ... I’m Drowning. A contemporary review lists a Simmons SDS-IV in the equipment for Billy Green’s Soundscapes excerpts and ExpandiS’ I’m Not Waving ... I’m Drowning, recorded at home in 1981. Source ↗
- Dave Formula / Visage — early Visage recording sessions. Dave Formula recalls early Simmons SDS4 use, clocked from a Roland Microcomposer, during Visage recording. Source ↗
Sources
- Industry Profile — Simmons Electronics
- Tech Talk — Dave Simmons
- Simmons Virtual Museum — SDS 4 device record
- Simmons Drums History
- Simmons Electronic Drum Sounds — SDSIV (1978)
- E&MM Demo Cassettes — home-recording reviews
- Simmons SDS IV classified listing
- Simmonsmuseum — Mission SDS4
- Stephen Morris on the Simmons SDS4 and Joy Division’s ‘As You Said’
- Joy Division — As You Said
The visual archive
Further visual evidence.
Sources for images shown earlier (2)
- Behind Visage — Electronics & Music Maker ↗
- Joy Division — As You Said ↗
1988-07-11T12:00:00Z · Joy Division / release artwork via Apple Music catalog artwork · Release catalogue and retained front artwork
Additional visual sources (1)
Original publications and related image sources.
- Simmons Virtual Museum — SDS 4 device record ↗
Undated · Simmons Virtual Museum · SDS 4 device detail page