Simmons SDS5 (SDSV)

A kit instead of an addition

Dave Simmons told Electronics & Music Maker in 1983 that the SDS3 had been intended to complement an acoustic kit. The SDS5 brief was different: an electronic set that could take the kit’s place. Pads fed sound modules and a mixer in a separate rack, leaving the player behind a visibly new outline while the circuitry did the shaping elsewhere.

A 1985 company report looked back to a hexagonal demonstration at the 1980 Over The Road Show, remembering uncertain dealers and curious musicians. It combines recollection with retrospective storytelling; it is not an invoice that settles first sale or shipment. By June 1983, a factory profile saw SDS5 production expanding at Abbey Mill near St Albans. Together, those documents trace an initially improbable object becoming workshop and touring reality.

What the stick actually struck

The factory visitor saw hexagonal plywood forms, a pickup fixed to the playing assembly, an outer shell sprayed from the inside, a polycarbonate top, and isolating mounts intended to reduce false triggers through the stand. Staff were still working through adhesive, response and durability questions. A strike had to travel from hand through surface and pickup to an electronic voice without setting its neighbours off.

That journey had a cost for the player. Contemporary reporting describes resistance to the hard surface. Years later, Steve Jansen recalled using a Simmons 5 live during Japan’s era: he valued its sound and appearance but found it difficult and punishing to play. This is live-use testimony, not evidence that a particular Japan studio recording contains the SDS5.

Behind the pads

The 1983 Music UK review describes a modular rack with mixer and room for up to seven sound modules. A basic set comprised bass drum, snare and three tom voices with four regular pads and a bass pad; other modules were additions. Voice controls gave room to balance noise and tone, bend pitch, set decay and shape attack. The rack was where the character of a hit was made.

Calling the SDS5 entirely analogue would be too simple. The main bass, snare and toms were produced by analogue circuits, but optional hi-hat and cymbal modules used digitally sampled sounds with further analogue treatment. Those cymbal voices were not part of the basic kit price. The silent diagram marks this difference without offering synthesis, parameters or substitute audio.

The SDS6 sequencer could send triggers into SDS5 modules while pads remained playable. It is a related but separate machine with its own photographed black panel and programming history. Follow the connection to the SDS6 chapter rather than treating the sequencer as an SDS5 voice card.

Heard, played and sometimes misremembered

Richard James Burgess recalls using a prototype SDS-V from a Roland MC-8 for Shock records and Landscape’s Tearooms of Mars. He identifies Spandau Ballet’s “Chant No. 1” as the first recording on which the SDS-V was played live by John Keeble. This is valuable firsthand testimony, but it does not settle production revision, individual drum voices or every part of the released arrangement. Release art identifies the single; it is not a session photograph.

The 1985 Simmons company feature later claimed broad chart reach for the sound. That remains a company report of association, not a set of individually verified credits. The more grounded accounts—Burgess naming a prototype and Jansen recalling a punishing live surface—show different ways an instrument entered people’s work.

An expensive proposition

Palmer printed £1,530.65 including VAT for a basic SDS5 kit in September 1983. It is a British review-era figure for a defined package, not a universal launch price. The July dealer advertisement lists individual component prices; adding them without matching the package would create a misleading total. [simmonssds5musicuk83; simmons-sds5-emm-1983-dealer-ad]

The SDS5’s shape announced electronic drumming before a note was played. The dealer page starts the story; the factory visit takes us inside the pad; the rack explains the voice; Burgess and Jansen return the kit to players. The hexagon becomes an instrument again.