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Forat Music and Electronics
Company typeCorporation
Industryelectronic musical instrument design, manufacturing, service, upgrades and customization
FoundedFebruary 1986
Headquarters11739 Ventura Boulevard, Studio City, California, USA
Key people
Bruce Forat
Productsdrum machines, digital samplers, MIDI controllers, custom modifications, digital sound samples
SubsidiariesForat Productions
Websitehttp://www.forat.com

Bruce Forat is an electronics engineer, computer programmer, music producer,[1][2] songwriter and co-founder and president of Forat Music and Electronics Corporation, founded in 1986.

He is known for providing samples, service and upgrades for all Linn Electronics products after Linn went out of business in 1986.[3]

He also designed and manufactured the Forat F16 rack mount digital sampler and the Forat F9000: a debugged and improved version of the ill-fated Linn 9000 drum machine.[3]

Forat Music and Electronics

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Bruce Forat
Forat Music and Electronics - Studio City, California, USA
Forat F9000 integrated digital drum machine and MIDI keyboard recorder
Forat F16 - 16 bit Digital Sampler / Drum Brain

Forat Music and Electronics (also known as Forat Electronics or Forat Music) is a California-based corporation specializing in electronic musical instrument design, manufacturing, service, upgrades and customization, in particular, drum machines and digital samplers.

History

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In 1982, Bruce Forat joined Linn Electronics as an electronics technician. When Linn went out of business in February 1986, brothers Bruce and Ben formed Forat Electronics Corporation in Studio City, California and purchased all of Linn's remaining assets.[4] They hired some former Linn employees including Steve Alcorn, former Vice President of Engineering and Chief Operating Officer.

Forat revamped the original Linn Electronics line, including the LM-1, LinnDrum, and LinnSequencer. They completely reinvented the ill-fated Linn 9000 drum machine[3] and dubbed it the Forat F9000: the first fully functional integrated sampling / sequencing / MIDI work station.[3] They produce software and hardware upgrades and modifications for the Linn 9000, Forat F9000, and the LinnSequencer and modifications, sounds and a MIDI Retrofit Kit for the LinnDrum.

In 1987, Forat introduced the F16: the first 16 bit digital sampler tailored for drummers[3] featuring MIDI capabilities, dynamic response to incoming trigger signals and, with a trigger response time of 0.1 milliseconds, the fastest audio-triggering digital sampler ever sold.[5][6][7]

Over the years, Forat has expanded into other aspects of electronic music technology.

Today, they service, upgrade and customize most types of drum machines and many brands of vintage analog synthesizers. They're an authorized service center for Akai, Yamaha & Roland.[8] They provide repairs and upgrades for the Akai line of hard disk recorders, samplers and the entire Akai MPC series of drum machines. They service Yamaha musical products including their line of digital consoles, drum machines and keyboards, the entire Roland line of products including MV series workstations and MC Groove samplers.

They've produced thousands of custom digital sample sounds for use with the Linn 9000, Forat F9000, LinnDrum, Forat F16, Ensoniq ASR-10, Akai MPC series and the Roland MV-8000 & MV-8800.

They've done custom paint jobs on keyboards and most of the Akai MPC and Roland drum machines and music workstations.[9]

In 2012, Bruce Forat worked as a drum machine design consultant for Akai.

At the time of writing (2015), Forat Electronics continues to provide products and services to music artists, producers and engineers around the world.

Notable customers

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According to Forat, there are over 8,000 Forat Electronics F9000s and F16s in use today around the world. Artists, producers and engineers who use Forat products, sounds, services, upgrades and modifications include:

Grammy Award-winning mix engineer, Dave "Hard Drive" Pensado says "the Forat F16 is my little secret weapon."[19]

When Alan Moulder (Nine Inch Nails) was asked: "Is there a piece of equipment you can't do without?" he replied: "I've got a Forat F16 that I use to trigger kicks and snares". [18]

References

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  1. ^ "We are a fully-equipped audio production facility..." Forat Productions.
  2. ^ "Our audio studio facilities are complete with the latest digital and vintage analogue gear". Forat Studios.
  3. ^ a b c d e "Forat Electronics - History".
  4. ^ "Then in 1986 Forat Electronics Corporation was born after purchasing Linn's remaining assets..." Forat Electronics - History.
  5. ^ a b "Then I went through the "Forat F16" world, which was really quite innovative for its time. It was an old mono triggering sampler, which would trigger faster than anything". John "JR" Robinson (Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Rufus).
  6. ^ "There are very few things that trigger in microseconds yet; I think Forat [F-16 Sampler] does". Jane Child.
  7. ^ "There have also been electronic drum "brains" which could accept audio from miced conventional drums as a trigger signal. Getting this to work reliably, without missed beats and false or double triggering, can be pretty difficult- back in the late '90s when I was doing a lot of recording the only one I encountered that worked well enough to replace conventionally recorded drums was the Forat F16,..." Electric Drum Kits [Archive] - Cosmoquest Forum. Archived from the original on 4 February 2015. Retrieved 4 February 2015.
  8. ^ "Forat Electronics Service".
  9. ^ "Forat Electronics - Service - Customization".
  10. ^ Atom (1 May 2012). "Follow Atom™ aka Señor Coconut aka Uwe Schmidt's choice picks of the web". Atom™ Portal - The Wire. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
  11. ^ a b c d e f "Forat F9000 drum machine/sequencer/sampler... There is nothing that works or sounds like this machine. Extremely intuitive, very fat and punchy sounding, and a feel like no other. This is the machine used by Babyface, LA Reid, Jam and Lewis, Stevie Wonder, Glenn Ballard, Will Smith, and many others. The F9000 can do things no MPC can". FS: Forat F9000 Drum Sampler - Google Groups. 12 August 1999. Retrieved 5 January 2015.
  12. ^ Console Confessions - The Great Music Producers in Their Own Words. Published by Backbeat Books - 2005 - "When we were recording Boyz II Men's "End of the Road" at Studio 4 in Philly, Babyface turned to me and said, "What we have here is a very good song."... We only had six hours to record all the vocals on "End of the Road," which is not a lot of time. Each guy sang on his own track and then the group sang together live while an MPC-60 drum machine and a Forat F-16 sampler kept the backbeat."
  13. ^ Ballard, Glen (1 March 2003). "There's a guy here in LA, called Bruce Forat,... He's been continuing to write software for the 9000 for 15 years, just to keep it working. He's probably had his hands on every Linn 9000 that is still operating, and people send them to him from all over the world. I think I've got 10 of them now, because they're a little fussy and I don't want to make music without them. I do most of my programming on the Linn rather than the Akai, although I use a lot of the sounds in the Akai. For things that are really groove-oriented, I prefer the Linn 9000. I can use it in my sleep, and it's a big tactile thing for me. I just like playing those pads; that's how I play drums. The extra display is a Bruce Forat addition, so you don't go blind looking at the original display — it's saved my eyesight!". Sound On Sound. Archived from the original on 7 April 2016. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
  14. ^ Madonna. "Roland Users Group - Archive - Madonna - Marcus Brown's New Roland Rig". Roland - Community. Retrieved 19 April 2015.
  15. ^ a b Shipley, Mike (1 June 1999). "Q. Do you trigger with that antique Forat I see there? A. No, that's just got a lot of my sounds stored in it". Mike Shipley: HAVING TOO MUCH FUN TO STOP - Mixonline. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  16. ^ DJ Quick (15 October 2013). "DJ Quik Offers Top Dollar Cash Reward For Stolen MPC". All Hip Hop. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
  17. ^ Hancock, Herbie (July 2002). "Herbie Hancock Creating Future2Future & Touring In Surround". Sound on Sound. Archived from the original on 9 November 2014. Retrieved 12 April 2015.
  18. ^ a b Moulder, Alan (28 October 2003). "He had a Forat F16 which he used to trigger samples to sit under the real drums". Alan Moulder info??. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  19. ^ a b Pensado, Dave (September 2001). "And the Forat F16 is my little secret weapon". Mixonline - by Maureen Droney. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  20. ^ RZA (2 May 2008). "Guitar Center Sessions: RZA". Retrieved 20 April 2015.
  21. ^ "A. Linn. Real Name: Linn 9000. Profile: Many Stock, Aitken & Waterman Hit Factory productions credited the famous Stock and Aitken with keyboards, programming, guitars and suchlike. Curiously they almost always credited the same unknown drummer - the mysterious "A. Linn"". A. Linn Discography at Discogs. Retrieved 6 February 2015.
  22. ^ Wu-Tang. "Guitar Center Drops Limited Edition, Wu-Tang Inspired Drum Machine". Just V-D-B - Blog Archive. Retrieved 19 April 2015.
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