These days, Swedish company Nord is most known for its distinctive red-colored keyboards. But the company’s founders, Hans Nordelius and Mikael Carlsson, originally collaborated in 1983 to create the world’s first commercial-grade digital drum, the Digital Percussion Plate 1. An improved version was released in 1984, under a new name: ddrum. The ddrum brand was sold off in 2005, and it wasn’t until 2012 that Nord put out a new drum product, simply called the Nord Drum.

June 2017 Issue