[LAU] Electric pop music engineering history - Was: Mix feedback on a new track?

[Ralf Mardorf]

I was mistaken, I own a SPX90II, but the advertising comes from the
SPX90, resp. from the "ARTIST, ENGINEER, AND PRODUCER APPLICATION'S
GUIDEBOOK":

"On the song "Open Your Heart, produced by Pat Leonard and Madonna, the
drum track was played live to a programmed pattern. Pat and Madonna
decided to keep the high-hat because they liked the feel that it added,
but they did not want it identified as a "machine". To solve this
problem, Pat used the AUTO PAN setting of the SPX90 to keep the
sixteenth note RX11 high-hat pattern moving, making it harder to focus
on this track."

That's just promotion, but using panning, usually MIDI control instead
of a noise effect unit, was really one method used to avoid the
machine-gun effect (just naming it "machine" in the sense of "drum
machine" is an understatement/downplaying of the issue).