Prince famously used the Linn LM-1 on many of his tracks; on “1999”, there are additional live drums, though. There are quite some free LM-1 sample libraries floating around the web, not sure where I got my LM-1 samples; but most should do.
The 1999 kick sounds very LM-1, so I used a LM-1 sample there. Same for the clap, added a bit of analog CP classic to that one. Snare, hats and cymbals sound like acoustic drums, so I used acoustic drum samples (well, technically the LM-1 uses acoustic drum samples, too, but they sound very machine-ish), mostly from the Producers’ Choice Organic Drum Kit. Two different snare sounds panned about half way left/right. The “knocking” rhythm part at the end of every other bar is two LM-1 tom samples with a bit of low pass filtering, and a LM-1 rim shot sample tuned way down (TUN -17) running through a bandpass (FRQ=64, RES=0, ENV=0).
All those drums (except hihat) have reverb with different send levels, like 44 on the toms, 100 on the kick and 127 on the claps. Reverb decay is parameter locked on the FX track to get gated reverb sounds; like, on step 4, right before the snare hit, DEC is locked to 112, then on step 6, which is micro-time nudged far left, DEC is 21.
The wind noise in the intro is the AR’s “UT Noise” machine on track 10; HPF=32, everything else at default; then into filter w/ FRQ=75, RES=29, LP2, ENV=0, with the LFO modulating the filter frequency, WAV=RND, SPH=88, Free Mod, DEP=+14, SPD=+12, MUL=x2.
Bass is the SY RAW machine on track 2. WAV1=SAW, WAV2=SSAW with DET=-12, BAL=+26, DEC2=INF, NLEV=0, LEV=127. Into Filter with FRQ=28, RES=1, LP2, ENV=+27, ADSR=0, 36, 0, 64. Into Amp with everything at 0/center, except VOL=100, HLD=Auto, DEC=31.
