Roger Linn is a designer of electronic music products, best known for his invention of the LM-1 Drum Computer, the first programmable, sampled-sound drum machine in 1979. Manufactured by his company Linn Electronics, the LM-1 and its successors the LinnDrum and Linn9000 provided the drums for countless hit records during the 1980s by artists including Prince, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Tina Turner, Peter Gabriel, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Devo and Bruce Hornsby, and are considered a major influence on the music of the era.

In 1988, he designed the innovative MPC60 MIDI Production Center for the Akai Company. Combining a sampling drum machine with a real-time MIDI sequencer, this product became a significant influence in the birth of hip hop music. This was followed in 1994 with the enhanced MPC3000 and others, and the MPC product line is still successful nearly 20 years later.

In 2002, he returned to manufacturing his own products—as well as his love of the guitar—with the release of a groundbreaking guitar effects product called AdrenaLinn. Used on hit recordings by John Mayer, Green Day, Red Hot Chili Peppers and many more, and winning numerous international music product awards, AdrenaLinn transformed a guitarist’s tone by using variety of innovative rhythmic filtering methods, all in sync to an internal drumbeat.

Apart from his music product career, Roger is a guitarist and songwriter, having co-written hits for Eric Clapton ("Promises", 1979) and Mary Chapin Carpenter ("Quittin' Time", 1991), and having toured as a guitarist with the pianist and songwriter Leon Russell in 1976 at age 21. He currently resides in the hills of Berkeley, California and occasionally performs around the San Francisco bay area on guitar and mandolin.