Never seen a presenter that well-versed for the subject matter at hand.

So uncommon to see a well prepared journalist asking all the right questions.

I think we've found the most 80's video on KZfaq.

I’m actually impressed with her knowledge and drum vocabulary.

Loved Leslie Judd.. She always did her homework on anything she presented.

That woof was legendary.

Bill speaks just like news broadcaster, good pleasent tone and smart articulation.

I enjoy watching these clips from shows that were really educational, well researched and presented, and didn't talk down to the audience. It's just tinged with regret that they don't seem to make 'em like this any more.

She had great questions! Lesley Judd showing us how a professional interview is prepared for and conducted. That was a fun conversation.

The dog bark was impeccable

In that time, interviewers (here, Leslie Judd) knew their job and asked pertinent questions in a very professional and clearly perfectly educated way. Sadly, it's obviously no longer the case...

I honestly wish electric drums still looked like this

Bill Bruford was my lecturer at music college was great to be taught by him!

When Phil Collins needed a second drummer for Genesis's 1976 tour , the first person he turned to was Bill Bruford . Nuff said . Fantastic drummer .

Bill Bruford was a true prog rock drummer... he progressed! I greatly admired his thirst for change and innovation no matter what project he was involved with.

These were everywhere in the mid-late 80’s. I thought those red octagon pads were so cool

The interviewer either prepared really well or is a drummer herself. Something you don't see anymore.

Intelligent, informative, engaging conversation. No formulaic tropes or over-sell of the content. I miss TV like this...

That kit was sooooo cool back in the day. It still looks very futuristic.

Lesley Judd seemed very well informed about drumming.

Are we going to ignore how masterful the dog bark was?

0:22 - “Don’t lean on the main unit. Don’t touch it. In fact don’t even look at it.” “This one goes to eleven.”

She really asked the right questions! Amazing!!

We need more polygon shaped drums in the present day!

The interviewer was absolutely brilliant. Excellent background knowledge and very articulate. Oh and Bill Bruford was pretty cool and obviously very intelligent too!

In Germany we never had shows like that. Seeing this in 2022 blows my mind, what a great TV show.

Man, I've always thought Simmons drums were not touch sensitive, just simple sound pads. That set was a lot more expressive than I thought it would be. Electronic drums have not come THAT much farther since then.

Well done BBC, solid program-making that stands up decades later.

I love it when he points out she’s leaning on the control unit, and then goes back to leaning on it. I also like the comment by the male presenter ‘I’ve often thought everybody will want to play drums , but end up programming them on a computer instead’ Well I’m not sure ‘everybody’ but lots of us do.

The lady sounds to be very knowledgeable about the topic of drum set. I loved it.

That interviewer is very good. She seemed genuinely curious and asked some great questions.

Aaaagghhh! It finished before the clip of Bill drumming in Tokyo…!!!!

I remember a few years later, Bill Bruford appeared on an episode of Rock School, another BBC show, where he demonstrated a larger and more advanced Simmons kit. I remember him showing off how you could do things like link switch a given sound to any pad he wanted, by having the "snare" pad set to trigger bass drums, "Suddenly you can do 7 stroke rolls on your bass drum...forget about that double bass drum technique", and program in sequences, so that when you hit a pad, you can get a short melodic sequence (which reminds that I remember watching a Grateful Dead video, where Mickey Hart used a Roland Octapad to trigger sequences), and so forth, then at the end plays this actual composition that had chords and melody, but it was all him playing it solo. "Now you can be a REAL musician", Bill facetiously tells us.

She really knows her onions - very refreshing

"One-and-a-half megabytes of ROM," said Dave Simmons, proudly.

I love how he politely pointed out she was leaning on the "main unit".

The 80's would not have been the same without Simmons drums.

This is fantastic. Quite arguably one of the best drummers in music history and Dave Simmons himself. I always liked the sound of the Simmons drums on the Genesis "Second Home By The Sea" instrumental piece performed in 1983 by Phil Collins on the "Genesis" album from that year.

32 kbs. Very nice. Folks today have no idea how much memory that was at the time. Massive memory!

Bruford is one of the greatest musicians of all time! A Genius in his realm!

I'm not sure if we had any shows like this in the States, but If we did, they certainly don't exist anymore. A shame. This seems like such an interesting and informative show to watch.

Micro live was such a good, professional show. I love bingewatching old episodes on KZfaq. So much to learn or relive.

This is how an interview is supposed to be conducted.

I bought a SIMMONS SD 1200 drumkit recently , and I'm awesomely impressed by it !

Oddest fact about Bill Bruford: after a stellar career in Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, etc. he entered University in 2016 to study music. Who the hell was going to teach him?

Lesley Thudd. She knows her onions here.

6:11 he's had that bark ready for years

Bill is just pure class. The presenter was really knowledgeable and interested. Long live the BBC.

This is the drum machine that does the 'doof doofs' at the start of the 'EastEnders' theme! 😂

You’ll be happy to know that Simmons is still in business and they’re producing vastly updated electronic drum kits today.

I could listen to these two talk all day lol

Those were fun to play back in the day….. early to mid eighties. the action on those pads were amazing

Originally Prince had the idea to attach an acoustic pickup to a drum head and used it as a midi trigger. That way he could utilize Linn sounds in a live setting, with a live drummer.

What a great piece. Lesley Judd was an awesome presenter: absolutely whip-smart in everything she did.

The kind of casually polite conversation we rarely see these days.

The great Bill Bruford. Saw him three times with Earthworks. 1992 at the Shaw Theatre in Kings Cross, 1998 at Queen Elizabeth Hall Southbank, part of a summer festival, then 1999 at Blackheath Concert Halls where I got to shake hands after the gig.

Used to LOVE this show. Genuinely informative. Having a BBC Micro at home made you feel part of a special new club. Also reminded me I had a Bill Bruford record in the 80's haha

All-time favourite drummer!

Wow. What a time capsule. EDrums have come so far!

Lesley Judd was such a great presenter, hopefully still is.

They didn’t play the live King Crimson footage at the end. An amazing piece of gear for the time. Bill Bruford on the other hand is timeless.

Blimey I completely forgot that Bill left Yes and joined King Crimson. I remember the Moody Blues were possibly the first band to experiment with electronic drums back in the late 60s. I recall that for a tour they rehearsed with them but at the Royal Festival Hall (or was it one of the other South Bank venues? Please forgive me I was in my early 20s at the time) they ditched them for the actual performance as the things kept playing themselves and receiving interference during rehearsals. I recall from that concert, that supporting them on the bill were Hotlegs an early iteration of 10cc, who’d had commercial success with a single ("Neanderthal Man") that was heavily featured on mainstream pop radio (Yuk!) and TV at the time. Despite the obvious petty nature of that single, the band themselves were not at all bad, had we realised that Godley and Creme would soon include Graham Gouldman, a bit of a hero for his brilliant songs recorded by the Yardbirds (notably For your Love, Heart Full of Soul and the glory-bringer Evil Hearted You), 3 absolute masterpieces of pop/rock singles, as well as writing a host of other material for chart topping pop bands, such as The Hollies, Wayne Fontana, Herman’s Hermits etc.

1985. What a blessed time. The time when drummers were afraid to be left out :) Bill Bruford is a genius drummer by the way.

I LOVE IT THIS DRUM MASCHINE OF 80S...I WAS BORN IN 90S AND UNFORTUNATELY NEVER HEARD IT IN LIVE :(

I love how Synthwave bands still use that kit

School had one of these in 1988 lol

What an excellent interviewer. He's so interested and really immersing himself in the situation. Love it.

This intelligent, well researched interview is a pleasure to listen to. Prescient commentary too.

Great clip! The basic principle hasn't changed that much since then, and many drummers use e-drums in the studio - but for live shows acoustic kits still prevail.

Excellent Stuff Dave Simmons is a legend 👌🏾

6:13 is it just me or was the way that dude just randomly let out a perfect doglike bark kinda hilarious

I had exactly the same yellow v-neck jumper during my last year at school in 86

You know kids... you have never had it so good. Can you imagine what it was like to be a young aspiring creative musician in the early 80's, looking at all this great new technology but had no way of being able to acquire it, because of it's relatively huge price tag and bulky size. These days you can buy a drum control surface for less than 50 quid, download free samples and virtual instruments, host it is a free digital audio workstation and have access to huge libraries of sounds at orders of magnitude higher quality than these Syn-drums. And most of your set up can fit in a small backpack along with your laptop. With all these cheap and creative tools at your disposal these days, you'd think modern music would be so innovative and make Bill's contemporaries look like amateurs in comparison ... you'd think! 😉

Bruford is a legend!!

I love this british interaction. Love from Perú

Can we take a minute to acknowledge the greatness of Bills shirt..

Alex Van Halen used Simmons drums a bit on the 1984 album, but all-out on 5150. At the time that album sounded so new-age or fresh and modern for a hard rock album. I think Al's Simmons drums is a big part of that, they fit perfect on a song like "Why Can't This Be Love", among others songs on that album.

Judd was wasted on Blue Peter. Going by this clip she should have presented The Old Grey Whistle Test!

Great piece, when tv was still worth watching, and prophetic words from Leslie’s co-presenter half way through.

'Novelty drums' Nice Christmas gift - in the attic by February.

Hey, I remember Bill. He played with my dad 😂

Bill is playing a Simmons SDS7 with a selector pad. His kit is expanded from the basic seven channels (hence the name) to nine channels. The system could be expanded to 12 channels with expansion being enacted by adding additional cards. Each card contains a single note/monophonic analog synthesizer and sample playback or recorded sounds via EPROMs. No MIDI with this kit although and MTM interface as a separate box could be added giving MIDI capabilities (and much more). I still own an expanded SDS7 myself.

I love these interviewers styles they are so in-depth with their questions and seem genuinely engaged with them. Nowadays people just skim over things and ask the obvious. I imagine back then (days before KZfaq and wiki etc) this would have been a great resource.

Very cool to see this mixture of technology and art. I love King Crimson!

6:11 wtf, how did that guy make that sound :D

These kind of drums need to make a comeback. Electronic drums these days all look exactly alike

Wonderful! Thank you for sharing this.

Epic ! Thnx for sharing 🙏🏻

That was a pretty astounding dog impersonation

The sound of the 80s was created by various drum machines including electronic drum kits.

Awesome piece of video, thanks 🙏

I miss the SImmons kit, the shape alone was a real 80's icon.

6:11 iconic

4:42 that's a familiar sound 🥴

Each of the presenters’ questions were brilliant

This takes me way back. I still have Genesis' SDS7 kit.

this was when the BBC TV licence fee was actually worth paying

Bill Bruford, one of the most underrated drummers of all time?

Very well knowledge, both of em’. Truly ahead of their time.

The lady that interviews Bill did good homework and is clearly very interested in knowing more! What an interesting and substantive program. Wish we could see more often these kind of programs nowadays.