or more drum pads. It quickly caught the attention of numerous high-profile drummers/percussionists at the time, such as Carmine Appice and Terry Bozzio. However, the Syndrum was a financial failure and the company failed in the following years. In 1978, the Simmons company was created to produce commercial electronic drums sets. Its most notable product was the SDS-5, released in 1981. With its characteristic hexagon-shaped pads, the SDS-5 was first used by Richard James Burgess on From the Tea-rooms of Mars ...., "Chant No. 1" by Spandau Ballet, and "Angel Face" by Shock. After its debut on the top musical chart shows and parades, this electronic instrument garnered significant attention from established and influential rock/pop musicians. The sound of the SDS-5 is often described retrospectively with phrases such as "awful" or "sounded like trash can lids" by those who employed them at the time. Despite the critics, the distinctive Simmons sound was extensively used during the 1980s by pop/rock & synth-pop groups such as Duran Duran and progressive rock bands such as Rush, among others. Simmons drums are often viewed somewhat nostalgically by those who began to experiment with these early forays into electronic drums and percussion. 1980s-1990s In the following 1980s, other companies started selling their own versions of Simmons' electronic drums, notably Pearl, Roland and Yamaha. At that time, electronic drums were similar to 2016-era starter or entry-level kits. They consisted of rubber-coated sensor pads mounted on stands. The pads were created to be velocity-sensitive and the sound was generated through single or multiple-layered sampling or synthesized sound. In 1997, Roland introduced its TD-10 model, which had two major musical and electronic innovations. The first and more controversial innovation was its method of providing noises for the drums/pads to trigger, instead of generating its sound by using samples of an acoustic drum or cymbal. The TD-10 used mathematical models to generate tones using synthesizers. While some drummers lamented the fact that the produced sound was not a "pure" sample of an acoustic instrument, others argued that simple replication of an acoustic drum was not desirable. Secondly, instead of rubber-coated pads, Roland featured a new mesh-like pad, produced in collaboration with acoustic drum skin manufacturer Remo. The mesh-head pads look and feel approximately like a smaller-sized acoustic drum (although the wooden shell is much smaller). The Remo/Roland mesh surface is made from a double layer of taut woven mesh