New Wave Drum Machine

[Neomi Bensch]

Mostof us have dreams of a vintage drum machine. And, there's good reason for this. Back in the day, they were easier to use, bigger and frankly much more intuitive. Wave Alchemy, like many other companies has worked hard to bring us an instrument that emulates these old drum machines, while at the same time doing some things that are new and clever. Does this Kontakt-based instrument come close?

Before we get into the sounds, which are by far the most important aspect of any drum machine, of any sort, I'd like to talk about the execution and timing of Digital Revolution. One thing that has been a dead giveaway for what is real vintage and what's a sample pack, or bank, isn't really the samples as much as the timing. When you program a vintage drum machine, the timing, velocities, swing and fidelity are factors that many companies forget about, opting to only get the best recording. This is something that Wave Alchemy definitely understand and have obviously gone to great lengths to compensate for this with both clever programming and incredible interface design.

Digital Revolution provides an interface that supplies both step sequencing, real-time rhythm capture via MIDI, intuitive key mapping, and very clever audio manipulation parameters framed in such a way that you won't spend weeks scratching your head. In fact, even if you don't have too much experience with any drum machine, you'll pick this up quick.

What I find particularly clever are the key mappings that Wave Alchemy obviously spent some time on. Not only can you trigger the sequencer from different keys, you can also program patterns, re-sequence patterns, and even load patterns all from your MIDI controller. So, you can play beats, program beats, and the drums never stop the whole time. This really is a freestylists dream that anyone can learn.

This is where I have to take a step forward and really commend Wave Alchemy on not only a great piece of work, but also for really spelling out the intention for what is taking place in a really nicely written manual. Many brilliant instruments come and go with features that are brilliant, but go unnoticed due to lack of clear explanation. Beyond the manual, Wave Alchemy has done something really unique here. They've created an instrument (actually several drum and percussion instruments, with additional drum modules intended for allowing you to utilize certain individual drums within a DAW) that is doing some incredibly complex tasks, in a manner that replicates not necessarily any particular vintage drum machine, but a culminations of features mixed with the feel, vibe and tone of the really classic, vintage drum machines.

And, there is so much amazing possibility for coming up with amazing new drum and percussion sounds of your own. And, even though it may be a unique kick drum of your design, because of the effects employed, the beautifully captured samples, and even the signal chains taking place, your unique kick drum still sounds strangely vintage.

This is sound and instrument design taking place on the highest levels of professionalism. And, with regret, I can't even begin to scratch the surface on everything that is possible and even going on in Digital Revolution. Suffice to say, if you're doing any form of music that could benefit from a really classic electronic drum machine that always delivers, try this out. And, keep in mind that for some, this is a gift that keeps on giving. There's also included Ableton Live and NI Maschine packs. All this, and it's barely $100.

Pros: A serious instrument made up of many beautifully, and painstakingly recorded samples of some of the best drum machines ever, that also happens to have an incredible sequencer, set of effects and Ableton Live and Maschine packs.

Sound Designer, Musician, Author... G.W. Childs has worn many hats. Beginning in the U.S. Army back in 1991, at the age of 18, G.W. began learning electronics, communications and then ultimately audio and video editing from the Department of Defense.Upon leaving the military G.W. went on to work for many exciting companies like Lu... Read More

When working on a DMD stack, one or more Quick Sampler tracks can suddenly reset. This means that the selected sample disappears and the instrument just plays a sine wave. I only do drums with DMDs and Quick Samplers, and I don't use Quick Sampler that much except for that. The first time I encountered this bug was when getting back to an unsaved project window after waking up the computer so I thought "alright always save before letting the computer go to sleep, no new lessons here", but I've since then found when adding a new track to the DMD stack (then an existing one resets), or when adding some other track to the project. I've navigated through undo/redo levels in the project but it doesn't fix it. If you try to undo the action that caused the bug, sure it gets undone, but your quick sampler instrument is still ruined. On another occasion the sample didn't reset to a sine wave but instead to a completely different file in the same folder of the originally loaded one, and it got pitched waaaaay down. I never really know when I'll find it, so I can't avoid it. And I also don't know if it's DMD or QS' problem. What I'm looking for: More info on how to trigger it, so that I can avoid it (other than stop using DMD and QS ?)

I have never experienced what you describe, however I never, ever let any of my music production machines go to sleep, and I never leave Logic Pro open for any length of time when I'm not using my Mac. I've found that this resolved many unexpected issues.

It's definitely another one of those habits to make sure you get rid of, I mean, in Logic, never ever have 2 (or more) projects open at the same time, as it creates irremediable damages to your projects.

Is your library (or samples being used with Quicksampler/DMD) on an external drive?

The symptoms indicate that the samples are disappearing....so wondering if an external drive is dropping into power saving mode or has a dodgy connection/is running thru a hub?

I uploaded this Wavetable Drum Machine last year but it became a casualty of a server issue (I hope it didn't cause it, it is a bit heavy). Anyway it didn't work under windows so while I was updating old drum machines I sorted this one out.

Saving must be saved to the 'pattern' folder within the program folder. Save the file with one word and no extension, a file of that name will be created for the pattern settings. Another file with the same name will also be created with the extension '.kit', this stores the names of the wave files.

Loading must be from the 'pattern' folder within the program folder. All the clock, pattern and wave files will be updated. select only the file WITHOUT the .kit extension, otherwise nothing will load and soundfiler errors will appear in the Pd window.

The clear button will clear all the amplitude sliders, set all the clock settings to 1 except BPM which is set to 500.

This looks great, but I can't get it to run yet. What libraries does it need? With a fresh download of pd I get some "Can't create" error messages. Adding in the Zexy external library gets rid of most of them, but I still have problems with these:

In the vein of the Dr660, Dr5. I have nearly every 808 clone but the programming is generally a nightmare on ios. I own both the dr 660 and Dr5 but i hate carrying them around with me when I travel. These two drum machines are staples for that sound. Just wondering if IOS has anything to offer, as I am getting closer and closer to getting rid of a lot of my hardware after the Cubasis update BM3 and Loopy Pro. A serious go to Drum Machine is the only thing I'm lacking. I know BM3 is a great drum samplers, but I don't want to rely on dragging samples all the time. I just need bread and butter drum machine that I can always pull up and track out

Bought Drambo. Still learning it. The learning curve is insane due to my schedule.. I know its crazy powerful, but its like it came to fruition from Stephen Hawking's brain on Acid surrounded by grooveboxes

Bought Drambo. Still learning it. The learning curve is insane due to my schedule.. I know its crazy powerful, but its like is came to fruition from Stephen Hawking's brain on Acid surrounded by grooveboxes

Lolololol.

I hear you in regards to drambo.

As you have drambo already, simply put Flexisamplers on each track

and load up the samples and use the sequencer tracks without

getting into all the other mind bending, multi-universe stuff

and are you playing out now?

If so good hear.

Big Thanks.

The Yamaha RY30 set is perfect. I have electro wave in my Gadget module, so I apparently bought it but deleted it for some reason. I will def donate. Its really a great set of samples from some great hardware. Downloading the electro wave standalone again. Got some holiday time next month, so I'll try to sink my teeth into Drambo as well. Again, thanks for the quick reply. Awesome community!!

Big Thanks.

The Yamaha RY30 set is perfect. I have electro wave in my Gadget module, so I apparently bought it but deleted it for some reason. I will def donate. Its really a great set of samples from some great hardware. Downloading the electro wave standalone again. Got some holiday time next month, so I'll try to sync my teeth into Drambo as well. Again, thanks for the quick reply. Awesome community!!

I did this with multiple samples I got online and older BM2 banks for classic drum machines. I setup multiple pages with a different machine in each of them. Some deserved some labeling I didn't do back then

The desire for 80s electronic music-making gear has never been greater with so many Synth Pop, Coldwave, Darkwave and Post Punk bands around recreating that much loved sound with the help of retro drum machines and synths used back in the day.

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