Rhythmic Robot has released LEL, a sampled recreation of the Soviet 8-bit sampled drum machine, the Lel' PSR.

The hardware Lel' was programmable but shipped with 32 onboard preset rhythms which made use of its 12 8-bit samples. It also featured a useful Accent control for introducing variation into programmed and preset rhythms.

LEL recreates both the 12 samples and the 32 preset rhythms, which have been time-sliced to sync automatically to the host DAW's tempo. They can be triggered by MIDI note or from the front panel of the Lel itself. All preset rhythms are freely combinable and can be "stacked" to create new polyrhythms. In addition to pan and level controls for each of the kit pieces, the unit also features an effects block with bit-crushing, saturation, drive distortion and compression modules.

A front-panel switch swaps the graphics between authentic Cyrillic lettering and an English translation.
The Lel sound is 8-bit, with short, gritty samples. It suits a wide variety of modern musical styles, while the preset rhythms include not only staples such as Rock, Reggae and Heavy Metal, but also authentic Russian styles such as Kazachok and Lezginka.

Features:

• 12 kit pieces (kick, snare, hats etc) sampled in both non-accented and accented variants, at full 24-bit.
• 32 preset original rhythms sampled in stereo and time-sliced to sync to host DAW.
• Preset rhythms freely combinable in any permutation.
• Pan, level, bit-depth, tape saturation, drive distortion and output compression built in.
• Unusual non-western rhythms included in the preset list.
• Front panel switchable between Russian and English lettering.

Price: £5.95. Available direct from Rhythmic Robot. Requires Kontakt version 4.2.3 and higher (including Kontakt 5 and above). Not compatible with Kontakt player.