Rhythmic Robot have released SuperDrums, a Kontakt recreation of Korg's first digital drum machine.

The 8-bit sampled SuperDrum DDM-110 was a small but powerful, easily programmable machine with a surprisingly sophisticated editing system for its time, and its sounds – while not exactly naturalistic – were punchy and thick. The 8-bit, limited bandwidth sampling lends its tones a crunchy warmth that sits very well in electro and house styles, though it can work well in any contemporary track. It had nine onboard kit pieces, with an Accent control for extra variation. Notable among its onboard sounds are the kick, snare and claps, all of which stand up well nearly thirty years after the machine's release.

In creating SuperDrums, Rhythmic Robot have sampled the original DDM-110's kit pieces in both Accented and unAccented variants, and the UI allows the user to select either a hard swap between these tones or a crossfaded, graded transition from one to the other. A gentle low-pass filter with a 6db/octave roll-off allows the upper frequencies to be toned down, while an output limiter, saturation control and drive distortion allow the sounds to be roughed up beyond their already gritty 8-bit origins.

Features:

• All 9 original kit pieces sampled at 24-bit quality.
• Accented and Unaccented versions, with switchable crossfade.
• Third "mid" Tom created for added versatility.
• Full complement of effects for further sound variation.

SuperDrums is available now from Rhythmic Robot and costs £5.95. It requires Kontakt version 4.2.3 or higher (including Kontakt 5).