I tried that and it doesn't work, there's still a lot or random hapening so every kick does not sound the same. I also tried it with an "init" patch to start from scratch and make sure nothing else could modify the hits, but there's that never ending random thing happening again.Sugar Bytes wrote: Wed Dec 18, 2019 11:14 am Concentrate on the Resonator for kicks. Here are some hints:
-deactivate velocity on Pitch-Mod to make all kicks sound the same
DrumComputer VST from Sugar Bytes - out now, EUR119!
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- KVRer
- 21 posts since 31 Jul, 2012
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- KVRAF
- 5271 posts since 2 Jul, 2005
Is should be like an 808 which never has the exact same output from trigger to trigger. If you want it to be identical you should try just sampling the kick. It would be nice if they would add a switch that would reset the model on each trigger. Also a mix knob for how much of the excitation gets passed down the audio path.simonvolt wrote: Wed Dec 18, 2019 9:50 pmI tried that and it doesn't work, there's still a lot or random hapening so every kick does not sound the same. I also tried it with an "init" patch to start from scratch and make sure nothing else could modify the hits, but there's that never ending random thing happening again.Sugar Bytes wrote: Wed Dec 18, 2019 11:14 am Concentrate on the Resonator for kicks. Here are some hints:
-deactivate velocity on Pitch-Mod to make all kicks sound the same
Don't F**K with Mr. Zero.
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- KVRer
- 21 posts since 31 Jul, 2012
"Is should be like an 808 which never has the exact same output from trigger to trigger."
- I didn't know that, thanks.
"It would be nice if they would add a switch that would reset the model on each trigger. Also a mix knob for how much of the excitation gets passed down the audio path."
- Yes, and yes.
- I didn't know that, thanks.
"It would be nice if they would add a switch that would reset the model on each trigger. Also a mix knob for how much of the excitation gets passed down the audio path."
- Yes, and yes.
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- KVRAF
- 1596 posts since 19 May, 2011 from North Carolina
Spoiler - I'd prob comment TLDR for my own post here 
Trying to be partial here (no pun intended) - I'm a SugarBytes fan and also tend to synthesize my own kicks and be very particular about my kicks being able to hit the fundamental bass note around -18 - -12 db at not more than around -3, -4 db volume overall (sometimes less). This is usually quite easy to achieve with a slightly processsed 808 (I don't own the original gear, and obviously there's a lot of difference in the samples and emulators available).
With something like Synapse EKS Pro, you can slam all manner of kicks at -12 db on the fundamental and keep the track volume down to -4 db easily. StiX is quite capable of this (and is probably a better purchase for someone who wants a real big toolbox of "make any drum possible" in a somewhat more straightforward manner.)
The key to this is a relatively narrow fundamental peak - something the original 808 excelled at (the 909 and others with a bit less boom down there, of course).
I can come close to this with DrumCompter (using the resonator as described), it's just not as easy. So I think it's understandable that, for those used to something more straightforward, there's going to be a learning curve. And I agree a lot of the presets don't meet might kick criteria for "usable as-is".
Some of the presets do pull this off. Mode Audio MA Doubt Kit has a great kick, but you need to turn up the resonator pitch to at least 26 or so and lower the distortion and compression a bit. (I don't understand why the kick fundamental is down at around 26 hz here). As a matter of fact, many of the Mode Audio kits have some decent kicks (especially around the second half).
All that said, SugarBytes has always been more about taking a different path, and there's a lot of other awesome things going on here - enough that I'm considering a purchase regardless (not much of a preset guy anyway). And I think once you know what you're doing, you can get a decent kick, though not sure with how much variety. However, it IS objectively capable of hitting the bass. And you can always supplement your kick - I often track that separate from the rest of the kit anyway. If you're four-on-the floor, DrumComputer can be "the rest of the kit", something a lot of producers do anyway.
Giving you a different "path" means achieving a particular goal ("808 kick") is never what SugarBytes gear seams to be about (who's making Roland-emu patches with Factory?), and I appreciate that.
I think the addition of per/drum effects would make killer kicks easier to achieve. One is a 3-band EQ, for shaping the fundamental. The other is a fast, transparent limiter to squash some of those big transients (the included compressor doesn't function for this purchase - for the most part I find it kills some of the fundamental).
If I were summing up a review, I'd say it's another great piece of typical SugarBytes kit - which means it's experimental nature comes with some limitations, and comparing it to something else is probably not doing it justice.
Lastly, I tend to want my phase reset on oscillators for kicks (why I love Ableton's Operator), and use other methods (like some random slight filter cutoff) to vary the click sound, etc., a bit without touching the fundamental. I do see the variation in DrumCompter's hits with the resonator but haven't quite found what's going on. Not a deal-breaker, and I haven't gotten in-depth with the manual yet.
Trying to be partial here (no pun intended) - I'm a SugarBytes fan and also tend to synthesize my own kicks and be very particular about my kicks being able to hit the fundamental bass note around -18 - -12 db at not more than around -3, -4 db volume overall (sometimes less). This is usually quite easy to achieve with a slightly processsed 808 (I don't own the original gear, and obviously there's a lot of difference in the samples and emulators available).
With something like Synapse EKS Pro, you can slam all manner of kicks at -12 db on the fundamental and keep the track volume down to -4 db easily. StiX is quite capable of this (and is probably a better purchase for someone who wants a real big toolbox of "make any drum possible" in a somewhat more straightforward manner.)
The key to this is a relatively narrow fundamental peak - something the original 808 excelled at (the 909 and others with a bit less boom down there, of course).
I can come close to this with DrumCompter (using the resonator as described), it's just not as easy. So I think it's understandable that, for those used to something more straightforward, there's going to be a learning curve. And I agree a lot of the presets don't meet might kick criteria for "usable as-is".
Some of the presets do pull this off. Mode Audio MA Doubt Kit has a great kick, but you need to turn up the resonator pitch to at least 26 or so and lower the distortion and compression a bit. (I don't understand why the kick fundamental is down at around 26 hz here). As a matter of fact, many of the Mode Audio kits have some decent kicks (especially around the second half).
All that said, SugarBytes has always been more about taking a different path, and there's a lot of other awesome things going on here - enough that I'm considering a purchase regardless (not much of a preset guy anyway). And I think once you know what you're doing, you can get a decent kick, though not sure with how much variety. However, it IS objectively capable of hitting the bass. And you can always supplement your kick - I often track that separate from the rest of the kit anyway. If you're four-on-the floor, DrumComputer can be "the rest of the kit", something a lot of producers do anyway.
Giving you a different "path" means achieving a particular goal ("808 kick") is never what SugarBytes gear seams to be about (who's making Roland-emu patches with Factory?), and I appreciate that.
I think the addition of per/drum effects would make killer kicks easier to achieve. One is a 3-band EQ, for shaping the fundamental. The other is a fast, transparent limiter to squash some of those big transients (the included compressor doesn't function for this purchase - for the most part I find it kills some of the fundamental).
If I were summing up a review, I'd say it's another great piece of typical SugarBytes kit - which means it's experimental nature comes with some limitations, and comparing it to something else is probably not doing it justice.
Lastly, I tend to want my phase reset on oscillators for kicks (why I love Ableton's Operator), and use other methods (like some random slight filter cutoff) to vary the click sound, etc., a bit without touching the fundamental. I do see the variation in DrumCompter's hits with the resonator but haven't quite found what's going on. Not a deal-breaker, and I haven't gotten in-depth with the manual yet.
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- KVRian
- 1338 posts since 27 Apr, 2007
we do phase reset on wt and resynth, I will try this on the resonator, which will not be too easy, lets see.simonvolt wrote: Thu Dec 19, 2019 5:22 pm "Is should be like an 808 which never has the exact same output from trigger to trigger."
- I didn't know that, thanks.
"It would be nice if they would add a switch that would reset the model on each trigger. Also a mix knob for how much of the excitation gets passed down the audio path."
- Yes, and yes.
the exciter signal is not added to the output.
only thing you hear is the filter out. we ring a highpass filter because it kills the dc coming from a dc exciter (envelope) while passing thru the ac (noise, other osc), which you need for snares and other noisy things.
in the next update, most probably there will be a „soft“ exciter for softer attacks without needing the tone control to turn down the initial click.
the peak filter is intended to boost the sweet spot/fundamental (on kicks, the randomizer works between 60hz and 80hz).
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- KVRAF
- 5271 posts since 2 Jul, 2005
Since any self oscllating filter can be used for a resonator, you might have better luck if you let people pick their choice of LP BP HP. This would be useful for various scenarios where the impulse isn’t just a bit of DC signal.
Thanks.
I’m enjoying this thing immensely.
Thanks.
I’m enjoying this thing immensely.
Don't F**K with Mr. Zero.
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- KVRist
- 74 posts since 5 Oct, 2012
With the most simpel single synth osc, you're able to get a normal fat kick sound with pitch envelope alone, but it lacks some character in the transient and in the overall sound but the bass is there!Sugar Bytes wrote: Fri Dec 20, 2019 8:44 am The peak filter is intended to boost the sweet spot/fundamental (on kicks, the randomizer works between 60hz and 80hz).
It was a bit of a poor decision that we have to depend/use the peak filter to acquire this fundamental tone...
Now we can't use it for for anything else?!
And why(yyyy) did you choose to not have at least 2 PeakF/EQs? One for fundamental (30-70Hz) and one for midbass punch (70-170-300Hz) Or even a 3-Band standard EQ on each channel?
This is super essential IMO! Would have made such a big difference!
"On kicks, the randomizer works between 60hz and 80hz"
What does this mean exactly?
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- KVRAF
- 6208 posts since 25 Dec, 2004
my Tempest does it too, even with the kick locked to a voice there is a lot of movement within some patches. Can be annoying for bass and kicks, an oscillator and filter calibration clears it up a bit. Yay analog.
sketches... http://soundcloud.com/onesnzeros
some artists i support... https://bandcamp.com/spectraselecta
some artists i support... https://bandcamp.com/spectraselecta
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- KVRAF
- 6780 posts since 17 Dec, 2009
I played with the demo for around an hour, here's my observation (and reservations):
It's really hard to get good lows from the kick, especially while keeping any reasonable punch. (for example, with drumspillage its easy to get massive kicks with a lot of low end with little to no effort)
A lot of preset kicks have so much bitcrusher that every tail is crunchy mess, and so much post processing it's just gah, i wish i could lock those parameters so i could just listen to the source engine to see what they're capable of.
I really like the idea of feeding shit into resonator, and had a prototype kick-constructor in this manner built in max.
Feeding shit into Karplus-Strong (which this resonator sounds like its built around) (especially kicks) can be really fat, but needs more tweaking - controls imo aren't tuned exactly to take advantage of it. (very quick filtered detunes and automated damps (from fully open to damped) of the KS can make weird "stomps"). I was really looking forward to it, but i don't think that its squeezed out of its potential for most sounds (sans percussions and snares)
Lack of any general ADSR per voice is limiting in an unfriendly way - you can make a juicy fat sound, but it goes into self-oscillation or has incredibly long tail which is a mess in the mix, the "per kit piece" global decay under the "kit" tab is cool - but you can't really do much with it, and its located inconveniently on another tab.
It's a powerful control that I have to go to another page everytime i tweak a kick for example.
HiHats are very quickly either too washy or too brittle. There's a hat i like here and there, but generally, idk.
The kicks are generally just weird.
The HipHop/Trap/Trip-Hop (DavidF) sets just aren't any of these genres for example, and presets themselves are super wet and already take so much space in the mix that it's hard to do anything with them until you turn off all the additional post processing.
Still, I really like the snares and percussions, and I really LOVE the concept of it, and i really LOVE the layout (8 drumpads but cleverly stretched across the keyboard for variation and easily tuned playing), I love how easy it is to map stuff to MIDI to modulate on the fly from the sequencer.
I mean the interface, layout, and ideas around which its built it are great. Just the sound is a little too specific and weird - reminds me of Ephemere in that regard.
What I like about Drumspillage is that it can get extremely weird, but if you just wan't a straight up electronic kick, snare or hihat, it does it with ease, this one, not so much.
I'm probably not going to get it - it's most likely not aimed at me, but i was pretty excited when i saw the announcement because I don't think there's that many non-modelled general purpose drum synths around.
It's really hard to get good lows from the kick, especially while keeping any reasonable punch. (for example, with drumspillage its easy to get massive kicks with a lot of low end with little to no effort)
A lot of preset kicks have so much bitcrusher that every tail is crunchy mess, and so much post processing it's just gah, i wish i could lock those parameters so i could just listen to the source engine to see what they're capable of.
I really like the idea of feeding shit into resonator, and had a prototype kick-constructor in this manner built in max.
Feeding shit into Karplus-Strong (which this resonator sounds like its built around) (especially kicks) can be really fat, but needs more tweaking - controls imo aren't tuned exactly to take advantage of it. (very quick filtered detunes and automated damps (from fully open to damped) of the KS can make weird "stomps"). I was really looking forward to it, but i don't think that its squeezed out of its potential for most sounds (sans percussions and snares)
Lack of any general ADSR per voice is limiting in an unfriendly way - you can make a juicy fat sound, but it goes into self-oscillation or has incredibly long tail which is a mess in the mix, the "per kit piece" global decay under the "kit" tab is cool - but you can't really do much with it, and its located inconveniently on another tab.
It's a powerful control that I have to go to another page everytime i tweak a kick for example.
HiHats are very quickly either too washy or too brittle. There's a hat i like here and there, but generally, idk.
The kicks are generally just weird.
The HipHop/Trap/Trip-Hop (DavidF) sets just aren't any of these genres for example, and presets themselves are super wet and already take so much space in the mix that it's hard to do anything with them until you turn off all the additional post processing.
Still, I really like the snares and percussions, and I really LOVE the concept of it, and i really LOVE the layout (8 drumpads but cleverly stretched across the keyboard for variation and easily tuned playing), I love how easy it is to map stuff to MIDI to modulate on the fly from the sequencer.
I mean the interface, layout, and ideas around which its built it are great. Just the sound is a little too specific and weird - reminds me of Ephemere in that regard.
What I like about Drumspillage is that it can get extremely weird, but if you just wan't a straight up electronic kick, snare or hihat, it does it with ease, this one, not so much.
I'm probably not going to get it - it's most likely not aimed at me, but i was pretty excited when i saw the announcement because I don't think there's that many non-modelled general purpose drum synths around.
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- KVRian
- 909 posts since 7 Nov, 2017
I love DrumComputer's sequencer. It's overall the best drum sequencer out there. I love that (once you learn the magic numbers) you can easily make 8th and 16th note triplet patterns by using the Offset lane! Most other drum sequencers can't do triplet patterns at all, except maybe for super fast 32nd or 64th triplet rolls. I also love that you can program quintuplet rolls in DC.
The pseudo-random-yet-predictable behavior of the Probability lane is also great! True random probability is problematic in some ways (consistency on each playthrough), but your approach makes results more consistent, especially when it comes time to flatten a DC track to audio. Your implementation of humanization is also quite nice, being slightly different in each playthrough, but in a way that doesn't create any consistency issues.
That said, I have to agree with many others here that overall, DrumComputer's actual sound generators are.... lacking in some ways. The kick and the snare are such *important* sounds in many genres of electronic music, and yet DC currently falls short on both of these. Most of the kicks are essentially unusable. They just can't be made fat enough or heavy enough, and the generation parameters are so *alien* to other kick and snare designer plugins out there (think "Kick2" and similar).
But on the bright side, DC is absolutely WONDERFUL for quickly making interesting "top loops" to sit over a kick/snare pattern that have be created through more conventional means and are being generated by other tools in other tracks. The quirky, unpredictable sounds of DC, and its great randomization features both for sequencing patterns and for the sound generators themselves, make for FANTASTIC top loops!
If you can figure out some updates that make DC capable of making beefy, fat, piercing, "normal/natural"-sounding kicks and snares, you'll make a lot of people happy.
If it helps, I think many producers want the following features when it comes to kicks and snares:
A. Intuitive and independent control over the timbre, length, and blending of the Transient > Knock > Body phases of each kick/snare hit.
B. Intuitive control over the "boominess" or "fatness" of the Body phase of the kick.
C. Intuitive control over the length of the Body phase of both the kick and snare. (Simple control of the fade envelope at the tail end of each sound, and exactly where that fade envelope starts.)
The pseudo-random-yet-predictable behavior of the Probability lane is also great! True random probability is problematic in some ways (consistency on each playthrough), but your approach makes results more consistent, especially when it comes time to flatten a DC track to audio. Your implementation of humanization is also quite nice, being slightly different in each playthrough, but in a way that doesn't create any consistency issues.
That said, I have to agree with many others here that overall, DrumComputer's actual sound generators are.... lacking in some ways. The kick and the snare are such *important* sounds in many genres of electronic music, and yet DC currently falls short on both of these. Most of the kicks are essentially unusable. They just can't be made fat enough or heavy enough, and the generation parameters are so *alien* to other kick and snare designer plugins out there (think "Kick2" and similar).
But on the bright side, DC is absolutely WONDERFUL for quickly making interesting "top loops" to sit over a kick/snare pattern that have be created through more conventional means and are being generated by other tools in other tracks. The quirky, unpredictable sounds of DC, and its great randomization features both for sequencing patterns and for the sound generators themselves, make for FANTASTIC top loops!
If you can figure out some updates that make DC capable of making beefy, fat, piercing, "normal/natural"-sounding kicks and snares, you'll make a lot of people happy.
If it helps, I think many producers want the following features when it comes to kicks and snares:
A. Intuitive and independent control over the timbre, length, and blending of the Transient > Knock > Body phases of each kick/snare hit.
B. Intuitive control over the "boominess" or "fatness" of the Body phase of the kick.
C. Intuitive control over the length of the Body phase of both the kick and snare. (Simple control of the fade envelope at the tail end of each sound, and exactly where that fade envelope starts.)
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- KVRAF
- 6279 posts since 8 Jul, 2009
I've found to get DC kicks to sound fat I have to slap one or two instances of a Pultec P1 on them and crank up the 60Hz band with a little atten. But we are talking 10-20dB gain! So I agree, with all your observations that the bottom end of DC is lacking. It really is. Sugar Bytes... come on now...
#NONFR Check out my music at Bandcamp 
Free Streaming!
Free music with your support on Patreon | Youtube: Music of Plexus Videos (music videos) | Youtube: Plexus Productions (audio related) Stop whining. Make music.
Free Streaming! Free music with your support on Patreon | Youtube: Music of Plexus Videos (music videos) | Youtube: Plexus Productions (audio related) Stop whining. Make music.
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- KVRian
- 1199 posts since 10 Sep, 2014
The perfect does-it-all drumsynth vst doesn't exist. That's why I use a mixture of kick2, attack, bong, microtonic and stix. This one is really interesting. Will get this for sure somewhen in the future. This and ephemere.
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- KVRAF
- 11000 posts since 15 Apr, 2019 from Nowhere
I agree with that - no one piece of software is likely to please everyone, and it’s certainly beneficial to own more than one so that you cover a lot of ground.
I’ll get this too at some point - will probably wait for it to go on sale or if someone sells a license here.
I’ll get this too at some point - will probably wait for it to go on sale or if someone sells a license here.