Sasquatch Kick Machine

*Disclaimer: I'm a songwriter, producer, and educator. My writing style may read like a billboard ad, but my user review is sincere and authentic. I only appraise a product I consider extraordinary, hence the high rating. I don't work for the developer. In fact, I rarely work at all. :-) I hope you find my review useful. — Tommy Zai

Sasquatch Kick Machine by Boz Digital Labs really does "give you complete control over the sound of your kick drums." I expected to be able to make slight adjustments in clickiness and boominess, but I never imagined such a deep level of bass drum manipulation. It's hard to resist turning the knobs (click+oomph+direct) and/or scrolling through the extensive list of presets to transform a boring kick into something otherworldly. Deeper editing is available to control the tone. Users have a choice of tweaking, enhancing (blending new sounds with kick or snare), or their replacing kick. There is an easy to read meter and a compare button to. .. well, compare your efforts with the original audio. During my demoing I experienced ZERO latency and ZERO mis-triggers.

LIKES

• Simple, pleasant GUI.
• Fast results (once you wrap your head around the whole concept).
• Serious deep end possibilities.
• CPU friendly.
• No samples, all synthesis largely based off the incoming kick data.
• Tutorials available online.
• Responsive, enthusiastic developer.

THOUGHTS

• Imagine if Sasquatch had separate modules that could also work magic on snares, toms, hats, cymbals, etc.
• Use sparingly unless you are looking for an extreme sound.
• Limited by the incoming signal. You can only do so much with a bad sample.
• The name "Sasquatch" is difficult to spell.

CONCLUSION

Sasquatch is an excellent plugin for designing and redesigning kick. Whether you are trying to clean up the attack, beef up the boom, or totally reshape your kick — this will do the job and more. This plugin is a MYSTERIOUS MONSTER kick machine! I highly recommend Sasquatch to any eMusician, producer, audio gamer, DJ, etc., working in any genre from 60s to folk to jingles to metal to alternative to industrial to electro and beyond. Tommy Zai gives Sasquatch two earth-shaking stomps on the floor. Thank you Boz Digital Labs for creating such a useful and powerful plugin.

* I have also had the pleasure of experimenting with BAZZism by ISM, and I do NOT see these products as directly competing. Yes, they both are kick drum plugins, but IMO they have different strengths, applications, and compliment each other wonderfully. My recommendation. .. get both and never look back!

First of all Sasquatch is different, as others stated before. It looks like a one trick pony, and indeed, it is. But if you are looking for a tool to really design your recorded Kickdrums, this one will do the job. Without using a drum replacer or struggling around with EQ/Dynamics or other tools you can easily find the sound you are looking for. OK, the GUI and the workaround is a little odd at first sight, but when you're familiar with it, you can get good results in a very short time. To me it is outstanding and I can really recommend this for everyone who is looking for a new way of designing a Kickdrum. The developer is really helpful and reasonable with prizing and deals like on this Black Friday.

I usually don't do this sort of thing (write reviews) but I felt like I needed to help spread the word about this plugin. First off, this is nothing like dealing with eq or sample replacement. It's a totally different bird, because of that, it's slightly hard to wrap your head around what's going on under the hood. After a few hours messing with it this morning and watching the tutorial videos I'm hooked, For one you can make bass drops really really fast. It's also super good for beefing up kicks and adding attack. I generally use at least 3 kick samples but with this plug it isn't necessary. My only complaint is that it could be more intuitive. Overall this is a damn good first offering.