The Quilcom B-2 KICK: Yet another kick drum maker

[Spogg]

I know, I know… does the world really need another Kick drum synth? Probably not, but I wanted to make one anyway, so I did.

Back in October 2015 I shared my Quilcom Beater and it garnered exactly zero comments, so I’m probably on to a loser with this as well.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3763&p=20639&hilit=quilcom+beater#p20639

The Beater design idea was to have one plugin that could simulate all the sounds you might find in an analogue percussion synth/drum machine. That meant choosing a range of generators, modifiers and a topology that could achieve that end with a low CPU and relatively simple user interface. I guess I’m the only one in the world who thinks it’s actually quite good!

The Beater 2 (B-2) series will focus on creating better and more varied sounds with no respect given to simplicity or CPU overhead. Each plugin will therefore be dedicated to a type of percussion instrument, so as not to restrict what can be achieved by a more generalised synthesiser.

From what I’ve read recently, it seems a popular approach these days is to layer a sample with a synthesiser sound, so you can add as much or as little as you wish. The B-2 KICK can do this, should you so wish to mix it up. You can set the region of the sample you want to hear, so you can pick out a specific hit from a drum loop for example, or maybe just the initial thwack or body sound, and synthesise the rest.

When you have what you want, you can then export the total result as a WAV file, using the inbuilt audio recorder whose recording time is set automatically.

The presets are really just a small selection of starting points, since anyone who might want to delve deeper will probably not want a huge set of sounds that all sound fairly similar. The world doesn’t suffer from a shortage of pre-made kick sounds after all.

My YouTube video is here:

https://youtu.be/b4z-8MxjgiI

Download the zip to get the schematic, VSTi plugin, presets and the detailed User Guide here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7efvpgrch7gup ... 5.zip?dl=0

Cheers

Spogg

[trogluddite]

Back in October 2015 I shared my Quilcom Beater and it garnered exactly zero comments

Well, you at least got some comments this time...

...but, sadly, I had to delete them as they were all from spammers!

I didn't see your old kick-maker, but I like this one. The randomisation feature is great for dealing with the "machine-gun" effect that many drum synths have - it's rare that I enjoy listening to that, even in most electronic styles of music, so it'll save me from automating a filter plugin to achieve the same thing, as I quite often do. Being able to pick out individual hits from a sample is really cool too.

The only feature I could possibly think of to add would be the ability to load multiple samples, either for velocity layering or randomisation - but that's getting a bit greedy for a kick drum, I think; they're usually compressed and EQ'd to hell in the mix, anyway!

I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the collection. As I've said before, I'm a big fan of your "one tool for one job" ethos - and the sample export feature makes it practical even on a weedy PC like mine!

[Spogg]

Trog, thank you so much for your nice comments.

The original Beater was an attempt at a do-it-all percussion jobby. Like you say, these days I like to tailor things for one or a limited range of purposes. FlowStone is perfect in this respect (apart from no drag & drop for wav files).
There seem to be quite a few “modular” systems available today, but I would still feel confined by the modules on offer, even if they are many. The real alternative I guess is Reaktor (or SynthEdit which I don’t like so much), but you can’t make VST exports with Reaktor.

I’m currently playing around with membrane synthesis and snare rattle simulation. The many enharmonic ratios for the modes a skin produces is fascinating. It’s more challenging than a kick sound, but far more engaging for me. The results I’m getting so far are quite encouraging and I bet you can see where this will lead.

Thanks again

Spogg

[Duckett]

Nice work, Spogg! Not trying to discourage you at all, and you may already be aware of these, but xoxos (SynthEdit stuff) had investigated the topic deeply, and made a huge variety of drum/percussion/sfx synths dealing with membrane models, mass spring models, you name it.

His website's down, but you can check out what he'd gotten up to here- pretty sure the download links still work: https://web.archive.org/web/20170812051646/http://www.xoxos.net/vst/vst.html

One of my all-time favorite drum synths was his work that was basically a culmination of his research into the classic drum synthesizers of yore, Bong- I paid $25 at the time, worth every penny, but now available for free: https://www.kvraudio.com/product/bong-vst-by-xoxos

[Spogg]

Nice work, Spogg! Not trying to discourage you at all...

Thank you Mr Duckett!

I wasn’t aware of this guy but his stuff looks interesting.

I’m not at all discouraged by other similar work and indeed I like to be made aware of what’s out there, especially since I can get inspired to make my own versions or takes on a general idea. That’s the fun part for me, doing it my way and seeing what I can achieve. If anyone likes what I do, and/or gets inspired to have a go themselves, then that’s a bonus for me.

Cheers

Spogg

[guyman]

nice