Nusofting releases the Broken Drum Machine

Nusofting releases the Broken Drum Machine

12 February, 2008 | 11.15AM

• Section: Music News Topics: Technology
• Written by: Mr Tunes

Nusofting has released the long anticipated Broken Drum Machine VSTi for Windows. 

BDM aims to recreate the fun and randomness of working with a circuit bent drum machine without having to deal with the soldering, and disappointment of permanently frying a perfectly good piece of gear. 

The website states that “BDM is a plugin instrument designed for the musicians who love chaos and usually find the unpredictable behaviour of an uncontrollable sound machine stimulating and inspiring”.

It comes stocked with a few basic drum sounds but the emphasis of this plugin is not the sound sources, moreover what it can do to the sounds. 

There are four channels which operate by combining a sample with a synth generator. 

It randomizes not only the shape but also the timing of the playback, and adds random bits of crackle, both which can be defined with various knobs labeled Chaos and Chance.

You also have the ability to modify the sounds using a midi keyboard where each note will change a different parameter, adding even more opportunity for experimentation. 

A quick test run of the demo reveals that this thing can spit out some messed up beats within a short amount of time and minimal tweaking. 

It also spits out an annoying little synth pattern reminding you to buy it after your next paycheck comes in.

The plugin allows for Modpaks to change the sound sources as well as GUI modifications.

I’m sure many people would like the ability to load samples in right on the frontend, but it seems like this decision was made to emphasize it being a drum synth above being a sampler.

Overall this should be a real treat for all the producers on the tech and glitch side looking for some more twisted beats to throw into the mix.

Most importantly it looks like a fun piece of software in a market saturated with so many run-of-the-mill tools.

Broken Drum Machine’s introductory price is $44.90 USD which will go up after February 15th.

• (2) Comments
• (495) Views