90% off “Drum Synth 500” by Air Music Tech

A Uniquely Designed Drum Machine With An Easy to Understand GUI

Drum Synth 500 is a virtual instrument for playing and creating electronic drum sounds. Using a MIDI keyboard, pad controller or your favorite Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) software, Drum Synth 500 brings modern electronic drum sounds into your musical productions.

To get you started, Drum Synth 500 gives you 50 factory drum kits, 500 individual drum sounds, over 500 samples, and 500 MIDI drum loops which can be loaded into any DAW and played back using the Drum Synth 500 VSTi.

And if that’s not enough, Drum Synth 500 is packaged into a beautiful user interface with no hidden panels for quick, fun playback and creation of electronic drum sounds.

The Graphical Interface

Like the 500 series of modular audio modules, Drum Synth 500 is also laid out into vertical channel strips, one for each instrument in a drum kit. Accordingly Air Music Tech call these “instrument channels”. They include KICK, SNARE, CLAP, HATS, TOMS, PERCUSSION, SAMPLER 1 and SAMPLER 2. These names appear at the top and bottom of each instrument channel for easy reference.

Above the instrument channels is the drum kit selection area. Instrument channel parameters and master channel parameters combine together to create a drum kit instrument. Drum Synth 500 includes 50 factory drum kits plus you can edit, rename and save your own custom drum kits. All drum kits are accessed from this area.

At the top of each instrument channel are the parameters for MIDI control which allow you to map which MIDI notes will play which instrument and other functions described below. Below that are the sound editing parameters for each instrument.

Drum Synth 500 uses four types of synthesis to create its sounds, virtual analog synthesis for the kick and snare (shown with blue knobs), noise synthesis for the clap and high hats (shown with red knobs), FM synthesis for toms and percussion (shown with yellow knobs), and sample playback synthesis (shown with green knobs). Each synthesizer has parameters custom designed for the instrument type making editing and creating new sounds fast and intuitive.

Below the synthesis parameters, in a lighter grey color, are individual filter, distortion and compression effects for each instrument channel. These effects are common for all instrument types allowing for a cohesive sound across an entire drum kit, yet have independent settings for each instrument channel for complete customization.

At the bottom of the interface is the mixer section where you can balance, pan, and send the audio of each individual instrument to the master channel for further processing. Drum Synth 500 includes 4 bus sends for each instrument. These are sent to four send effects in the master channel, giving you independent control over the level of the send effects for each instrument.

Finally to the right of the 8 instrument channel strips is a master channel strip. The master channel strip contains two insert effects and four send effects. The insert effects include a saturation distortion and a kill equalizer. The send effects include two independent reverbs and two independent delays. The master channel also includes overall level and panning for the drum kit.

For more in-depth information read the manual HERE.

Add That Final Touch To Your Beats With Drums Synth 500’s Effects

Common Channel Effects

Below the synthesis parameters, in a light grey colored background, are individual filter, distortion and compression effects for each instrument channel. These effects are common for all instrument types allowing for a cohesive sound across an entire drum kit, yet have independent settings for each instrument channel for complete customization.

Distortion Effects

At the top of the common channel effects panel are three distortion effects, a drive shaper distortion (DSTR), a bit crusher (BIT), and a decimator (DECI). You can have any of the three distortions active at the same time by clicking on the checkbox to the left of the distortion name.

Each of the distortions have an amount (AMNT) knob to set the amount of drive for each. To edit the amount for a particular distortion click on the name of the distortion (not the
checkbox which turns the distortion on or off). You will see the blue line connecting the distortion name to the knob change from grey to blue indicating the amount knob’s value for that distortion.

Filter Effect

The filter effect is a 2-pole resonant filter with five different filters, a lowpass (LP), hipass (HP), bandpass (BP), notch (No), and peak (Pk). There is also an option for no filter (–). To use the filter first select the type using the dropdown selection box, then set the frequency cutoff point using the CUT parameter and the resonance or width using the RES parameter. Unlike the distortions, only 1 filter type can be used at a time.

Compression Effect

The compression effect offers two compression options which are targeted specifically for electronic drum sounds. The controls are macro controls which adjust several parameters
with just a few interface parameters.

The FAST checkbox will set the compression attack time to zero milliseconds while the PUNCH checkbox will set the compression attack time to 10 milliseconds. The compression amount knob (COMP) simultaneously sets the compression threshold and ratio. Turn this knob up for more compression and down for less compression.

The compressor circuit is automatically set to auto-gain, meaning as you add compression the signal will make up any lost gain automatically.

Master Channel

The master channel in Drum Synth 500 acts in a similar fashion to a mixing board master channel strip. The audio output of all eight instrument channels are sent to the master channel and mixed into a single stereo output.

In addition to mixing the eight instrument channels, the master channel includes 4 send effects (reverb 1, reverb 2, delay 1, delay 2) and 3 insert effects (saturation, kill EQ, compression) which can be added to the mixed signal.

Master Insert Effects

The master insert effects are “inserted” into the mixed signal of the master output. Each can be bypassed as well to remove the effect from the master output.

• Saturation – at the top of the master channel is the Saturation insert effect. This is a type of distortion that can add additional punch and character to your synth drums. There are three types of saturation effects which have different sonic characteristics. Use the blue select boxes to select the type you want, then adjust the drive and mix parameters to set the amount of distortion (drive) and wet/dry mix of the distortion (mix). You can enable or disable the saturation effect using the bypass button to the right of the name.
• Kill EQ – at the bottom of the master channel is the Kill EQ insert effect. This effect has three buttons for three frequency bands – high, mid and low. Pressing and holding one of the buttons will pass those frequencies through the audio output while muting (killing) the other frequencies. This is a popular DJ effect which offers quick sonic variation in your drum beats. You can connect a MIDI controller to activate these buttons in real-time or automate them in your DAW.
• Compressor – the compressor will add dynamic compression to the master output. It has four parameters. Threshold sets the level at which the compressor will engage. Ratio will set the amount of compression, attack (ATK) sets the attack rate which determines how fast the compressor kicks in, and release (REL) sets the rate which the compressed signal fades.

Master Send Effects

There are four send effects in Drum Synth 500, two reverbs and two delays. Each of the four send effects have corresponding send amounts in the mixer section of each instrument channel. This allows you to set the mix of each send effect independently for each instrument channel.

• Reverb A – this is a stereo convolution reverb which works by recording a short impulse of the room and then processing audio through that impulse. It’s only parameter is the selection of the room impulse which you can do by clicking on the dropdown menu and selecting the type of room. You can enable or disable the Reverb A effect using the bypass button to the right of the name.
• Reverb B – this is an algorithmic reverb. It’s adjustable parameters include the Room Type which you select via the dropdown menu, pre-delay (PRE), size, and damping (DAMP) which will dampen the high frequencies. You can enable or disable the Reverb B effect using the bypass button to the right of the name.
• Delay A – this is a stereo delay with independent left and right delay times (LEFT, RIGHT) and a feedback control (FB) which sets the number of repeats of the delay. Delay A also includes a High pass and Low Pass filter on the delayed signal which is selected in the dropdown menu. The cut parameter (CUT) sets the cutoff frequency of this filter. You can enable or disable the Delay A effect using the bypass button to the right of the name.
• Delay B – this is a mono delay with a single delay time (TIME), a feedback control (FB) which sets the number of repeats of the delay, and a damp (DAMP) parameter will dampen the high frequencies of the delay signal. You can enable or disable the Delay B effect using the bypass button to the right of the name.

For more in-depth information read the manual HERE.