Synth - DrumComputer Tutorial

We begin the series with a rundown of the 3-layer synth engine and how it can be used to design, shape and sculpt powerful drum hits. From crisp electronic snares, to chunky analogue kicks, the Resonator, Wavetable and Resynth engines offer a huge range of specialized parameters to craft stylish synthesized drum sounds.
We also look at the Resynth's ability to not just generate drums, but chords and synths as well using its noise table conversion technology, followed by an explanation of the filter, distortion and side chain compressor.
Finally, we dive into DrumComputer's in depth modulation area, with envelopes, LFOs, and a complex modulation matrix, letting us change most parameters using a wide array of sources.
Download Demo here:
sugar-bytes.de/drumcomputer

[@AdamsBrew78]

DrumComputer, processed by Effectrix and/or Turnado = sound design bliss. I can get lost for hours in these amazing tools on my iPad Pro. Thank you for supporting this platform, SB!

[@SoundAuthor]

I'd like to dispel the rumor that Drum Computer lacks bass. _It_ _does_ _not._ The Resonator (a self-oscillating highpass filter) can be tuned as low as 24.5 Hz, so that's _plenty_ of bottom end for your bass drum. Problem is, a large number of factory patches send that signal out to the global multimode filter, which often set to a bandpass model or something that removes low frequencies. From my experience designing kick drums with highpass filters, you should either use a lowpass filter in post or just leave it alone.

[@laxplanet6046]

Not hearing much bass on these demo's. Might have to download a trial

[@bateimidrashnetwork]

Might be, but in this demo all the kicks sound more like clicks

[@fentanyljones6956]

@@laxplanet6046did you read the comment? It explains the lack of bass very clearly

[@1CBRFireblade1000rr]

This is definitely the best software drum machine I have ever used! So many options and easy to use. Love it.

[@peacefulpigeon7254]

Be great to have a beginners and basic guide to the modulation in this - you are a great teacher and I do struggle with how it all connects up!

[@saardean4481]

At 19:56 the sqweek sound after "comprehensive" . I want to sample that and make a techno track

[@deuzmachina]

sugar bytes is one of the most vst company i loved so much

[@Vospi]

This is so, so, so cool, people. I'm becoming more and more of a fan. A lot of great ideas, very soothing interface, thoughtful all the way through, as complex as you want it to be. I love Sugar Bytes. And thanks for your great work on these tutorials. They help to give substance on day one. When MODO Drum was announced, they did promotional videos (by schedule) where you had to separate info from ahem marketing. Here, we're looking at the instrument, not at the vibe and the smell of it. It is wonderful.

[@overtonesnteatime198]

This is really fun way to synthesize drums, thanks for the tuts!

[@CraftyOldGit]

DrumComputer sounds great and looks like loads of fun. I have downloaded the demo, will probably be opening my wallet tomorrow. Ans you have made some of the most useful demo/instruction videos I've seen for any musical device or plugin.

[@duartecancela]

Perfect drum synth, very nice creative tool!

[@andyisacsson7503]

That was an excellent tutorial- thank you

[@Banquet...]

This is a great tutorial that shows how powerful Drum Computer is

[@nichttuntun3364]

Looks and sounds great :) High on my list...

[@MarkBennett007]

Super demo ….thank you

[@Punk_Mayhem]

Trust me, these Sugar Bytes and it’s developer and the whole team is going to make humongous psunami. Pretty soon. I’ve rarely come across extremely developers who’re as passionate as The Sugarvytes developers. There are two types of devs, the first one thinks of net profits, but the other one thinks how could they do something amazing so the musicians would get inspired. The sheer amount of of Time and dedication have been put not the app , Sugar Bytes is wisdom! Love and ❤❤❤❤❤❤ hugs❤❤❤❤❤ iOS loves you!

[@Ardspans]

Wonderful !

[@Igzanda135]

what a tool! thanks :)

[@chriswoolf1491]

Downloading the demo now. I'm betting along with mod matrix, the parameters are able to be automated in the DAW as well. I'm pretty sure I'll be throwing my money at it within a couple hours.

[@saardean4481]

Sounds cool. I cant watch all Videos though. Is there a possibility to export the Stems of the Drum Computer itself? This would be very good

[@dualtrx]

lolz at the fly part. :)) nice plugin though.

[@artheca7887]

Hi Does drumcomputer offer rhythm cells? Loops ready ro use? Thanks

[@zaklloyd4335]

I've used Geist2, Punch2, Steinberg Groovebox, Stix, XO and several others. This beast is like the older brother of XO. Much more advanced, much more fun, but much steeper learning curve. Coupled with something like Scaler 2 and any one of SB's great synths, nothing else needed for making banging tracks! One for the collection, for sure!!

[@Tsarpf]

What do you mean with the comparison to XO, isn't XO much more sample focused?

[@peen2804]

@@Tsarpf yeah they are completely different products and drum machines. XO is faster and more intuitive for laying down a groove + you can add the entirety of your sample library to XO, and the way you can replace sounds in batches is more useable than Drumcomputers random functions. Drumcomputer is a drum synthesizer and a very good one at that with a great sequencer. Both have features the other doesn’t and both are good for different tasks, workflows, and music styles. I find myself recording and resampling Drummachine as it’s a synth so it excelled at manipulation and automation to create cool fx loops, tops, percs, it has a lot of flavor and color whereas I use XO as a traditional sampler and sequencer to browse for sounds and put together kits. The constant “dis fing iz way bettar den dat fing” mentality with plugins and creative audio tools is weird when most of these products don’t do the exact same things the exact same ways. 2 drum machines with vastly different approaches can co-exist like it’s ok really it’s not a big deal lmao People just want to justify their purchasing decisions and preferences by making low effort comparisons to the easiest product with a surface level relationship to the product they like.

[@macaronafterparty]

I am trying to use midi notes on my grid in Ableton to trigger sequences on Drum Computer. When a new sequence is triggered, it misses the initial step of the sequence even when quantized to the grid. For example the kick on 1 wont play until the pattern loops. This being said, I am unable to use midi notes the perform my sequence changes unless I drag out the pattern, but that stops me from the probability features built into the sequencer. Any thoughts?

[@lachlancarmichael-whyte9174]

Bought this plugin like two days ago and can say it’s worth the money actually probably my fav drum machine

[@jpjameson]

How exactly are you choosing an Init patch? There does not seem to be one in my version.

[@zentatonic]

I've seen tutorials on how to put beats together here and add fills, etc. But what's the best way to arrange all of your beats into a complete song? Drag and drop each midi part and then trigger fills with automation?

[@altseason_musik]

3years later, but you can create the sequences/patterns you want for each part of the track, save al of them inside the plugin and then navigate between the patterns while playing

[@markquavertune2003]

Was that a bush fly ? Good tutorial .

[@EnervatedSociety]

Dear wonderful folks at Sugar Bytes, DrumComputer is awesome but for the love of all things good please take the sequencer out of DrumComputer and make it a standalone VST MIDI sequencer. That would be extra awesome. I'd love to use it with my custom drum machine I made in Bitwig (and I do) without all the extra visual clutter and window size. Seemingly no one makes a good looking simple to use step style MIDI sequencer that is as capable as DrumComputer's sequencer in a plugin format. I have no idea why, that would be very handy, and did I say awesome? Yes, awesome!

[@nightbeats5023]

Cool we got the tops, mids, and the .....bottoms...where are they in the synth?

[@intelligenceservices]

it would be cool if there was a 'single' version with only one synth module. like a stripped down version. but it would be too useful to be free.

[@Matthewsavant]

This app is amazing, my only gripe is for the price I really wish there was a companion iPhone app. Sucks that it’s only on the iPads other than that I have no complaints

[@hdj808]

i cant find the init patch

[@jamescuttsmusicjcm5013]

YOU MASSACRED AN INNOCENT FLY...... can you tell me what implement of choice you used to do such a great thing? Thank you. Oh btw, nice plugin :D. Might look into this.

[@SirMalikCobra]

Where is the initialize kit present I don't see it? I can't initialize the kit 😫. I seen you just click something and the kit initialized.

[@maurarosamusic]

Hope you found it by now, but, it's in Sugar Bytes / Sb Init

[@SirMalikCobra]

@Maura Rosa Yes I found It thanks. I’m digging this plug in a lot.

[@Ferrichrome]

You've really caught my attention by having Tom cosm on this :)

[@hOttOddYfAiLz]

Is that Tom speaking? Man I just watched one of his old videos from back in the day. Live at the downs outdoor show. Still a great tune and he’s a great teacher. Showed me so much back in the day I’ll never forget him. Forever grateful to his contributions.

[@Ferrichrome]

@@hOttOddYfAiLz sounds like him yeah! He's great, agreed! I've only known of him for about a year, his ableton tutorials are so helpful.

[@hOttOddYfAiLz]

@@Ferrichrome Man like 8 years ago he got me started on ableton with his tutorials. So helpful. I googled it and yeah it’s him. Didn’t know his voice, only his beats which have come a long way since then. You can tell in these tutorials he’s on point now more than ever. Great to see. Thanks for letting us know who it was. Wouldn’t been a shame if I never found out.

[@deepseadiver8191]

Very hard to make the sounds have longer attack. Aggressive clicky attack is present even when the Resonator is muted, which as per the video is responsible for that part part of the sound. Even when it's just the middle "Wavetable" oscillator, which is supposed to be the "body" of the sound, it is nearly impossible to get rid of the aggressive attack in the sound, even when setting the envelope to "soft" on volume. This can be clearly heard in the video above. It's a shame that an app which is so complex can't do such basic thing. Still a very powerful and useful app.

[@piterwashere]

How do you make beats from scratch?

[@LeonvanBokhorst]

What happened to the fly? 🥺 #nosleep

[@gordowebb9910]

Please tell me how you play a preset pattern. I have spent hours trying to figure that out. You would think the play button would do the trick, but no. I finally figured out i can drag and drop midi and that will play the pattern, but I can't audition the patterns.

[@-l5905]

I'm having an issue with volume spikes. I turned off all modulation and the compressor and the volume does not stay at a consistent level. It fluctuates up and down, humanize is off also. This is driving me crazy...

[@annother3350]

Have you tried sequencing through midi, like from a daw?

[@-l5905]

@@annother3350 Good idea I'll try it tonight. Thanks.

[@SilverDNB]

please do an iOS porting!!

[@TheOverlordOfProcrastination]

I’m struggling to find this useable in GarageBand on iPad and I’m wondering if it’s simply because there’s something I’m not doing properly. I can bring a pattern in, but it doesn’t appear to be editable inside GarageBand, and just plays right through a track, without any way of stopping it (that I can see). It being auv3 I thought this would all be possible. It sounds great, but is proving useless to me, sadly.

[@SugarBytes]

You may check the 'Clock Start' option in the settings page of DrumComputer by clicking the gear icon on top right. There are two different ways to fire up the sequencer of DrumComputer since the sequencer has two inbuilt clocks: It can run along your songposition, or it can be fired with a MIDI note, only applying the sequence as long as you hold a MIDI note. Which means if the clock option is set to HOST, DrumComputer will start running as soon as you press the play button in the transport panel of Garageband and stop with the release. If it's set to INTERNAL, DrumComputer's sequencer will be triggered by a MIDI note only and you need to press a note so that it will start playing. Patterns respond to MIDI notes from C-2 to D#-1 whereas the single drum pads of a drum engine respond to the notes, which are set on the mapping/zones section.

[@GenZCentral1]

how do i export the sequence in my daw? Im using MPC 2.0

[@Boback111]

Under the SEQ section there’s a drag and drop MIDI option in the top right corner by the hand icon. May be a better way but haven’t found one.

[@VictorSteiner]

Will this come out for iOS? Would so love that!

[@devonhansen7705]

just has!

[@lachlancarmichael-whyte9174]

@@devonhansen7705 where

[@devonhansen7705]

@@lachlancarmichael-whyte9174 search "drumcomputer" in the app store to get it for ipad.

[@peen2804]

@@lachlancarmichael-whyte9174 in the App Store obviously lmao where tf else do you get ios apps

[@MaMa-km2do]

when i press the play button on pattern I don't hear any sounds - why would that happen?

[@djstatix26]

In stand alone the play button works but in the DAW it wont play unless the DAW is in the play mode. Should be a setting to run independent of the DAW as a vst in the sequencer IMO.

[@calldwnthesky6495]

in demo mode: can't you play sounds as one-shots with a midi controller? when i hold a key it repeats the associated sound over and over

[@SugarBytes]

Seems that the Key Roll is active, which uses the keyzone for creating rolls and controlling the roll speed. The Rootkey will roll at ¼ rate, getting faster with every key to the right. So please first make sure to disable this option, then it should work. ;-) Note that the Roll setting will be loaded per preset.

[@calldwnthesky6495]

@@SugarBytes thank you

[@miss.antidote]

What are the restrictions on the demo?

[@RustyRogear]

Cool I know the graffiti in the beginning, Lastplak from Rotterdam.

[@DAUBSKI]

all i need is ableton :) for a good beat.

[@klaurcschwackerberg1880]

You are not able to import your own drum samples :( bummer.

[@SugarBytes]

The Resynth Oscillator of each drum engine has sample import. ;-)

[@kerothing]

Really good app, i would pay for more apps. Video is meh

[@christoroppolo8742]

A piano roll would have been a real timesaver👽

[@peen2804]

It has a sequencer it and you can export the midi with 1 click lmao why tf would they include a piano roll

[@christoroppolo8742]

@@peen2804 it’s not worth you getting worked up about . I use both platforms. Not just iOS anymore. It’s a dead issue because apple has done so many things to ruin the iPads themselves I walked away from it as a stand-alone device capable of replacing a computer. Because when the headphone jack dissolved off it the iPad became pretty much useless anyway.And kymaticas AUM app gave everyone this incentive to forget about logic coming to the iOS software platform. So I use the apps ( including drum computer as audio sources for Logic Pro on a proper Mac studio max . If a piano roll is somehow a problem for you that’s your preference. I’m done with iOS as a standalone platform and apple isn’t serious about it because the amount of hardware external and software wise is a big cash cow they won’t let go of . So you go right ahead and keep on using the iPad until apple strip’s something else away from it . Like….the no Logic Pro on a mobile device thing with the exact same power a proper computer has but instead it’s full of apps now that are all just there to support the AUM way of working . ( vomitus shit that it is as well posing as a daw now) I love sugar bytes but drum computer didn’t get it for me …but if you like it great . Good luck with that workflow I’m done riding a sinking shit called iOS . That’s why I just bought the Erica synths Perkons drum computer to replace it entirely in my rig and I will never sell my synth hardware because apps are too short lived to rely on .I hope this helps you to go back to using a real computer instead of a device apple wants to use for bad boyfriend apps or video gamers apps or home security apps …blah blah blah lol . The iPads and iOS apps are just an accessory now for a proper computer people who are too cheap just use iPads and refuse to fall in with the program and used both a computer and a touch device . Which are you? ✌🏻👽

[@astraliya]

IOS!IOS!IOS!

[@rickyguitarman3839]

this is way to complicated and you go to fast!

[@MadACeTeeMack]

Man I wish we could just hear the sounds instead of all the gibberish