Both retro-tinged emulations and innovative rhythmic re-thinkers disrupted the way we approached designing our drums in 2023
Time to switch our attention to groovecrafters, beat-builders and all things rhythmic now as we take a look at our favourite software drum machines of 2023. This is a broad category, as acoustic drum emulations sit sideby-side with wholly new concepts in beat-design UI philosophy. Speaking of which, an instant favourite this year was Modalics Beat Scholar.
This debut product by the small software company surprised us by both redefining the depths of detail we could get via its ‘pizza’ slice ethos, and with just how intuitive making the wonkiest and weirdest of beats could be. In our review, we summed up our glowing praise by saying, “Beat Scholar will undoubtedly be a welcome addition to the collections of producers who need to fine-tune and tweak, with endless scope to minutely re-shape drum patterns over time, to get absolute precision or even its opposite – joyous freeform humanity and expressivity. Hitting the ground running with its first product, we’re excited to see where Modalics’ giddy creativity will take it next”. We didn’t have to wait long, with its EON Arpeggiator being similarly top-notch.
While Beat Scholar re-wrote the rulebook of beatcraft, there have been releases that brought tried-and-tested drum machine classics into our DAWs. The most notable of these was D16’s Drumazon 2 – landing a full 16 years after the original’s release. Like the original release, Drumazon 2’s objective is to bring the classic 909 drum machine right up to date, with flexible and vibrant effects engines complementing the superb (and hugely editable) drum sounds, as well as a fluid sequencer. If you want to-thepoint, full-phat 909 beats then this will do the job and then some. As we said in our review, “Drumazon 2 has kicked out every other drum machine and 909 emulator we use, as well as making us cut down on our reliance on sampled loops and breaks. It’s brilliant”.
Another release this year that devoured our time and got us thinking about beats in an entirely different way was UJAM’s Beatmaker Circuits. Using the MIDI keyboard, Beatmaker Circuits invites users to craft arrangementaligned patterns and trigger them at will. The retro flavourings of many of the kits and sounds was just the icing on the cake. In our review, we said, “Overall, Circuits offers quality vintage sounds, a unique way to easily program drums, and an abundance of controls for further processing. It’s a great-sounding plugin for creating vintage grooves. It has many unique features that producers will love.”
We were surprised by just how intuitive making the wonkiest of beats could be
Pushing the very concept of a Kontakt instrument to its furthest creative reaches, Sound Dust Plankton Drummer went far beyond the run-of-the-mil
