If you’re searching for more dynamic and rhythmically complex drums, Drumbada can help you change up the pace, says Sonia Tsesarsky
A compelling software instrument is not just a high-quality sound module, but also an active aid in the production process. The team at Sampleson know this all too well, its latest release, Drumbada, offers a highly intuitive way of understanding and designing polyrhythms.
Today’s drum production can often be focused too heavily on sound design at the expense of rhythm, with an emphasis on layering samples to create a satisfying sound, or selecting the perfect sample for the job. And while it can be tempting to reach for sample packs with 100 different snares, by the time you’ve assembled the body, tail, ‘thwack’ and ‘crunch’, you can lose sight of the overall beat – potentially creating something that sounds both laboured and rhythmically barren.
Bombo-tastic
Sampleson’s third venture into percussion plugins, Drumbada is a polyrhythmic percussion engine, which features just one drum, deeply sampled – the South America bombo legüero bass drum. This simple focus, as well as Drumbada’s straightforward interface, allows its user to refocus on rhythm as a basis for creative drum production rather than have them wading through samples.
At the heart of Drumbada’s appeal is a set of five arpeggiators which can produce complex polyrhythms when combined. Effectively, each arpeggiator is a drummer playing a distinct rhythm. For each arpeggiator, you can modify the velocity, note, speed, and number of steps. The accent and spread controls add a further naturalistic quality to the playing, where the spread function varies the accuracy with which each individual step in an arpeggiator is ‘struck’ – similar to the humanise function for MIDI.
It lets users refocus on rhythm for creative drum production rather than wading through samples
The crew function on each arpeggiator, when activated, expands the drum ensemble beyond the default five players, adding further voices behind each arpeggiator. The velocity, accent and spread functions are not activated without crew mode, which isn’t immediately apparent – revealing a less user-friendly side of the plugin.
Still, the polyrhythmic possibilities really are endless here. The arpeggiator speeds go from 1/1 to 1/16, including triplet and dotted rhythms marked by a D and T at the end of the note divisions. You can conjure anything from a simple 2:3 syncopation, through to matching 1/16T with 1/8D, producing a mind-bending stagger as dotted and triplet rhythms collide.
The interface shows you the number of steps and speed of playback of each arpeggiator, indicated by a lighter grey line which moves through the sequence upon playback. This visualisation can make it easier to hear and construct more complex rhythms; useful if you are not a
