With a new album under his belt, Refestramus drummer and songwriter Derek Ferguson finds his e-kit invaluable for practice and composition. My family had a rule about new pursuits: do things properly, or don’t do them at all. So, when I wanted to play drums at age nine, the deal was a year of lessons first, to prove I’d stick with it. I did, and got my first drum set. My path since then hasn’t...
A Finnish drummer and chilli pepper grower has built a free, browser-based sample slicer that could change the way e-drummers approach custom sampling. Jukka “Fatalii” Kilpinen, best known in hot pepper circles for his eponymous seed company, has spent four decades behind a kit and the last 20-odd years on electronic drums. His current set-up centres on a Pearl mimicPRO brain driving a...
Steven Slate Drums has released Classic 70s, a new expansion pack for its SSD and Trigger platforms that takes a notably purist approach to period drum sounds. Rather than modelling or approximating the analogue warmth of the era, the expansion was recorded at two studios with genuine claims to the decade’s greatest records. The Village Recorder in Los Angeles was where Ken Caillat...
How we measure latency, why it matters, and why we stand by our numbers For as long as digitalDrummer has been reviewing electronic drum modules, latency has been one of the most contested and least understood metrics in our field. We have been measuring it, publishing the results and defending the methodology for well over a decade. Recently, a handful of voices have been questioning our numbers...
Compared to mainstream “corporate” drum VSTs, there is a refreshing candour about Deviant Drums that hits you before you have even loaded the first kit. The manual is written entirely in the first person by a developer who openly admits he kept recording until Kontakt ran out of room, describes four of the keyswitch effects as “destructive, angry, edgy, and mean,” and named...
Alesis has released OS 1.4 for its Strata module, headlined by a completely redesigned Jam Mode that turns the module into a self-contained practice tool. The update allows players to load tracks from USB, Bluetooth or aux input, select and loop any section of a song, and adjust playback speed in 10% increments or via precise fine-tuning — all without leaving the module. Loop start and end points...
Akai Professional has unveiled the MPC One G2, a significantly upgraded version of its popular stand-alone music production workstation, delivering four times the processing power of its predecessor while retaining the compact desktop format that has made the MPC One a favourite among beatmakers, producers and hybrid performers. Available immediately, the MPC One G2 features a new 8-core...
Back in December, digitalDrummer flagged that something significant was coming from the Evans Hybrid and Sunhouse collaboration. It’s now here — and it may be the most credible answer yet to electronic drumming’s longest-standing frustration. The Sensory Percussion eKit System, launched jointly by Evans Hybrid and Sunhouse, takes direct aim at the problem that has driven drummers back...
Toontrack has expanded its EZdrummer 3 and Superior Drummer 3 ecosystem with the release of the Drum & Bass EZX, a new sound library developed in collaboration with acclaimed session drummer Andy Gangadeen and producer/engineer Peter “Erb N Dub” Chapman. While the release includes a collection of genre-specific MIDI grooves, the main attraction for electronic drummers is the library’s...
Copenhagen-based music technology publisher Bjooks has announced its latest title, Beat Gems: Drum Machines in Modern Music, an illustrated history of the rhythm machines that transformed popular music over six decades. Written by electronic instrument historian Oli Freke, the book covers more than 60 vintage drum machines from the 1950s through the digital era, tracing the arc from early...
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By electronic drummers,
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FROM THE EDITOR
Electronic drums have come a long way since the 1970s and are now seen alongside their acoustic siblings on stages around the world. They also draw crowds at music trade shows and attract strong interest on the floors of music shops.
As an electronic drummer, technology enthusiast and professional writer, I know first-hand how hard it is to be taken seriously when your kit needs a powerpoint and amp. That’s why we launched digitalDrummer in 2010. I wanted to create a communication channel dedicated to this vibrant market and the musicians who are so enthused by the digital opportunities.
Because it is aimed at a niche audience of dedicated enthusiasts, digitalDrummer is able to explore drum technology in great detail, but it is written for drummers, not techno-geeks.
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Allan Leibowitz
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