8-Voice FM (Technically PM) Drum Kit

#1

1kick.axs (9.6 KB)
2snare.axs (9.5 KB)
3block.axs (8.4 KB)
4hh.axs (7.5 KB)
5tom.axs (9.6 KB)
6tom.axs (9.6 KB)
7shaker.axs (7.3 KB)
8ride.axs (7.5 KB)
Final Drums.axp (3.1 KB)

I've had my Axoloti for a couple years now and recently I figured I should actually try to whip something up with it. My goal with this was to make a functional eight-voice, DX-inspired FM (technically PM) drum machine without using a traditional noise source. Because of that, it has a very specific, unabashedly digital sound and is not in any way attempting to replicate a specific piece of gear. Every voice responds to CC10 panning and is velocity-sensitive, with most having subtle modulations tied to velocity for variety's sake, and they all have a live tone-shaping parameter assigned to the Mod Wheel/CC1 of each channel. Kick, block and toms have drive controls, snare has a noise balance control, and hi-hat, shaker, and ride have noise color controls.

Despite hovering around 54-56% CPU usage, I wasn't able to add much more to these patches and still retain all eight voices before overloading the Axoloti Core, so there is no on-board sequencing. That said, they are split out to separate channels in order to play well with multi-channel MIDI sequencers like Patterning or the Beatstep Pro. I also went with multiple channels to fabricate a choke group for the hi-hat - the decay is adjusted by MIDI note, so higher pitches yield longer decays. For a more conventional open/closed ratio, I recommend keeping the split around two octaves, which just so happens to be the pitch range available on Patterning.

Here are the MIDI notes I recommend starting around:

Kick: C2
Snare: D4
Block: C6
Closed Hi-Hat: A#/Bb4
Open Hi-Hat: A#/Bb6
Hi Tom (C5): A#/Bb2
Lo Tom (C6): F2
Shaker: F5
Ride: D7

I'm new to sharing Axoloti patches so I'm not positive the axp file is configured to automatically find the included subpatches. My apologies if it doesn't, though it should be easy enough to either reconfigure my provided axp file or set one up yourself in your own Axoloti directory if you are familiar with polyphonic subpatching. Each subpatch comes already assigned to the MIDI channel number listed in their file names, but those can be adjusted in the subpatch/patch settings.

Enjoy!

#2

thank you! having a lot of fun testing my new shiny iRig Pads with your drumkit.

#3

Is it posible to synthesiz a clap sound?

#4

You can use embedded subpatches for easy sharing. Create a patch/patcher object and paste everything from your subpatch into that object.

#5

I'll have to mess around with that, thanks for the tip!

#6

Totally possible, and even something I was originally trying to do. I found that in order to really make a clap the way I'd want it to sound though, I'd have to devote a significant chunk of the Core's CPU to it and either simplify my other sounds or cut down on the number of simultaneous voices.

If you wanted to try it, I would recommend taking the shaker patch, removing any attack, adding some trigger delay objects, and sending the "noise" source through a few parallel band pass filters at similar but different frequencies to get started. I think the filters were the most taxing part of my clap patch, so you could try it without them, but I don't think full-range "noise" (even when pitched as it is here) sounds very realistic for claps.

#7

Thanks for the patch. I noticed that when I open the Final Drums.axp that each of the individual voices is associated with a different midi channel. This is probably explained better somewhere but I'd like to modify it so that they are all on the same drum midi channel (10) but respond to different keys/notes on that channel. How would I go about modifying it?

Thanks

#8

I usually use the midi/in/keyb note object and route the gate of each note to a drumsound subpatch. The MIDI channel for the patch can be set in the patch settings.

#9

That makes sense to me, but I literally just got my axoloti and I'm not sure how to accomplish this. Is there a good basic tutorial that explains sub-patches? Or maybe a multi-voice drum patch that shows this?

Ok think I figured it out: Used a split-lead patch example to use the midi/in/keyb note object and map specific notes to the trig of the drums from another patch.

#10

Here's a patch I once made to work with the Electribe ER-1 as a sequencer.
electribe-test.axp (38.4 KB)

#11

Wow, it sounds so good! (sequencing it with a Digitakt)