BDM: The drum machine that sounds wrong

The Chaos and Chance sliders are what set BDM apart from its rivals.
The Chaos and Chance sliders are what set BDM apart from its rivals.

Most software drum machines are designed to faithfully emulate hardware models or provide pristine acoustic sounds. As its name suggests, though, NUSofting's Broken Drum Machine - or BDM - is a rather different proposition.

Said to be inspired by several old-school beatboxes and the current vogue for circuit bending, BDM features four drum pads (kick, snare, hi-hat and stick). A blend of acoustic and electronic sounds is included (PCM and VCO tone generation methods are used), while standard sound-shaping controls include tone, decay, pitch, pan and gain.

So far, so predictable - it's when you factor in the Chaos and Chance sliders that BDM starts getting interesting. The former sets the amount of variation on the original sound; the latter sets the probability that this 'chaos' will kick in.

The idea is that you experiment with these sliders to produce off-the-wall and unpredictable sounds, with NUSofting claiming that the effect is similar to the glitches and bleeps you can create when you manipulate an analogue circuit.

Offered as a PC VST plug-in, BDM is available now at an introductory price of $44.90. You can buy it or download a demo at the NUSofting website.

The MusicRadar team

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