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.
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