Soniccouture AC-DR

Soniccouture have combined acoustic and electronic percussion to create something truly original.

‘A virtual Instrument designed to emulate classic drum machines of the past’ — definitely a remit that has been explored far too many times for anyone to be remotely interested. Unless, of course, there was a significant new twist on the idea — and I might just have one for you. Soniccouture have taken samples of acoustic drums and percussion instruments, recorded in new and innovative ways, and designed a hybrid instrument that recreates the sounds and styles of the drum machines of the past. Acoustic drums that sound electronic — now that IS an interesting new twist...

Turn The AC On

The AC‑DR is a Kontakt Player instrument. This means that you do not need to own the full version of NI Kontakt to use it, and it will run as a plug‑in instrument inside any compatible host program.

The instrument itself is split into two main screens: a ‘Drum Machine’ overview of the individual elements, along with their edit parameters; and a ‘Beat Tools’ page that features three unique rhythm generators. It comes with a number of preset kits and rhythms that help you get an idea of what this virtual instrument is capable of, but the real fun is creating your own sounds and experimenting with the beat‑creation tools.

Focusing on the Drum Machine screen (shown above), a familiar layout features 11 large, coloured blocks that represent Bass Drum, Snare Drum, Rim Shot, Tom Toms, Hi‑hat, Ride and Crash Cymbals, Cowbell, Tambourine and Shaker. Each block includes its own level fader, pan control, and mute and solo facility, plus several knobs that represent the differently recorded ‘channels’ of that instrument. For example, for the Bass Drum the knobs are Beater, Sub, Knock, Trans and Space. By turning up the Beater knob, you introduce a sample recorded with a mic pointing directly at the batter head of the kick drum, while the Sub sample was recorded using a FET47 mic in front of the drum. The Knock sample was captured using a UKKO contact mic attached to the shell of the drum, which produces a thin and clicky quality, and the Trans sample is the result of the whole sample being passed through an Overstayer Saturator, introducing a level of dirt and distortion. Finally, there’s the Space knob, which is particularly interesting, as its samples were created using the reverb chambers at Rockfield Studios.

Each sample has its own character, and when used in combination with each other they can create the most amazing and varied drum sounds. Of course, this method isn’t limited to the kick drum. All of the drum instruments have unique combinations of samples, recorded using a wide variation of beaters, microphones and analogue processing. The way the different channels can be blended and manipulated reminds me of the Nord Drum, which uses click, tone and noise elements that are ultimately combined to produce the final drum sound.

Clicking on the drum name fills the space in the centre of the screen with a very extensive editing window. An almost infinite level of sound manipulation possibility is offered. Various drums, cymbals and percussion instruments were used in the recording process, and here you can pick any of them — from 18‑inch to 26‑inch bass drums, wood and metal snare drums, 12‑, 14‑ and 16‑inch hi‑hats, crash and splash cymbals recorded with contact mics, and tom‑toms struck with sticks and mallets. It’s worth mentioning at this point that there are 10 round robins per hit, so as you play repeated drums a different and unique sample plays with each hit, creating an organic quality reminiscent of drum machines like the Roland TR808, where each beat is uniquely created by the analogue circuitry. You can also turn off the round robin feature to achieve the effect of the same sample retriggering, giving the ‘machine‑gun’ effect of a Linn Drum or DMX.

Parameters available in the edit window include Filter, Envelope, Compressor, Transient, EQ, FX and Pitch, and these can be manipulated per sample channel. What do I mean by this? Well, you can apply any of the edit parameters to any of the samples. For example, the Snare includes Body, Rim, Wire and Space samples. By clicking on the numbered buttons that relate to each sample, you can give the snare Wire more decay while reducing the attack on the Body sample, changing EQ on the Rim and extending the decay on the Space sample. It really is quite mind‑blowing. The pitch, filters and envelope settings also enable you to create some very interesting bass sounds using the tuned toms.

In addition to the individual edit parameters there are two global effects processors, featuring a convolution reverb and digital delay, plus a Master channel that offers three Bus compressors, Limiter, EQ and Tape Saturation.

Beat Shifter looks like a regular grid editor but adds the ability to shift the location of individual beats in a random but musical fashion.

Fascinating Rhythm

The ‘Beat Tools’ screen will be familiar to users of Soniccouture products, as it appears on most, if not all, their percussion‑based virtual instruments. Featuring three different editing options — Beat Shifter, Euclidean Beats and Poly Beats — this screen provides some very innovative methods of creating rhythms.

Beat Shifter looks like a regular pattern grid, with eight lanes that can be assigned to any of the 16 available instruments. Clicking on one of the steps adds a beat, as you would expect. However, for each drum lane you also get Shift, Step, Direction, Velocity and ‘Chance Of’ sliders, which, in very simple terms, move the beats around the grid in a random fashion. It sounds odd, but it can create amazing rhythms that you’d never come up with by programming manually. The beats continue to change and evolve through each cycle, but if you hit on something you like, you can Freeze the beat and export it as a MIDI file. Press Freeze again and the beat continues to evolve.

Poly Beat offers a similar grid‑based layout, but in this case each of the eight lanes can have a different number of beats, ranging from one to 32, plus everything in between. Again, you can create some amazing polyrhythms by combining different numbers of beats within the same pattern. A nice way to work is to ‘lock’ two or three elements, such as kick and snare, to a grid and then use the Randomise button to manipulate the other drums over the top of that solid beat.

Euclidean Beats offers a unique way to create grooves and rhythms ‘on the fly’ by manipulating the number steps, hits and accents of each drum via a set of virtual knobs.

Finally, Euclidean Beats is a drum editor format I was unfamiliar with. The eight drum lanes are laid out in a circular pattern and virtual knobs to the left let you specify the number of steps, hits and accents for each drum. If you assign MIDI controllers to the various knobs and use an external control surface, this editor does lend itself well to the real‑time manipulation of beats. Like many musicians, I often end up playing beats into my DAW and creating parts manually, but the Beat Tools provided by AC‑DR takes this to a different level that simply isn’t possible using a regular drum editor. All in all, this is an exceptional and unusual set of editing tools that’ll keep you creating new beats for years to come.

The way in which each element can be manipulated beyond imagination is endlessly creative and incredibly addictive, and this is where the lines blur between acoustic and electronic.

Can’t Beat It

I absolutely love AC‑DR! All the sounds have been created organically, whether recorded via microphone, passed through an analogue processor or given character in a physical space. The raw sound‑sources are beautifully recorded, and the various methods and ingenuity used to create them results in a huge palette of unique source material to work with. The way in which each element can be manipulated beyond imagination is endlessly creative and incredibly addictive, and this is where the lines blur between acoustic and electronic. The fact that the instrument is based entirely on samples of natural acoustic drums appeals to the drummer in me, but you can also create the most remarkable ‘electronic’ sounds. In combination with the comprehensive beat creation tools that lend themselves to the more mechanical side of drumming, the AC‑DR can indeed ‘emulate classic drum machines of the past’ but it is much, much more than that — and very much worth adding to your VI arsenal.