Drumazon

When you think of modern mainstream music, it's impossible to take drums out of the equation. While Bach, Mozart, or Chopin did fine without them, the same can't be said about The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Depeche Mode, Metallica, ABBA, Grandmaster Flash, Dr. Dre, Spice Girls, The Prodigy, or Armin van Buuren. Keep in mind that only a few of those legendary acts actually have drummers on board, and we certainly have drum machines to thank for that.

Since we finally got to the point, I should also mention that no electronic instrument is as important to the development of electronic dance music as the Roland TR-909. With its signature punchy kick drum, the 909 played a key role in the emerging techno and house scenes at the end of the 1980s. Well, today we're going to look at a plugin that skillfully emulates the TR-909.

While Drumazon may not be one-of-a-kind, its creators have probably gone to great lengths to create a gorgeous interface – one that seems familiar to anyone that used a 909 (or a clone) before but also integrates new features. Pattern programming is done through the keys in the lower side, while each drum has a few adjustable parameters, such as level, attack, decay, or pitch.

If you wish to play drums from your MIDI controller then you must first turn off the plugin's internal sequencer. You can create your own presets and save them, but you can also turn the internal sequencer back on and let Drumazon do a lot of the work for you.

The plugin allows you to trigger different presets just by pressing its keys. This can help you in the long run if, for example, you create different drum presets for different parts of your songs. You can also select a different output for each drum, so you can edit them further in your DAW.

Drumazon is a virtual synth that is easy to recommend to producers who are passionate about classic drum programming and analog drum sounds.