Nithonat

Even though it’s not as well-known as its younger brothers – the TR-808 and the TR-909 – Roland TR-606 is still a legendary drum machine. Launched as a companion to the TB-303 bass synthesizer, the 606 suffered the same fate as most of the instruments released by the Roland Corporation in the first half of the 1980s; in the beginning, it didn’t sell well, but later it went on to take part in pioneering various electronic music genres.

And just like its younger brothers, the 606 was cloned several times, both physically and digitally. Today we’re taking a look at a TR-606 emulation called Nithonat.

Many plugins from D16 Group can be characterized by the fact that they look and sound great. Nithonat is no exception, although the interface doesn’t really resemble the original Roland TR-606 that much. Not that I’m considering this a bad thing in any way, I’m just pointing out that the piece of software looks less like an emulation and more like a thing of its own.

Indeed, Nithonat has added many welcome features to its well-designed interface. Each drum has individual parameters like tune, tone, attack, and decay which you can adjust to change the feel of your tracks. You also have more controls over the patterns, but the drum programming principle hasn’t changed since the original Roland unit; you still program the patterns using the keys, and you still have the accent function which you can use to modify the volume of the mix on a given beat.

If you have any experience with sequencing drums in a DAW or other plugins, Nithonat will seem easy-to-use. You can choose different outputs for each of your drums so you can edit them later, and you can also use the plugin’s internal sequencer. Nithonat is a well-designed virtual drum machine that isn’t made only for those who love retro instruments and sounds.