PERKONS FROM MARS

Gritty Grooves & Hard-Hitting Drums From the Analog-Digital Hybrid

The Perkons HD-01 is a powerful, four-voice drum machine featuring wavetables and digital oscillators fed into multimode analog filters, overdrive, and an analog bucket brigade delay. It can deliver everything from experimental sound design to modern techno, trap and everything in between, all within the twist of a knob. The Perkons From Mars gives you access to the distinctive, hard-hitting sound of this modern classic via 650 one-hits and 350 loops.

The Sound of the Perkons

Each of the Perkons’ four voices is equipped with a unique digital engine that runs through analog filters and overdrive for additional shaping and character. Labelled simply as Voice 1, Voice 2, etc, it's clear that each part can be used to shape nearly any kind of drum sound you desire.

Although we aren't actually sculpting sounds scratch on this machine (due to its digital nature), it feels like we are - it's easy to dial in a classic 808 or 909 sounding kick, and then turn a few knobs to make it a bit more alien sounding. The beauty of the Perkons is that it can ride this fine line between recognizable, classic, strange and experimental.

Capturing Complex Movements and Loops

The Perkons thrives on motion - all made possible from a robust sequencer. Not only are all of its deep modulation possibilities (fold amount, pitch modulation, wave-surfing, sample rate and more) recordable, but we get per-step probability and ratchets too. Put it all together and the Perkons can create driving rhythms, evolving patterns, glitchy FX bursts, and twisted melodies: 

While creating our loops, we leaned into these modulations, recording full, rhythmic phrases filled with automated filter sweeps, ratchets (quick rolls on certain steps), time-based delays and per-step modulations. Loops were centered around 120 and 130 bpm, with some light console EQ and saturation from the Zahl AM1 console to smooth out some of the more peaky spikes.

Sampling the One-Hits

To capture the range of the machine, we also sculpted hundreds of one-shot samples from each voice, surfing wavetables and tweaking knobs. We tracked the hits cleanly, and additionally through a combination of Moog filters, outboard compression and saturation to add some extra color, weight, and (most importantly) analog noise that the Perkons lacks. 

One of the most unique aspects of this machine is that, in addition to its convincingly analog-sounding noise stabs, percussive synths, resonant pulses, bleeps and blips, you can get natural, acoustic-sounding hi hats, almost like an LM1. This proves to be an unbeatable combination.

From soft and lightweight to banging club hits to downright strange and otherworldly, these samples offer maximum flexibility for building your own beats from scratch while still carrying the hard-to-place tone of the Perkons.

A New Favorite

The Perkons surprised us. While we were initially wary of its digital nature, with a little experimentation the machine quickly revealed itself to be an expressive performance instrument - equal parts precision and chaos. It’s just as comfortable laying down straight ahead four-on-the-floor as it is breaking apart into unstable, beautiful rhythmic noise.
The Perkons From Mars is a versatile, punchy, and inspiring modern, toolkit, packed with sonic character and ready to fuel your next track.