RECODRUM FROM MARS

A Modern, Hand-Built Analog Drum Synth

The Recodrum is a limited production, analog drum machine created by Arthur Joly in 2021.  Inspired by the 808, this beauty features hand soldered, through-hole components, analog oscillators and VCAs, amazing woodwork and gorgeous deep blue-green metal faceplates. And how about that VU meter? Can't say we've seen that on a drum machine before:

Like a More Tune-able 808, but Quirkier

"Yes, the TR-808 is the drum machine that inspired this equipment" says the Recodrum manual. But while the inspiration is apparent, the Recodrum has its own unique sound. With so many more on-board parameters, it offers a more expressive, tune-able, and unpredictable experience. The bass drum, for example, can be tuned over an octave, while the 808 can't be tuned at all. And oh, what a world of difference it makes: 

With similar controls to the 808, the snare adds one more parameter, charmingly labeled "Botton" (perhaps a typo?), which can control the overall noise of the snare a bit more, similar to tightening the snare wires on an acoustic snare.

The Clap has maybe the widest range here, and when using it, it becomes obvious why most drum machines don't offer us these parameters - its wide range can easily produce anything from chaotic, aggressive white noise (which we love), to soft, clicky transients, splashy claps, and something somewhat similar to an 808 clap.  

The Lo and Hi Perc can act as tone generators, producing infinite sustain at their highest decay setting, but dialing them back down to their minimum values can produce lovely, soft little rhythm box style toms.

The Stick is perhaps the most unlike the 808. Try as you might, you won't get that exact rim sound (which is fine by us). But what it can do is produce all sorts of percussion, resonant woodblock sounds, by turning the vague controls which modulate 3 VCOs. Perhaps only Arthur knows what is actually going on under the hood here. Regardless, quite interesting results can be had! 

Clean Samples and Tube Saturation

For this pack, we focused on cleanly capturing an extensive amount of one-hits, tuning perfectly wherever possible (for the bassdrum and perc), and employing as many unique combinations of these parameters as was reasonable.  Each voice includes a full range of tones, decays and mods, giving you a very close approximation to using the machine itself.

For the hi hats, where the parameters are more limited (there is decay on the open hat only), we captured six round robins for each closed, combo and open hats, at various decays.

Once the clean samples were sorted, we processed color versions of every sample, focusing on tube saturation in parallel (to retain clean attack), with a bit of compression, EQ and gating where needed. 

What's Included

Recodrum From Mars has been fully formatted for the most popular DAWs, with 50 Individual Hits instrument presets so you can really dive through all samples parameters and tunings (which are chromatically mapped) in addition to 6 pre-made 16 hit kits for jamming with straight away.  With 624 total samples we are pretty sure this is the most extensive multi-sampled version of the Recodrum available.

Art For Artists

The Recodrum is one of the best, most vintage sounding new drum machines we've ever heard. It's also a remarkable piece of engineering, and a beautiful work of art. While it can be taken into some pretty experimental territory, it's easy to dial in a more classic and refined sound. It may evoke the nostalgia of the 808, but the Recodrum clearly carves out its own unique identity that is just as left-of-center, fun and quirky as we image Arthur is. 

While we love programming the real thing (those mute switches!), sampling this machine really elevated its potential - since you can play with multiple tunings and parameters at the same time, which is not possible on the machine itself.  Having the ability to sequence perfectly tuned bass drums and percussion really lets the Recodrum shine. 

That said, If you have the opportunity to own an actual Recodrum, we highly recommend it. Arthur Joly has created a truly special instrument here and we are grateful for the chance to share it with you all 🤗