Tutorial 03: Drum Oscillators

Drum modules are quite easy to connect. they have a MVC, one or more EGs, filters, VCAs, and maybe even more components already installed inside. to control all the parameters of these integrated components, there are a bunch of knobs to get the sound you want. other characteristics of Drum modules:
- preset list for convenient loading/saving sounds.
- cannot be played over the whole keyboard range; you have to assign a designated noteNr. to which the module will respond.
- a unique feature called MuteIn and MuteOut. typical use for it is in combination with closed and open HHats: if you play a closedHh while an openHh is sounding, the openHh should be muted; this can be done by connecting the muteOut of the closedHh to the muteIn of the openHh.
as already mentioned, Drum OSCs are quite easy to connect, because there is not much you can connect. the downside of it is that you cannot modulate any parameters, like pitch or filter cutoff. but thankfully, there are some CWM modules which can be modulated quite nicely - see here.

in this patch, 10 modules are used; white Text modules (Tools/Textmodules/cwmText) and VUmeter are optional

drumOsc

(Drum) - that’s actually two OSCs (sine and noise), with some VCAs and EGs for pitch and amp modulation.

drumSynth

(Drum) - actually three OSCs, with even more VCAs and EGs and a multiband filter (for the noiseOsc) inside.

two DVCs

(Drum) - this is a small version of a MVC. it outputs gate and velocity messages only for a specified note.

HHsource

(Drum) - this is a special noise generator with some controls for noise “tuning” and filter cf.  it doesn’t have any MVC or VCA inside, so you have to connect it to a DVC and VCA to control amplification.

LinVCA and ADvintage EG

one set of VCA/AD is used for the closedHh, the other for the openHh.

microMixer

(Mix&Gain/Mix) - a handy 4x1 mixer with pan controls and textfields where you can enter the name of the connected signal.

the patch includes a small preset list (two presets).