Generative drum machine Coming soon

Schlagzeugs

Kicks, hats and toms that drift against each other.

Six lanes, each a small clocked sequencer with its own length and rate, so polymeter and polyrhythm are the starting point rather than a mode. The step registers mutate at a rate you set and freeze when you like what you hear. Six voices play the result, and every lane sends a MIDI note as well, so the same groove can drive a Syntakt, a Cycles or a eurorack drum module instead.

VST3 · AU · StandalonemacOS & Windows
The Schlagzeugs plugin interface
The Schlagzeugs plugin interface.

What it does

01 Registers

Patterns that corrupt and lock

Each lane's steps are a Labyrinth-style register. CORRUPT mutates them once per cycle, DENSITY decides what a mutated step becomes, LOCK freezes every register and ROLL redraws them all from a seed. The kick's downbeat survives any amount of corruption.

02 Polymeter

Six lengths, six rates

Lane lengths from 1 to 32 steps and rates from quarter notes to 1/16 triplets. One POLYMETER control morphs the six lengths toward a coprime set, so the lanes drift out of phase and back over a long cycle.

03 Steps

DFAM rows, per step

Gate, velocity, pitch, probability and ratchets on every step, plus two modulation rows that reach the voice: one to tune, one to decay or tone. Euclidean fills per lane, swing and humanize for the whole kit.

04 Voices

DFAM and Rings, in one kit

An analog-style kick with a pitch envelope and FM click. A snare that morphs into a clap. Closed and open hats from a six-oscillator 808 cluster, the closed hat choking the open. A tom and a metal percussion voice on Rings-style modal resonators whose ratios morph from membrane to metal.

05 MIDI

An instrument and a sequencer

Every lane sends a note on its own number and channel, on the General MIDI drum map by default. A note in on a lane's number plays that voice, so a drum clip from Cadence's Beats assist, or from any DAW, plays the kit.

06 Clock

Host or free-running

Follows the host transport sample-accurately, or free-runs at its own tempo in the standalone. The engine is deterministic per seed and split-invariant, so a groove sounds the same live and bounced.

Get it

A paid, closed-source SHLabs plugin in active development. This page is an early look; pricing and availability will be announced when it ships. Follow SHLabs to hear when it lands.