Following the steps of the great Electro-Acoustic virtual instrument (which we reviewed here), Soniccouture presents their latest beat-maker AC-DR, a drum machine built from a rather unusual approach: instead of capturing the usual suspects from the 1980s, this time around the company went for sampling real drums, but these were put together in a very “drum-machine” way. Out goes the LinnDrums and the Rolands, in comes the Tamas and the Paistes.

Drum Machine

AC-DR consists of two sections that can be accessed on the lower part of the interface: Drum Machine and Beat Tools. So let's start with the Drum Machine, which is powered by a 3GB library of sampled acoustic drums and percussions with up to 20 round-robins per drum. Round robins are an important element here, and they bring something that’s unusual to drum machines which is variation - it’s not as dramatic as a real drummer (or a real drums plugin) would be, but it’s much more organic than the usual hardware drum machine. Soniccouture deployed quite an interesting method here, with automated robotic arms that strikes the drums with total precision, but instead of capturing dozens of different velocities like it’s done on “regular” sampled drums, they went for only two: normal and accent, which are what the first drum machines did back in the day and this is key in transforming the real sampled drums into drum machines.


The sampling process captured up to five signals from the following sources: dynamic microphone, contact microphone, transformer and two echo chambers. A neutral acoustic space at Bean Tree Studio was used for the main recording so the samples were pristinely recorded at a resolution of 24-bit/96kHz using top-class signal chain and A/D conversion. The echo chambers have two sizes for different reverb lengths, and these are meant for sound design instead of the usual reverb - which is provided on the FX sends which we’ll cover later on.

Depending on the drum part there will be less channels (or layers) to work with, as cymbals or percussions won’t require contact mics like the drum shells and so forth. These sources are controlled by the knobs found on each drum piece on the interface, which makes blending them quite a breeze. Each drum part can be freely adjusted with controls for pitch, sample start and amplitude envelope. There are also two multi-mode filters per part, a compressor, transient designer, two send effects and a 4-band EQ with two parametric bands and two shelves. Each part can be either routed to the main output or to a dedicated output, which is handy when mixing on a DAW is desired.

Beat Tools

The “Beat Tools” tab houses the sequencers, which are derived from the Electro-Acoustic instrument released a few years ago, so if you’re familiar with it you should be right at home straight away as they are the same except for the color scheme on the interface. If you’re a newcomer, there’s no need to worry as these sequencers are a bit daunting at first but can be easily understood.

There are three sequencers here: Beat Shifter, Euclidean Beats and Poly Beats. Beat Shifter presents a regular sequencer that is enhanced with parameters for “chance”, that determines hit probability, and “shift”, which quite literally shifts notes around the grid for adding variations to a beat. Combining these two leads to very interesting patterns with tons of variations.

Euclidean Beats brings this increasingly popular sequencer method, and here I’ll refer to the AC-DR user manual for an explanation: “Essentially the basic idea is to take a number of STEPS (say a bar of 16 steps) and evenly distribute a number of HITS within those steps. If you use 16 STEPS and evenly distribute 4 HITS, you get a very basic 4 beat bar, since the most even way to divide 4 HITS in 16 STEPS is to put one HIT every 4 STEPS”. Sounds complicated, but it’s not really hard to comprehend once you have it running, and it’s actually very fun to use.


Lastly, Poly Beats is a polyrhythmic sequencer where each drum lane can have its own length so we can mix up different meters: we can have the bass drum on a 16-step 4/4 pattern and the snare on a 12-step 3/4 pattern, while the hi-hats are running on a 5-step pattern, the toms on a 6-step pattern and so forth. All sequencers can save/load sequences and there’s also a very useful “drag and drop” system for sending MIDI straight to the DAW.

Effects

Besides the aforementioned effects on each drum channel, AC-DR comes with two effects slots on auxiliary sends/returns: slot number one house a convolution reverb with over 80 impulse response to choose from, and slot number two features a basic delay with ping-pong, mono/stereo and distortion options. The convolution reverb stands out here, with a comprehensive set of IRs ranging from natural spaces to studios, chambers and also hardware reverbs.

AC-DR also features a full-fledged processing chain on its main output, comprising of tape emulation, a 4-band parametric EQ, a limiter and a compressor with three modes: Supercharger GT (derived from the namesake Native Instruments plugin), Solid Bus Comp (SSL-style) and Feedback Comp (1176-esque). This section is quite handy when the drum sounds are not routed to individual outputs, and I’d recommend everyone to try mixing into AC-DR’s main output due to the fact that the Supercharger GT sounds extremely good and can be pushed for some tasty distortions.


Presets (Snapshots)

AC-DR comes with 90 “snapshots”, which is Kontakt’s way of making presets more easily available and organized. Each snapshots comes with a set of drum machine and sequencer settings and there’s a fairly good range of styles covered here, from the usual four-on-the-floor and hip-hop to more exotic sounds, and there’s plenty to find here both in terms of “main” drums sounds but also plenty of complementary percussion shots to add on top of existing drums. The snapshots also include a few templates with basic settings for building up custom drum machine kits.

Sound Packs

There are two sound packs available right now for AC-DR: Shadow/Tech and Ostbahnhof. Each of them brings 64 new snapshots with drum machine sound settings and sequencer patterns, but they do not add any new samples. They cost $29 apiece ($19 intro offer) and can be helpful to varying degrees depending on the genres one is working with. Here goes the summary:

Shadow/Tech: This pack was done by producer Nimhbus Focused on drum-n-bass, jungle and other breakbeat-centric (140+ BPM) styles, but it can be used for other genres as well. In fact, I think this is a perfect pack for trip-hop and for the highly popular lofi hip-hop style - just bring that beat per minute down and it should be set.

Ostbahnhof: Centered around dark techno and industrial, this pack should be great for not only writing down the rhythmic fundamentals but also for adding layers and textures. It operates optimally at around 120-140 BPM, but there’s nothing stopping us from using it outside of that as its range is surprisingly vast.

The scores

Sound quality: Top-notch as we can always expect from Soniccouture, they don’t miss a beat and AC-DR further establishes their name amongst the best in the sampled instrument business. Suffice to say that this time around the aim was not to achieve realism, but to transform an acoustic instrument entirely and use it as a sandbox for sound exploration. AC-DR sounds like nothing else I’ve tried, and that’s quite an extensive list from hardware to digital. It feels quirky in a good way, and embracing its unique character is very rewarding. Given the fact that transforming audio to MIDI is quite easy these days, I would also advise on not confining it to the “drum machine” role: yes, it’s absolutely excellent on that, but it can also be of great value as sound reinforcement or layering option for regular acoustic drum recordings.

Ease of use: Overall it’s an intuitive instrument to use if you’re used to drum machine/sampler plugins, and the clever interface layout makes the learning curve quite smooth if you’re not used to them. I really like the fact that the corresponding volume knob for each layer is highlighted once you select that sample, it’s a neat touch that helps tremendously. Sequencing also comes quite easy here with the provided Beat Tools, and even the more complex Euclidean Beats and Beat Shifter options can be fully grasped within minutes. A small gripe that I have here is the size of the interface, but there’s partly on Kontakt to blame given the fact that developers have to work within its boundaries - those using bigger screens and resolutions of 4k or greater should have an easier time, but for my aging eyes staring at 27” 1080p monitor it’s a bit hard to read sometimes. Minor issue nevertheless, and fortunately there’s not much to read on the interface and once you get acquainted with the controls it comes naturally. Lastly, Soniccouture took their time to write a great user guide, a 33-page PDF that not only explains all controls but also gives the user some interesting behind-the-scenes insights on how AC-DR was envisioned.

Features: Not overwhelming but not simplistic, AC-DR hits the right spot and it’s a textbook case on how to curate a feature set that perfectly fits its purpose. Everything we expect from a drum machine is here, with superb samples, plentiful layering options, multiple envelopes, useful effects and sequencers that are actually inspiring to use. There’s hardly anything else that I could ask for here, but I’d like to see Soniccouture step out of Kontakt at some point and build their own instruments, which could solve the aforementioned interface size issue entirely. Anyways, there are many good reasons to stick with Native Instruments and this discussion is a whole topic on itself and far beyond the scope of this review, but I feel it’s something worth contemplating in the future.

Bang for buck: AC-DR is sensibly priced at $149, which can’t be said to be expensive but also not low enough to put it into the instant-buy category. For the discounted intro offer price of $104 it’s certainly a no-brainer, even more so since we can get it with the two sound packs for a total sum that’s roughly the same as the regular price. Nevertheless, this is a great addition for anyone needing to beef-up their rhythmic toolkit.

Recommended for: electronic music producers are certainly the prime audience for AC-DR, but it can also be highly useful for mixing engineers looking to spice up their drum sounds.

Pros:

• Unique sound palette
• Intuitive to operate
• Interesting sequencing options
• Relatively affordable

Cons:

• None

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