Announcing Entrian Acoustic Drums: Drum kit and sequencer (now with 100% more Christmas)

Announcements
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I’m very pleased to announce Entrian Acoustic Drums, a new Rack plugin containing two modules, an acoustic drum kit and a drum sequencer.

The Acoustic Drums drum kit includes 27 instruments: drums, hi-hats, cymbals, and many other percussion instruments, all professionally recorded for this plugin.

It has multiple velocity layers per instrument, for true dynamics, and multiple samples per layer, for natural variation.

Acoustic-Drums-Panel-Plain
Acoustic-Drums-Panel-Plain1290×760 389 KB

The Entrian Drummer drum sequencer has all the basics of a trigger sequencer, but also has plenty of features for creating and playing expressive drum grooves:

Easy piano-roll-style editing in a resizable popup editor: create, edit, move, and delete notes with the mouse. Scroll and zoom to navigate long sequences.

Per-note velocity.

Flams, ratchets, etc., with independent start and end velocity.

Recording from MIDI input or PC keyboard, with controllable quantization.

Drummer-Editor
Drummer-Editor1321×758 282 KB

Drummer-Editor-Properties
Drummer-Editor-Properties1114×632 63.5 KB

Here’s a short video that demonstrates some of the features of the two modules:

For more information, see the manual.

Entrian Acoustic Drums is a commercial plugin, currently priced at $20. It’s available from the VCV Plugin Library.

If you have any questions, comments, or bug reports, please don’t hesitate to contact me here on the forum, or email support@entrian.com.

Thanks! - Richie.

23 Likes
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Wow, impressed! Well done guys!

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Very nice, I may have to start saving. One suggestion, individual mono outs as well as stereo?

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I’ll probably eventually get this just for the drum sequencer. The only thing stopping me at the moment is a big dog with a broken leg costing me a ton of money right now, but I’ll get this soon.

One feature request: would it be possible to add an option reverse sort the order of the drums in the sequencer? I prefer kick on the bottom, snare above that, etc. It’s more inline with the actual location of MIDI notes and standard drum notation. Cubase has a nice feature to let you reverse sort the drum editor if you prefer to work that way like I do.

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Nice work, and nice sequencer too! :slight_smile:

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Hey this is awesome! congrats
“note propriety” with vel and ratchet, that’s great!
you should add probability to be played, probability to be “ratchetted” and random range around the the indicated velocity

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I agree. Individual drum outs!

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There is no defined sort order. You can any of the instruments in any voice slot.

lots-o-kicks

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That’s a good point. No reason 16 couldn’t be kick, 15 snare…duly noted.

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But I did just notice that the Factory Presets are in just one specific set of voices, in one specific order.

It would be really nice if the drum set auto-docked with the sequencer so one didn’t have to connect 30 patch cords.
Thankfully we have @stoermelder’s STRIP :slight_smile:

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Thanks for the kind words and the feedback - all gratefully received!

@contemporaryinsanity, @joopvanderlinden: Individual outputs would be good, and I did consider it but I was aware that the thing was already rather big… it seems like everyone thinks they would be worth the extra space. Mono, though? Most of the instruments are stereo…

@pyer: Yes, randomness with controllable probability is definitely on my wishlist.

@bp.dtmr: Automatic docking… crumbs, why didn’t I think of that?! (Is that even possible? Can a standalone module, rather than an extender, do that?) I wanted these things to be separate modules, so you can use the sequencer with any instruments, and use the drums with any sequencer, but there’s no reason they can’t cooperate better when you use them together.

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Question: Individual outputs on the Drums module, or a single-instrument module like this mockup?:

single-instrument-panel-2

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nice! does the sequencer have undo/redo?

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I think the individual module is the best approach. Allows for easy mix and matching, doesn’t take up too much space, stereo outputs… Good compromise.

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Yes, full undo/redo, and you can use the usual Rack keyboard shortcuts in the popup editor.

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That would work. Although I would not mind having the extra outputs on the module itself, too. Especially when you get docking to work :slight_smile:

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I swapped the Drum Module into a piece I published a couple of days ago. Just a straight up swap for the Hora Analogue Drum Modules I originally used. The change was dramatic in one sense. They sound much more realistic.

But… I had to use the full-on setting to get the presence I liked and I do miss the ability to individually tweak the EQ, side-chain compress the Kick and select channels to apply reverb/delay.

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nice!

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Thanks - that’s a persuasive argument for either a single-instrument version of the module, or a set of independent outputs.

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Huge thanks for all the suggestions!

I’ve just released version 1.1 of Entrian Acoustic Drums, which implements most of those suggestions, and a few more besides:

  • Per-instrument outputs (thanks @contemporaryinsanity, @joopvanderlinden).

  • Docking the instrument module next to the sequencer now connects them automatically - no need for 30 patch cables any more! (Thanks, @bp.dtmr)

  • The editor is smaller, and remembers its size and position.

  • Copy and Paste for phrases (Thanks, @Omri_Cohen and @VCVRackIdeas).

  • You can switch off recording in the editor, so you can just play the instruments by pressing the number keys.

  • Add lots of notes at once by sweeping the mouse. The quantization setting controls how often they appear.

  • Adjust the velocity of a note with a single Ctrl+drag gesture.

  • Randomness properties: assign probabilities to whether a note will play, whether it will be accented, whether it will be a flam, and what velocity it plays at (thanks, @pyer).

  • Change the properties of lots of notes at once by sweeping the mouse across them.

  • Notes visibly highlight when something changes their properties - this gives useful visual feedback for mouse-sweeping, and for undo/redo.

  • Optionally wait for end-of-phrase before activating a new phrase - lets you cue up a new phrase without needing to be accurate with your timing.

  • Added a keystroke/gesture cheat sheet in the editor.

  • Fixed an incompatibility with Vult whereby Vult’s knobs would repaint sluggishly if the Entrian editor was open.

  • Fixed a crash when a too-high voltage was given to the Phrase CV input.

  • The input/output ports now dim properly when you drag a cable.

  • The Left output channels are now mixed Mono when the Right one is unconnected.

  • Notes recorded in the editor now always sound; previously they were occasionally silent when you recorded them.

Here’s a 2-minute video that demonstrates most of these new features:

7 Likes