Simmons SDS7

Rack Drum Synth

It's one of our secret weapons. Its a drum synth with 5 cards in it, each containing a drum synthesizer of its own. It can be expanded to 12 cards but gets really hot when you do that, so you probably wouldn't want more than 5 or 6. Each card contains an EPROM chip which has a lo-fi sample on it. If you have an eprom burner (like the Simmons EPB we sometimes sell) or hunt around for sounds, you can basically put any samples in there, as long as they aren't too long for the chips. The real strength of this machine lies not in the sample playback but in the synthesizer section. This section is CEM based (CEM chips were used in old Sequential and Oberheim analog synths, among others). The programmer section on the right side stores drum kits which are basically sound parameter settings for all card slots. The memory is battery backed and stored on power down. Each of these drum synthesizers has its own 1/4" trigger input. I drive mine from an ARP Sequencer, but you can use other trigger sources like other analog sequencers, old drum machines or maybe even audio signals. And lets not forget drum pads - this is what Simmons had in mind when they designed this unit. The pad inputs are XLR jacks separate from the sequencer ins. Did I mention each of the synths can be controlled by a CV signal rather than a gate? Using it this way, each channel will actually play pitches like a normal synth. The same applies when you hook pads up - the pad sensitivity can modulate the pitch of the synth sound. Cool. Each channel slot has its own audio output and theres a mix out as well. So, how does it sound? INCREDIBLE! This is my favorite machine for techno / electro / industrial synth percussion. Each synth has a built in oscillator that can actually be frequency modulated (FM) by the built in LFO (which will run at higher frequencies than your typical LFOs). Add bend, a resonant filter, noise source, click setting, filter envelope and decay, as well as controls for the built in sample and you've got a really cool drum synth. This box is great for blips, bleeps, cracks and thuds. If you're into programming and want some cool analog type drum sounds with personality, this box is invaluable.