The Classics, Synthesized
Any pad can play one of 21 analog-modeled drum voices in the style of the two most famous drum machines ever made. The models are derived from the original voice circuits — bridged-T rings, swept oscillators, metallic square banks — not from samples, so every knob shapes the sound the way the hardware did.
Two Machines on Every Pad
Right-click any pad and pick a model from the Drum Synth menu. The pad becomes that voice — no sample needed — and plays through the same engine as everything else: sequencer, mixer, per-track effects, sends, and 16 Levels all work exactly as they do for samples.
Kick, snare, clap, tom, conga, rimshot, claves, cowbell, maracas, closed/open hat, cymbal
Kick, snare, tom, rimshot, clap, closed/open hat, crash, ride
Authentic Controls, One Row of Knobs
Select a drum synth pad and its editor appears where the sample editor normally sits — a single row of knobs, just like the hardware panels. Each model shows only its authentic controls: the 808 kick gets Tune, Decay, Tone, Sweep, and Click; the 909 snare gets Tune, Tone, and Snappy; hats get Decay. Nothing you don't need, nothing the original didn't have.
Mapped to each circuit's real range — the 808 kick tunes 40-90 Hz, toms span their whole drum row
Harder hits drive the circuit harder: more saturation, click, and pitch-sweep depth — not just more level
Vintage adds the 12-bit grit and raw oscillators; Clean is the polished take
The 909's Sampled Metals, Done Right
On the real 909 the hats, crash, and ride were not synthesized — they were 6-bit samples played through an analog VCA. DMC60 reproduces that exact architecture: 6-bit sample playback with the Decay knob acting as the VCA, closed and open hats sharing one source the way the hardware did. The source material is generated by DMC60 itself — no ROM dumps, no licensing gray areas — with the 6-bit crunch and varispeed Tune behavior intact.
Factory Kits & Starter Grooves
Two ready-made kits ship in the factory browser: TR-808 Kit and TR-909 Kit — 16 pads each, tuned tom rows, and the open/closed hats pre-wired to choke each other like the hardware.
Loading a factory kit also drops four classic starter grooves into empty pattern slots — House, Boom Bap, Electro, and Miami Bass — mapped to the kit and named after the machine. They only ever fill empty slots, they are added once, and your own patterns are never touched. Load the kit, press play, and the machine introduces itself.
Hat Choke
Closed and open hats share a mute group, so a closed hit chokes a ringing open hat instantly — with a click-free fade, the way DMC60 always chokes. Placing hat models from the pad menu wires the group automatically; you can edit or extend it like any other mute group.