Tekno Drum Synthesizer | Baby Audio | RRP $129
You could call it a misspent youth, though I am sure many of you can relate.
I spent the best part of the ’90s running all over the place, turning over second-hand stores in search of analogue drum machines and synthesizers. Moments of joy, like finding a TR-606 with modified outputs and only a fine layer of dust on the casing, really do highlight what a special individual I may be described as. Well, I guess you had to be there.
Over the years, the musical influences may come and go, but the love of a good analogue drum machine will never leave. So, it was all I could do to jump on this product river when we got the call out earlier in the month. A new plug-in, promising new drum sounds, and a reminiscence of days gone by? This is too good to be true. This is Tekno, released by Baby Audio.
So, by the time you’re all reading this, you’ll probably have seen some news about this new VST. You may even have been looking at it in your favourite Pro Audio store and been wondering what it’s all about. Well, let’s dive in and take a look. And, more importantly, have a listen.
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First impressions
To get a truly objective view of this piece of software, I went in blind, not reading the press release, nor looking at any of the promo images of screenshots. All I knew at the time of downloading the package is that I had an analogue drum synthesizer to test. The installation process was a piece of cake. It was fully set up in less time than it took me to find the .exe file on my overcrowded hard drive for the maiden launching of Tekno. Available as a VST plug-in and a standalone instrument for both PC and Mac, this will easily slot in with your existing instruments in whatever your DAW of choice.
So, first glance had me intrigued. I was presented with a rather bland interface of greys and pastel colours that is reminiscent of certain boutique synthesizers of recent times, that was riddled with hexagonal boxes that fires up memories of the Simmons drum kits that we all wished we had (at least for a brief moment). Fond memories aside, it only took a few moments to get my brain around the working of the interface, and the first dull thud of a kick drum could be heard.
It’s a good piece of software that doesn’t require a user manual when you first launch it, and that’s exactly what Baby Audio have done with Tekno. The layout is simple, yet surprisingly feature-packed. So much so, that I ended up spending a good half hour just clicking through options to see what parameters became available with each drum pad. I never even strayed from the initial kit, there was so much to explore.
The kit
Each kit is made up of 18 drum pads, containing an array of sounds in each. There are five “Synthesize” parameters and five “Effects” parameters per sound, all of which vary depending on the preset, with the exception of Reverb, found on all. These are complimented by Pan, Volume and Sidechain Ducking options. Additional controls are found in the Master section, with an intriguing button in the top panel to “Randomize Calibration.” We’ll talk about that shortly.
Routing was a breeze with the MIDI setup. So, you can easily feed your sequencer from the piano roll in your DAW, use an analogue hardware sequencer if you’re a stubborn traditionalist, or feed it directly from an electronic drum kit. It all depends on how you create your drums, the results sound great with any method.
The sound
So, how does it sound? Well, after some extended listening through a pair of Yamaha NS10 monitors and also Sennheiser HD25 headphones, my head was going all over the place. This drum synth is legit. It is modern and classic analogue drum machine all in one. Every one of those heady, ’90s drum hits can be found in some form or another, from the glitchy, tinny splat of a 606 to the thump of a 909 and everything in between.
But it’s so much more. Tekno has been built as a circuit modelling synthesis, which recreated the signal path of a real analogue drum machine, and does not use any sampled audio whatsoever. That’s a cool premise right there. No cheating, no quick fixes, or copies of existing sounds. It all pure energy built from scratch wit every hit, and with that, it’s completely unique. The slightest adjustment of any parameter affects the entire signal chain, and the result is a newly created sound. So, that kick may sound exactly like the one you remember from a certain classic track, but it will likely have it’s own subtle differences, being generated as a completely new tone.
The list of preset kits is impressive, with collaborations from a number of producers, all putting their own spin on some classic drum sounds. Each is just as noteworthy as the rest, but they can be very quickly altered to create a new template. That’s where we go to the “Randomize Calibration” feature, found on that aforementioned button on the top panel of the plug-in. Basically, this just rolls the dice on how any existing kit is set up and it changes all the Synthesize and Effects parameters to a new, randomly generated setting, unique for each of the 18 sounds in the kit.
Keep pressing the button and it keeps throwing new generations of the existing kit your way. Essentially, you have a completely new sounding instrument every time, and one that creates a totally unique tone to any other producer who might be using the same preset. Now, whilst you can get a full drum sound like someone else, it will always be different, and that is what makes Tekno such an incredibly powerful drum synthesizer. It’s your own sound, taken from a classic kit.
Look, I could bang on about this VST for days, all puns aside. But, you don’t want to hear what I have to say, when you are better off hearing what the plug-in itself can. Have a listen to the demo and you’ll get what I’m going on about. Then, just forget about paying that water bill and get yourself a new toy! You’ll be glad you did.
For more information on Tekno, head here.
