The Nord Drum is a revolutionary 4-channel drum synthesizer with an amazingly vast sonic palette and astounding level of playability that's guaranteed to change your perception of what's possible with synthetic, sample-free percussion.

Main features

  • Virtual Analog Drum Synthesizer
  • 4 inputs for Electronic Drum Pads / Acoustic Drum Triggers
  • MIDI In/Out

The Nord Drum is designed with the performing musician in mind and its extreme dynamic range and super-fast triggering add to the feeling of playing a real instrument. 4 high-sensitivity inputs and MIDI lets you play the Nord Drum with a wide range of Electronic Drum Pads, Acoustic Drum Triggers and MIDI-pads/Sequencers for easy integration into any existing drum-kit or the starting point for something completely new...

Create classic retro-futuristic percussion with analog waveforms or use the harmonically complex waveforms together with different colors of noise for results that both sound and respond stunningly organic.

Sound creation

Each of the 4 channels have 3 sound generating sections and a mixer to set the balance of each section. Here's a quick walkthrough of the sound sections.

Tone

The Tone Section is where the sound gets its "body". Choose between basic analog waveforms (sine, saw, square) or a number of complex waveforms reminiscent of the harmonics of percussive instruments and drumheads. A low-pass Filter lets you muffle the tone and the Sweepparameter can be applied to make the filter close gradually over time. ThePunch adds a short velocity controlled attack to sounds. The length of the tone is controlled with the Decay parameter, and can set to fade out gradually or stop abrubtly (Gate). The Pitch is set in quartertones from (B-1 to D7). Bend can make the tone travel up or down in pitch when triggered and is very dynamically responsive to your playing. Short Bend times can add a nice attack to the Tone.

Noise

The Noise-section lets you add texture to your sound and can produce a wide spectrum of noise, ranging from grainy rumble to silky white noise - adjusted with the Color parameter. The noise of your choice can be run through a neutral low-pass Filter or one of the 6 resonant filter Types. The Sweep parameter gives you control over the Filter envelope amount and time. The Noise Decay can be gated (soft/hard) or set to fade out gradually.

Click

The Click-section is a specialized section for adding attack to the sound. Choose from 27 click types, from noise-based, tone/noise-based and tone-based. The length of the click can be tailored with a Decay / Gate parameter.

Performance

The flexibility of having both Trigger and MIDI-inputs lets you use the Nord Drum in numerous ways, and you can also mix Pads, Triggers and MIDI at the same time. Put an acoustic drum trigger on your acoustic bass drum, add two electronic drum pads as extra toms and let a MIDI sequencer play the last channel for syncing to a backing track. The adjustable input sensitivity and Trig Types lets you tailor the Nord Drum's response to the Pads or Triggers gear you choose to use.