Francis Preve has put together a free virtual Mattel Synsonics drum machine for Ableton Live:
In the pantheon of vintage analog drum machines, there’s an unsung classic that isn’t from a big name manufacturer like Roland or Korg, but from a toy company. Released in 1981, the Mattel Synsonics was an affordable black box that housed a fully analog kit consisting of kick, two toms, snare, cymbal and hi-hat – all playable via velocity sensitive pads.
Of course, since it was a “toy”, few artists took it very seriously – with one notable exception: Kraftwerk.
About a month ago, I pulled my Synsonics of its shelf in my studio, fired it up and started sampling.
It’s available as a free download from Preve’s site.
Oh man, this is awesome. Seriously my very first drum machine ever. I thought it was so high tech as a kid in the '80s.
Wish I had been able to hold onto it, but a lot of things did not survive my college years…
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I have a friend who uses this as a mainstay…. See isidro Robinson
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hmm… Not sure I'd describe a Live drum rack as being a drum machine to be honest.. This one offers you 10 different percussion sounds and the option to tweak them a little using the enabled macro's (volume, tone and one decay setting for snares).
Still, its more of a sample library than a drum machine; considering that you're basically playing sampled and not really generating percussion sounds.
Oh; if you're on Windows you may get errors when extracting the archive; seems some filenames are incompatible. But it doesn't result in a non working project.
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Nice work!!! Sounds dope on my little tweaker speakers. Can't wait to load this up at the studio. Check the Whoosh Machine free Ableton instrument download from http://www.SonicFaction.com
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Nice work!!! Sounds dope on my little tweaker speakers. Can't wait to load this up at the studio. Check the Whoosh Machine free Ableton instrument download from http://www.SonicFaction.com
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Nice work!!! Sounds dope on my little tweaker speakers. Can't wait to load this up at the studio. Check the Whoosh Machine free Ableton instrument download from http://www.SonicFaction.com
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Nice work!!! Sounds dope on my little tweaker speakers. Can't wait to load this up at the studio. Check the Whoosh Machine free Ableton instrument download from http://www.SonicFaction.com
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Nice work!!! Sounds dope on my little tweaker speakers. Can't wait to load this up at the studio. Check the Whoosh Machine free Ableton instrument download from http://www.SonicFaction.com
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Nice work!!! Sounds dope on my little tweaker speakers. Can't wait to load this up at the studio. Check the Whoosh Machine free Ableton instrument download from http://www.SonicFaction.com
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My very first drum machine too…
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I can still recall the way the Synsonics that was the drummer in my band exploded into a wonderful shower of sparks and smoke when we connected the wrong ac adapter. If we had recorded the sounds that it made while it was melting I think we would have had a hit single.
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I had a very similar experience with a microkorg.
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I once recorded the Synsonics while the battery was dying. Sounded like the death of a drum machine.
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Does anyone know which Kraftwerk tracks this drum machine would have been used on? I am guessing Pocket Calculator.
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