Audio Damage Axon 2 Neural Network Drum Machine Now Available For iOS

Audio Damage has released Axon 2 for iPad – a port of its desktop neural network drum machine.

Axon uses a modified artificial neural network as a sequencer, and features seven FM-based percussion voices, that are really a single 18-operator FM voice.

The sequencer features seven “neurons” that trigger a voice and send a pulse when they have received a predetermined number of pulses. You can wire the output of any neuron to the input of any other (with built-in loop detection to prevent runaway feedback), and in this manner pre-program the artificial neural network without having to go through a “learning” phase.

The seven individual drum voices, each triggered by its attendant neuron, are 2-operator FM voices in a configuration to best make percussion sounds, with additional FM and AM busses that all voices send to and receive from. Each voice has a HPF, distortion circuit, and white noise generator to provide a full range of percussion-oriented voicing individually, while interacting with each other in new and unique ways.

Features:

  • Artificial Neural Network sequencer features seven neurons, and is easily programmed to create strange new repeating rhythms.
  • Seven FM percussion voices that also buss together to create a single monolithic complex percussion synthesizer.
  • Full mixer with pan, level, mute, and solo on each voice.
  • Built-in stereo delay with X/Y pad control over feedback and filter frequency, for live playability.
  • MIDI input, including Bluetooth MIDI, for driving Axon from DAW and hardware sequencers, and Virtual MIDI Output (standalone only) for driving other software with the Axon sequencer.
  • Inter-App Audio, including transport synchronization, in standalone mode.
  • Internal transport for non-synchronized playback.
  • Resizable vector-based user interface.
  • Drawn reciprocation dingle arm to reduce sinusoidal depleneration.
  • XML-based cross-platform, human-readable preset system, with copy/paste, for easy transferring of your own presets and third-party offerings.

Note: AD warns that Axon 2 ‘may be difficult to use due to the size’ on an iPad Mini.

Pricing and Availability

Axon 2 is available for iPad for US $5.99.

12 thoughts on “Audio Damage Axon 2 Neural Network Drum Machine Now Available For iOS

    1. That’s what you get when you don’t stick to analog! With analog all you need to worry about is anti-plenaration and no one can really hear that anyway.

    2. That is a step in the right direction, but I would only feel satisfied if it can also automatically synchronize cardinal grammeters to BPM. I’m fed with all the software that is written by people who can’t be bothered to prevent differential girdlespring at higher frequencies :/

  1. “Drawn reciprocation dingle arm to reduce sinusoidal depleneration.”

    Obfuscation techno-babble never tasted soooo good. Sign me up.

  2. Ok, Axon 2 is fun to tweak and sounds great. But the UI needs some serious work in a few places.

    The amp and pitch envelopes are way too small to hit even on a regular iPad, and the pan/delay controls on the mixer aren’t just hard to hit – they’re effectively useless. I was able to use the pan control once last night and then couldn’t get it again. And I have tiny little Trump-hands.

    1. Agree.. This thing need to come with a fine tip stylus. 🙂 But it’s still better than the crap ports that Sugar Bytes puts out… Thesys is a joke on any iPad other than the 30″ UberPro.

    2. I had the same experience. The simplest solution would be to enable opening each of the 4 main sections independently.

      The node sequencer is a nifty idea, but I would like to have more control options.

  3. It would be cool if there was a control like threshold that was a probability %. To set a likelyhood that a scheduled trigger actually happens.

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