drumclone

Overview

Function:

Drumclone allows extracting and modifying high-quality single drum sounds from complex audio sources like songs, samples, or any recording with perceptible percussive elements.

Runs as a VST, to be used in DAWs or any kind of host with VST3 support.

Approach:

Drumclone comes with a model to precisely isolate and resynthesize drum sounds, which allows a fast iterative workflow thanks to its sub-second processing times and drag and drop UI.

While it works for isolation, drumclone’s main focus is it’s sound-design capabilities. Being able to imitate one-shot percussive noises and tweak their attack, transient, noise component, etc, down to the sample-level.

 kick/ada.1 is the currently available model, tuned for kick-drums.

Interface:

Real-world usage:

The utilization of pre-made sounds or song samples is a prevalent practice across various music production genres. Drum samples, in particular, serve as essential components, often forming the structural foundation of numerous compositions. Utilizing drumclone, these high-quality drum sounds can be extracted from existing recordings and subsequently modified without any degradation in sound quality.

This methodology can effectively isolate a drum sound and mutate it from pure sine-like percussion, to harmonically rich and distorted drum sounds, while keeping the processing fast enough to visualize the results it in real-time.

Unlike traditional extraction methods, which tend to degrade the quality of the sounds with unnatural filtering artifacts and output static audio samples, resynthesis can model the original timbral characteristics of the drums and allows creative flexibility by tuning the underlying formula with simple user-facing controls.

→ Results: detailed list of examples.

Capabilities:

1. One-shot percussion isolation and resynthesis.
2. Flexible transient and body sculpting with tone and noise controls.
3. Fine-tuning with sample-level resolution.
4. Synthesis model which avoids typical filtering isolation artifacts.
5. Extremely clear drum sound output for applying further processing chains.
6. Real-time visualization of every change in the waveform.
7. Fast drag-and-drop workflow.
8. Sub-second processing times on common hardware.
9. Multi-segment envelope editors to accurately shape the underlying model.
10. Low-profile vector UI with data visualization and inline controls.

→ Technology: a look into drumclone's process.
→ Log: progress reports showing how many components were built.

License:

Drumclone is in development stage and currently provides a single model tuned for kick-drums (drumclone kick-modeling beta). The full license gives access to this current version and any updates in the future that add more models or features of any kind.

You are encouraged to try the demo before purchasing.

ⓘ This beta also works for other types of drum sounds, but will require some manual input and experimentation.

Application:

⚠ License file (demo or full) required for the program to work.

Results

Audio examples:

The following list of drumclone outputs shows the clarity and flexibility of the current kick drum model in multiple contexts.

Technology

Processing starts with time and frequency domain analysis of the input. Features are extracted and modeled in the time domain to aid in detecting events and components corresponding to percussive signals in the spectral domain.

Components are isolated from the input using different soft spectral masks tailored to the component type, built around detected events and user-specified envelopes.

Once these audio layers are reconstructed from the spectral domain, dynamics and stereo processing are applied to refine the output.

These filtered percussive component layers serve as the input for the resynthesis process. Each signal is matched using a synthesis technique that accurately represents their tonal and amplitude characteristics.

This is achieved by using different polyphonic or monophonic oscillators (sine and band-passed noise) and generating modulation envelopes that closely resemble the input.

Following resynthesis, the layers are mixed down into a cohesive stereo track. Straightforward cross-fading and summing with predefined curves are employed in the mix.

Finally, stereo and dynamics processing are applied to the output track to achieve a more natural sound and controlled audio levels.

System requirements

WINDOWS:

MAC:

Installation

1. Extract the folder from the .zip file.
2. Run the REQUIRED_SETUP command to avoid Gatekeeper issues while running the plugin for the first time.
3. Copy the .vst3 file to your VST3 folder. By default it should be in your user's /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3 directory. You can navigate easily to this folder by using Finder's Go menu and theGo to folder option.
4. Some DAWs or VST hosts might require a manual re-scan of the vst3 folder for the plugin to appear.
5. When launching the vst for the first time, it will require locating a .license file. You can choose either the trial .license file provided with the download or your acquired full license file.

1. Extract the folder from the .zip file.
2. Copy the extracted .vst3 file to your VST3 folder. By default it should be C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3
3. Some DAWs or VST hosts might require a manual re-scan of the vst3 folder for the plugin to appear.
4. When launching the vst for the first time, it will require locating a .license file. You can choose either the trial .license file provided with the download or your acquired full license file.