Scarab
Scarab's synthesiser architecture is built with a focus on percussive sounds, but gives you the flexibility to create a wide range of sounds to incorporate into your rhythms. These sounds can be sequenced from the powerful inbuilt sequencer, or directly from the host DAW.
The synthesiser voice features 4 oscillators (two with FM) and a noise generator, and each of these generators can be attenuated with any of the five assignable AD envelopes, allowing you to assign certain envelopes/oscillators for transients, body and tail components.
A series of filters and effect processors are built into the synth architecture, with mid|side adjustable parameters and powerful modulation routing options. These synth voices feed into an internal mixer with parametric EQ and delay/reverb sends with a dynamic compressor on the stereo master output. Scarab is more than a drum machine, it's a whole mixing bus for your drums.
Feature Details
Each of the eight synthesiser voices feature four aliasing-free oscillators, two with FM and two that double as modulation sources. The synth voice also includes a noise source with adjustable sampling frequency and dedicated multimode filter. The oscillators and noise source can be independatly panned within the stereo field, with parameters for panning modulation.
Modulation
The AD envelopes have adjustable curve parameters, as well as adjustable velocity sensitivity and response curves. Each voice also contains three LFOs, with optional tempo-sync and a 'fade-in' (attack) parameter. Oscillators 3 & 4, and the noise generator can also be selected as modulation sources.
The sequencer allows for rapid programming of beats, with 1/16 and 1/32 note resolution, as well as triplet resolutions of 1/12 and 1/24 notes. 14 different parameters can be programmed with the slider strip below the sequencer window, including velocity, filter cutoff frequency and resonance. The internal sequencer can be disabled for direct sequencing from the host DAW or MIDI device
The Mid|Side component performs mid|side processing of the generator section, allowing seperate parameters for the mid and side channels (these can be chained together if desired). The included effects / filters:
- SV (State-Variable) Filter - Distortion & Decimation - Delay / Feedback - Ladder Filter - Ring Modulation / Frequency Shifter - Stereo width & Output gain
Each of the eight synthesiser voices has a channel strip with parametric equaliser. Delay and Reverb are available as send effects. The delay effect has optional tempo-sync, as well as a multimode filter in the feedback circuit. The reverb processor has parameters for room size, width and damping, with a pre-filter to remove undesired frequencies from the input. A master bus compressor helps dial in the dynamics of your drum mix, with adjustable attack, release, threshold and ratio parameters.
The Global tab contains controls geared towards live performance, but also suitable for the studio. - Mixer Voice channel gain, panning, reverb/delay sends and solo/mute toggles. - Pattern selector 4 Banks of 16 patterns available for launching patterns without having to switch to the sequencer tab. - Kit-wide Warp Parameters The controls affect the entire kit, allowing you to make dramatic changes to all of the kit's patches in a non-destructive manner. A convenient 'reset' button clears all these changes, restoring the sound to its original state. - X/Y Pad This 2-axis control pad can be used to create changes to the kit's sounds dependant on how each patch has implemented the X/Y parameters as a modulation source. This control is a perfect compliment to the Retrigger Strip for performing dramatic DJ-style transitions and build ups. - Retrigger strip A MIDI-based retrigger effect performs short, tempo-synced loops, while still being able to manipulate the sound via the Kit-Wide Parameter controls or XY-Pad.
