s3g Drums

The s3g drum family turns the shared character of a broad reference library into playable synthesis models. No sample is loaded or replayed: each hit is created at performance time from pitched oscillators, modal bodies, filtered noise, envelopes, articulation logic, and nonlinear character stages. Companion effects shape those generated voices with transient-aware distortion and echo behavior.

Each instrument is a two-output CLAP plugin for ordinary mono or stereo production. It can be sequenced directly in REAPER or placed downstream of the s3g Tracker CLAP. Set STEREO WIDTH to 0% when an exact dual-mono result is required.

Instruments

Mixer and Effects

Drum Overload is the family's stereo transient-aware distortion. Eight nonlinear circuits range from controlled console saturation to folded rupture, tape memory, transformer weight, diode asymmetry, and speaker sag. Its reusable DSP core has the same host-independent boundary intended for later direct tracker integration.

Drum Echo is a three-head tape delay whose detector can emphasize or suppress attacks entering the repeats, then duck the wet path under each new hit. Free and host-synchronized timing, head combinations, tape wear, flutter, tone, and stereo spread cover tight rhythmic reinforcement through unstable percussion trails.

Drum Mixer 16 receives eight stereo pairs through REAPER's plug-in pin routing. Each lane supplies level, balance, three-band EQ, mute, solo, and a post-fader AUX send; the fixed 16-channel output switches between a stereo sum and eight post-strip direct pairs. The optional parallel drum bus sits before the summed master.

Shared Interface

RANDOM deliberately leaves OUTPUT GAIN, NOTE TRACKING, VELOCITY SENSITIVITY, and MIDI RECEIVE unchanged. Those are mix, routing, and performance decisions; the randomized values describe the voice itself. Parameter changes are reported to the host, so the result is visible to automation and saved with the project.

MIDI and Tracker Use

The plugins accept CLAP note events and ordinary MIDI note-on messages. Note-off is not required: drum voices end through their synthesized decay, while explicit articulations provide hi-hat and crash choking. Velocity changes both hit level and brightness according to VELOCITY SENSITIVITY.

MIDI RECEIVE defaults to OMNI. Choose CH 1 through CH 16 to make an instance respond only to that MIDI channel. This permits one sequencer item to address several drum instruments independently: assign a different receive channel to each instrument, then put each note on the matching channel. GUI audition pads remain available regardless of the receive setting.

Channel filtering controls MIDI only; it does not combine instrument audio. When several drums share one REAPER track, place them on parallel FX paths or route their stereo outputs to separate track-channel pairs before summing them with Drum Mixer 16.

NOTE TRACKING determines how far the voice follows notes away from its canonical key. At 0%, mapped notes retain the programmed pitch; at 100%, each semitone produces chromatic transposition. The tom-rack mappings select low, mid, high, head, or rim before tracking is applied.

Character and Output

Every drum ends in the same character family: DRIVE, BIAS, and COMPRESSION shape nonlinear weight; RATE REDUCTION, BIT DEPTH REDUCTION, and RECONSTRUCTION create sampler-like conversion color without playing a sample; CHARACTER TONE shades that result. Use OUTPUT GAIN for final session trim after the voice is designed.