Supercharge your drums

Tekno is a modern take on the legendary drum machines that defined electronic music – hitting harder and deeper thanks to 21st century upgrades. It gives you the power to design infectious synthesized drums from the ground up.

Produce drums without samples

Skip the samples and craft your own signature drum sounds. Tekno offers 18 unique drum synth engines, spanning kicks, snares, clap, hats, percussion and more. With deep editing access, you can create any electronic drum character for any genre.

Sequence Tekno via the internal sequencer or MIDI input. Or drag and drop its sounds directly into a DAW, folder or external sequencer.

Create sequences that never repeat

Tekno v1.1 includes a brand-new creative sequencer built around two core ideas.

1. Fast beat generation: Use smart randomization, auto-fill and quick on/off and velocity controls to create new beat ideas in an instant.

2. Optional unpredictability: Create evolving polyrhythms with variable step lengths and lane speeds. Assign chance values to introduce randomness.

Drag and drop any sequence into your DAW as a MIDI file for further editing.

Next-generation circuit modeling

To build Tekno, we teamed up with Jatin Chowdhury, one of the leading engineers in analog circuit modeling. Our goal: to create a modern spiritual successor to the legendary drum machines of the 1980s and 1990s. Not an emulation, but something more tweakable and harder-hitting.

Tekno combines analog modeling with cutting-edge DSP to deliver the punchiest synthesized drums ever put in a plugin.

Each hit is unique

Tekno is a synthesizer, it generates every drum hit from scratch through a complex, non-linear VA circuit. That means it never hits exactly the same way twice – a quality it shares with the classic analog drum machines (and a big part of their magic). Compare this to samples, which are static snapshots and you’ll find that Tekno’s subtleties make your tracks more alive.

Tekno allows you to exaggerate this behavior further: Use the on-board humanize parameters to introduce extra variation in timbre, velocity and timing with every drum hit.

Loaded with analog-modeled effects

Tekno’s onboard effects have been crafted with the same deep circuit-modeling efforts as the drum voices.

There are no ‘copy-paste FX’ in Tekno, but a unique suite of coloration options created especially for this instrument.

Enhance individual drums with analog-modeled tape saturation, excitation and compression. And make the whole kit shine with a punchy limiter/clipper combo that will cut through any mix.

Deep tweaking or fast inspiration

Click the gear icons next to any synth voice or FX section to unlock deep calibration and circuit-bending options and take full control of your drum tone.

Or hit the onboard dice icons to let Tekno’s smart random-algorithm generate new drums with every click.

You can also start from 72 global presets and 1296 individual voice presets created by leading sound designers such as Mr. Bill, Virtual Riot and Yoad Nevo.‍

Voice list

Each of the 18 onboard voice engines is its own unique drum synthesizer. The voices utilize a combination of analog circuit modeling, FM and digital synthesis. Full list below.

• Kick A
• Kick B
• Snare A
• Snare B
• Hat A
• Hat B
• Hat OP
• Tom L
• Tom H
• Clap
• Rimshot
• Conga L
• Conga H
• Ride
• Tonal
• Cowbell
• Block
• Crash

Avoiding distorted drum patterns

A big contributor to Tekno’s punchy sound is the analog modeled clipper that sits at the end of the chain. However, you’ll want to calibrate this effect based on the intensity of your drum loop. Busy patterns will require you to dial-down the “Clip” slider (located in the master section) to avoid distortion. Single drum hits tend to benefit from being clipped more aggressively.

There’s no right or wrong here since Tekno is designed to never digitally clip in your DAW. So use your ears and tune the clip slider - as well as the onboard limiter - to the right temperature that fits your track.