- Softube has a reputation for high-quality effect plug-ins, including amp simulation, classic hardware emulation and channel strip modeling. They're also responsible for some of the coding behind products from Ableton, Native Instruments, Abbey Road, Propellerhead and many more. Safe to say they're one of the most respected developers in music technology. Should we get excited now that Softube is branching out with a new drum machine called Heartbeat?
Heartbeat is a very simple, stripped-back drum machine plug-in drawing inspiration from classic analogue kit from the '80s. There are eight modules: two kicks, two snares/claps and two percussion, rounded off by hi-hat and cymbal sounds. If you hadn't already guessed what analogue drum machines were being modelled, the GUI design heavily hints at Roland 808 and 909. Each module has specific controls for that sound, with the usual decay and pitch for the kicks, tone and type for percussion and an interesting blend of "wave" and "synth" for snare rim, clap and hi-hat.
Each sound feeds into a mixer section, where effects such as reverb and echo can be added, while a Ping or Pong control adds automated panning. Softube fans will recognise the reverb effect in Heartbeat as the acclaimed TSAR-1 unit repackaged for the drum synth. All sounds can be routed through another Softube favourite, the Valley People Dyna-mite compressor. As expected, they sound great, though it's a shame you can't use Heartbeat as an effect in your DAW. It's also a shame that you can only use one setting for all sounds, as there is only one instance of each effect module.
Alongside the effects send and panning knob is a single EQ control. While it only has one parameter, it affects multiple frequency bands at once, depending on the sound in question. Some treatments are more dramatic than others, with a kick being turned into a speaker-busting boomer when turned all the way to the right and a thin pop when turned to the opposite side. There's no way of knowing what's being boosted or cut, so you've got to use your ears and decide what you like best. In fact, all effects and tone-shaping controls are read out as percentages rather than the appropriate parameters, like milliseconds for decay. You could argue that not focusing on the exact numerical details forces you to decide on sounds based on your ears alone, but a chromatic readout for pitch of a kick, for example, would have been nice.
In a further attempt to make Heartbeat a one-stop shop for your drum pattern, Softube have included a unique Auto Layer Machine. Assigning a MIDI note to each of the four layers allows you to play sounds together with a single trigger. A delay knob per sound lets you stagger the playback by a set time in milliseconds or synced to the DAW's tempo. A slider labelled Chaos adds randomness by changing both the layer module and layer that's triggered depending on the setting. For example, if all four layers are set to full Chaos, the machine will randomly trigger different parts of each layer, resulting in a hectic sequence that can produce some happy accidents.
The Auto Layer Machine is better used subtly, though, adding short delay to layered snares, hats and whatever else, to give them a groove and style. I can't help but wonder why Softube didn't opt for a classic x0x sequencer in its place or even in addition to the ALM. It would have gone even further to emulating the style of the drum machines they're clearly modelling. It also means that any swing or programming trickery will have to happen inside your DAW, and in Ableton Live, at least, I found myself constantly moving back and fourth between the MIDI clip edit window and the plug-in window, as the GUI is so large, it completely dominates the screen footprint.
All sounds are routed into the master bus, which has a global saturation knob, three-band EQ, with fixed low and high and variable mid control, a low-pass and high-pass filter, width and mono cut control. Mono cut stands for mono cutoff, i.e. the frequency at which everything below is summed to mono. Softube are known for their saturation algorithms and once again, the global effect sounds great. I wish, though, that there was a high-pass filter pre-saturation, as the kick almost always begins to generate harmonics long before hats and snares that might also benefit from more extreme saturation (and don't have their own harmonic control per channel like the kicks do). It means you often have to find a halfway point between the two. Luckily Heartbeat also supports splitting sounds and sending them out through multiple channels in your DAW if you did want to treat everything separately. Even Heartbeat's reverb and delay effects can be processed separately by soloing the modules once all drum sounds are sent into your DAW.
Heartbeat is a fun tool to use and is very immediate. Adding reverb, delay, panning and sound shaping all in one window goes a long way to quickly creating unique sounds, and although the parameters can be slightly vague, it means you often find yourself using it in a new way. It is limited, though, and is by no means the only drum machine you'll need for making electronic music. That's not quite reflected in its price, which is slightly high, but it's in the running along with Xfer's Nerve and Maschine's Drum Synth as a must-try analogue drum emulator.
Ratings:
Sound: 4.0
Cost: 3.2
Versatility: 3.5
Ease of use: 4.0