Vermona’s drumDING is now open for pre-order, pairing genuine analog drum synthesis with an unusually direct sampling workflow: build a sound on the analog side, then press a button to freeze that exact sound as a sample — ready for digital layering, effects, and per-step sequencing — without ever leaving the instrument or reaching for a separate sampler.
One analog voice, shaped like a real synth
The instrument runs a single analog voice capable of producing essentially any electronic drum or percussion sound, built from real synthesis components: a dual-range VCO with a dedicated pitch envelope and a wave knob blending sine through square, a secondary modulation oscillator that can route FM into either the main oscillator or the filter, and a resonant filter sweeping from lowpass through bandpass to highpass, with its own pitch envelope. That’s a genuine subtractive-synthesis drum voice, not a fixed set of drum-model presets with a few knobs bolted on — the kind of hands-on sound design that’s historically meant choosing analog hardware over sample-based flexibility, not alongside it.
The sampling layer is where the actual novelty is
Once a sound is dialed in on the analog side, drumDING can capture it directly to sample, at which point it becomes editable on the digital side — layerable with other samples, shapeable with DSP effects like bitcrusher and overdrive, and sequenceable per-step alongside pitch, reverse, and decay parameters. The sequencer itself supports parameter locks, polymeter, and swing — modern groovebox features that let per-step variation apply to both the analog voice’s live parameters and the frozen samples sitting alongside it in the same pattern.
Storage is straightforward: an SD card holds up to 64 projects, each with room for 64 patterns and 32 samples, and every captured sample is stored as a plain WAV file — directly accessible outside the instrument, not locked into a proprietary format.
Why “press a button to sample your own analog sound” matters
Most hybrid instruments treat analog synthesis and sampling as two separate tools bolted together — dial in a sound on one side, then import or record it into the other as a distinct workflow step. drumDING’s pitch is collapsing that gap: the sample is the analog sound, captured at the moment it sounded right, rather than a re-recording of it through a separate signal path. For a producer building a kit sound-by-sound, that removes a genuine friction point — no re-amping, no separate audio interface round-trip, just a sound you like and a button.
Pricing is still TBD (early estimates suggest a four-figure range), with Vermona targeting a release by the end of the year.