Shakmat Modular Battering Ram Drum Module

Shakmat Modular Battering Ram at a glance:

Shackmat Modular’s Battering Ram is a drum module specialising in bass drums with a wide range of sounds. Thanks to its wide-ranging parameter controls, the module produces bass drums covering just about everything from soft, round 808-style kicks through to 909-style bunker techno and Thunderdome. The oscillator has a frequency range of three to five octaves, which is sufficient even for high-pitched kicks. The decay phase is long enough to allow the module to be used for basslines within the limits of its capabilities. The highlight is the two distortion circuits; the first is a two-stage wavefolder that produces harmonic distortion and slight compression, whilst the second packs far more gain and tends towards ‘clipping distortion’. The velocity input enables dynamic triggering; depending on the control voltage, this allows for the intense accents familiar from old TR drum machines. The main parameters – Drive, Decay, Click and Pitch – are equipped with CV inputs, enabling modulation of these parameters. Simply apply a tempo-synchronised LFO with a sawtooth waveform to the Pitch parameter, and you’ll be able to create walking bass drums in no time. The switchable high-pass filter cuts off the lower frequencies at 30 hertz to ensure that not too much dynamic range is lost in the mix. A full 16 memory slots offer Total Recall for the module’s favourite sounds.