Notes: The Quanalog Boubou is a combination of 5 voices of filter-based analogue drum synth that covers the basic drum set. It includes Kick, Low and Hi Tom, Rimshot, Snare and Hi Hats that can be the foundation for your Eurorack drum setup. Each voice has a lot of necessary control, which can be developed further to reach a wider range of possibilities.
At its base, every drum engine can become a signal processor with the core made by the analogue filter, so it can also process other engines, or alternatively other modules.
Each sound has been carefully made with a specific analogue filter structure to be able to create the feel of real percussion to cover both low-end and high-end frequencies. Quanalog have carefully tweaked every single component to give it a very classic sound quality, with a high-end built with an all metal pot, jack and switch to make sure it's the last module that breaks on your setup.
Kick drum
The kick drum is the combination of 2 parts; the bottom sound of the drums come from pure sine waves generated by analogue low-pass filter being excited to a resonance point, giving a thick and powerful sound blend with click sounds made by the feedback circuit, with control over frequency and mix volume to create a perfect bass drum.
All parameters affected by 3 compression mode define 3 differences, and a level that can be useful in different situations such as studio, live performance, etc. The sound from the kick voice can range from very soft and gentle, punchy energetic kick to a very harsh, overdriven sound that can send the dancefloor crazy!
The click tone and blend control are for the feedback circuit that can choose the frequency for the click sound from high click to low mid boost which can be cranked up until the distortion point.
The overdrive knob controls the amount of signal that feeds in. Start with a low input signal, that sounds familiar to an 808 bass drum and can be more overdriven so that it becomes more like a 909 or like Vermona kicks. It can be cranked up until it self resonates and can be use as a sine oscillator for generating bass sound.
The new version of Boubou has a tune CV and decay CV for the kick drum, making it an even more flexible kick drum pattern.
If you feed the trigger input instead of a short trigger but a waveform or audio, the kick drum becomes a wavefolder/bit crusher, which can make your simple waveform more complex. The Lo tom section without plugging the trig in becomes a notch filter for the bass drum with CV control over pitch.
Dual Tom
The Lo and Hi tom voices use the same core engine as a kick voice with CV control for the resonance point which affects the drum pitch. You can use voltage signal from other modules such as a sequencer, envelope, LFO or more, to vary the pitch to create multiple and polyrhythm feels.
The Lo Tom can vary from low frequency kick drums to a hi-tom/ bongo, using the combination of frequency and resonance control. The Hi tom can also become very high pitched, and can be used as a rimshot.
The dual tom has retrig knobs, which control the volume of the retrigger drum when gates are off. Depending on the gate length, it can create a flam, roll or a natural flap sound that makes "hand play". If you had a sequencer with trigger that has a different gate length for each step, it can create a very complex rhythm.
Like the kick drum, the dual tom part can become a sound processor with the low and hi tom as a dual notch filter with both low and high-frequency range. Can use it to create very rich and musical harmonic based on its resonance peak point.
Snare
The Snare voice is an analogue white noise going thru decay VCA, then it triggers a band pass filter with frequency and resonance control to define snare pitch. Turning "RES" makes it into a thin spring snare sound. By blending the Resonance amount and frequency, it starts to define the body tone of the snare. It can vary from a hi tom, to a hand clap, or 2nd hi hats.
Without plugging the trig in jack of the hi tom , it becomes a notch filter for the snare. So if you plug only the Snare trigger, the hi tom becomes the resonance section of the snare, which helps to create a very thick realistic bottom snare sound, and a rimshot sound can be created by the hi tom section. By plugging the trig to the hi tom sound, it separates the trigger from the snare trigger input.
Hats
The Hats engine uses an independent noise source going thru a high-pass filter that resonates at high frequency, then thru a decay-VCA which CV control over decay amount with an attenuator. Not only does it create an open-closed hi-hat, but it can also resemble a real hi-hat using a "CV pedal" to make it sound more natural.
It also has a mixer section that is able to feed in another sound source from an ext. VCO or anything can be mixed with the noise part. When the noise volume turn off, this sections acts as a decay VCA for another sound module. By this design, the module doesn't stick with fixed VCO tune like the other module, but it allows you to be creative on the timbre of the hats to make a very fine cymbal sound with precision pitch from another 1v/oct module.
Also, instead of trig in if you plug a VCO source to the trig input, it can make a noise VCO which follow the roots VCO frequency. You can use this to "ring" the ext.in VCO.
Overall
All 5 voices are analogue filter-based and they can process the signal that is being fed in, so the gate signal being processed thru VCA circuit can create a multi-level accent. Each module can process a gate signal to become a drum sound, or process each other or another sound source. The only limit is your imagination!
With 5 analogue drum engines, you can create a very good rhythm in your setup. When paired with any drum trigger, it becomes a very powerful drum machine that can be useful both in live and studio environments.
Boubou sound tips:
With the kick drum, the best sound is when you set the volume with soft mode, all parameters are low to a reasonable level, then you will see the magic when you crank it up!
With kick, lo and tom, you will be able to make them velocity sensitive by plugging a step CV signal instead of a trig or gate signal to the trigger input. You can create a multiple dynamic to the sound.
The Lo and Hi tom sound can be part of the Kick and Snare sound by not plugging any jack to the trigger input. You can use the sound from the lo and hi tom section to become a 2nd body sound with CV control resonance to create a thicker Kick and snare sound.
Try plugging an audio or waveform signal from another sound source, or VCO, and use the modulation for it. Or you can even try to plug the result of one section to the trigger input of the other.
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