Flash Drum 0.9.8 (beta)

Song mode

• Every change made to the playing pattern in Song mode (grid edits, GENERATE, Full random, pattern length…) is now kept in its pattern slot just before the Song moves on to the next pattern. Before, only some grid edits were kept, and an edit could end up in the wrong slot.
• In Song mode, GENERATE and Full random always ask for confirmation (Sure?): the result is kept in the slot of the playing pattern.
• The Song Mode checkbox becomes a key, Song Mode OFF / Song Mode ON (blue), like Follow.

Fixes

• Step conditions (1/2, 1/4, 4/4…) fired one loop early when the host started playing before bar 1 (pre-roll, count-in): a step set to 4/4 played on the third loop.
• After closing and reopening the plugin window, the names of the lanes that had just flashed (MIDI note, Paste Lane, Paste Grid, Randomize Lane) could stay white for minutes.

Presets

• An installation that already received the starter presets now also gets Apollo, Battlestar, LastWinterV2 and Wire, once. A starter preset you deleted comes back that one time.

Install: download FlashDrum-Setup-0.9.8.exe below and run it (Windows may warn that the installer is not signed: More info → Run anyway).

Flash Drum 0.9.7 (beta)

Generator

• New layout: three aligned groups. PATTERN (Type, Density, Variation), STYLE (A and B side by side, Mix A/B below them) and CREATE (a large GENERATE key with Full random under it).
• Density now works over the whole slider. Below the default it thins the groove down to a skeleton (the hits on the beats stay); it used to change almost nothing on the left two thirds of the slider, especially with Techno, Disco and House.
• Style B and Mix A/B only appear with the Probabilistic type, the only one that uses them. The summary next to the Generator / Song switch no longer mentions style B with the other types.
• Random is renamed Full random, with a die icon. It no longer writes steps on the effect lanes.
• GENERATE and Full random ask for confirmation when the current pattern is not saved: the first click turns the key into Sure?, a second click on the same key goes ahead.
• The fixed style presets (Rock, Funk, Disco, House, Dub, DnB, Bossa, Afro, Break) are removed; the Generator's styles cover them.

Install: download FlashDrum-Setup-0.9.7.exe below and run it (Windows may warn that the installer is not signed: More info → Run anyway).

Flash Drum 0.9.6 (beta)

Effect lanes

• The last two lanes are now effect buses, Fx1 and Fx2. Each one hosts an effect: Reverb, Delay or Rumble, and is named after it. A project that already has an instrument on one of these lanes keeps it; that bus is unavailable until the lane is deleted.
• Sends: every instrument lane feeds Fx1 and Fx2 from its new Effects tab, after the lane's volume. Each send has a mute (M) and an Edit button that opens the effect lane. Sends can be locked per step.
• Reverb: Hall, Room and Plate types; Size, Decay, Damping, Pre-delay, Low Cut, High Cut, Width; a Gate (Gate Time, Gate Release) for gated sounds; Warp links Decay to the size of the room, so moving Decay bends the pitch of the tail.
• Delay: Time in ms or synced to the host tempo (1/32 to 1 bar), Feedback, Damping, Low Cut, High Cut, Ping-pong, Width.
• Rumble: the techno kick rumble. A huge, dark reverb that drops out on each kick and swells back between them, with Echo, Drive, Width, High Pass and its own reverb Size, Motion and Blur.
• P-locks on an effect lane move the effect along the pattern: each lock holds until the next one, or, with Glide on, the value glides from lock to lock. Loop Restart (or the arrow on the lane's first cell) chooses whether the effect goes back to its sliders when the pattern loops. Playing now shows the values the effect is using.

Lane inserts (Effects tab, on every instrument lane)

• Six effects in series, one of each, each with its own On switch: Compressor (with Makeup, Mix and a gain-reduction meter), Transient (reshapes the hits and keeps the lane's level), Filter (low-pass, high-pass, band-pass, notch), EQ (Low Shelf, Mid Peak, High Shelf, each with its own frequency), Drive (Soft, Hard, Tube, with anti-aliasing) and Bitcrush.
• Drag the handle before an insert's name to change the order of the chain; fold an insert with its triangle.

Lanes and grid

• A level meter at the end of every lane.
• Own Swing (Track tab): a lane can play its own swing amount and groove instead of the header's.
• The pulses of a fused cell now follow the swing, in playback and in MIDI export.
• MIDI learn for a lane's note: Track tab → Learn, then play a note on your controller.
• Humanize moves to the Track tab (Sequencing); the lane names get more room in the grid.
• Dragging a WAV from the Explorer onto a One-Shot lane replaces its file (the lane warns you before you drop). When a drop cannot be accepted, a message says why.
• Randomize Lane: each lane has its own Density, with a default per instrument type in Settings.
• The step menu opens under its cell (above it near the bottom of the window).
• Ext MIDI: Mute and Solo now work when the lanes are played from incoming MIDI notes. A muted lane neither plays nor forwards the note.
• MIDI export: a linked lane exports the steps of the lane it follows.
• Volume is shown from 0 to 1.
• Fixed: a lane name sometimes stayed lit after its flash.

Instruments

• Decay Curve now goes from −2 to +2 for much sharper or much more held decays (−1 to +1 sounds as before), on every voice except the AC606 models. Attack Curve added to Buzz and the 606 samplers.
• LFO rates can follow the host tempo (Sync menu under each rate): Rift's pitch and filter LFOs, SDrex modulation, Buzz gate and the Toms.
• Toms: a pitch LFO (Rate, Depth, Shape, Fade-in).
• Filter Resonance on SDrex, the Toms and Buzz.
• SDrex: a Noise <-> Synth balance replaces the Noise level (older lanes sound the same); modulation Depth works in both directions.
• Rift: new Pad texture; the Noise texture is regenerated with an even level and less low end; the filter LFO reaches 5 octaves and keeps its full swing at the ends of the range.
• TM6(AC): Model is a menu (Auto / Low tom / High tom), Frequency is in Hz, and Overtones, Tail Noise and Decay have a clearer effect.
• 606 samplers: with Analog Mode on, the Sample row reads "Random each hit".
• Fixed: in Studio One, the Algorithm menu of some lanes (for example Buzz's Razor) snapped back during playback.

Interface

• Settings that depend on the switch above them are indented under it.
• Changing the Zoom closes Settings.

Presets

• Starter presets refreshed: 4 new patterns, Apollo, Battlestar, LastWinterV2 and Wire (LastWinterV2 replaces LastWinter). They are added on a new installation; an installation that already received the starter presets keeps its own.

Compatibility

• Projects saved with 0.9.5 open as before. A project that uses effect lanes cannot be opened correctly by 0.9.5 or earlier.

Install: download FlashDrum-Setup-0.9.6.exe below and run it (Windows may warn that the installer is not signed: More info → Run anyway).

Flash Drum 0.9.5 (beta)

• Easier to read: brighter secondary text in every skin and all text one size larger.
• Zoom: Settings › Zoom enlarges the whole window to 125 % or 150 % (remembered between sessions).
• Help mode: the Help key in the header turns on explanations for every control. Hover over a control to read what it does.
• Lane Editor redesign: every section of the Sound tab is its own module with a clear title strip, values sit in aligned readouts, Volume stays in place while the sections below scroll, and the Sound / Track tabs are proper folder tabs.
• Kick-like voices: the Hz / Note choice has its own Mode row above Frequency; the Oscillator section no longer runs wider than the others.
• Step / Start / End only appears on a fused cell, where it applies.
• Ctrl+click (Cmd+click on Mac) a step to edit its sound in the Lane Editor without turning it on or off and without opening its menu.
• Step menu: it no longer closes the moment it opens when the window is zoomed.
• Linked lanes: a linked lane shows the p-locks of the lane it follows; fused cells are shared along the chain while each lane keeps its own morph.
• Generator: Density now has a clear effect in all four types, from sparse to busy, and still varies at its minimum; options that do not apply to the chosen type are greyed; style menus fit their longest name.
• New instances start on the Tommy01 pattern. Saved projects open exactly as before.

Install: download FlashDrum-Setup-0.9.5.exe below and run it (Windows may warn that the installer is not signed: More info → Run anyway).

Flash Drum 0.9.4 (beta)

• Diagnostic log for the slowdown reported in Bitwig (the DAW getting slower and slower after about 15 minutes). Off by default: nothing changes unless you turn it on. To help us find the cause:

  1. Close your DAW.
  2. Windows search → Edit environment variables for your account → New… → name FLASH_DRUM_PERF_LOG, value 1 → OK.
  3. Start the DAW, open Flash Drum's window and work as usual until the slowdown appears (20 minutes or more).
  4. Send us the file flash-drum-perf.log from your temp folder (type %TEMP% in the Explorer address bar), through Issues.
  5. Delete the variable afterwards.

  Every 30 seconds while the window is open, the log records the host's memory use, Windows handle counts and CPU time. It contains no audio, no project data and no personal information.

Install: download FlashDrum-Setup-0.9.4.exe below and run it (Windows may warn that the installer is not signed: More info → Run anyway).

Flash Drum 0.9.3 (beta)

Flash Drum 0.9.3 (beta) fixes the missing starter presets in the 0.9.2 download.

Included presets

The plugin now includes 22 presets: 4 instruments and 18 patterns.

• Instruments: Kick01, Snare01, SoftKick, TheLast.
• Patterns: Battery, Clappppy, Drex01, Electro01, Electro02, Indus01, LastWinter, Longshot, NicoOne, Nightly, Robotical, Seriously, Simply, Techgroove01, Techish01, Tommy01, Triboul01, Triboul02.

Open the plugin editor once, then click Presets and look in the User section. The bundled presets are copied to Documents/Flash Drum/presets/ as ordinary user presets: you can rename, edit or delete them. Existing files with the same name are never replaced. Presets you delete after this initial setup are not restored on subsequent editor opens.

Install

1. Close your DAW.
2. Download and run FlashDrum-Setup-0.9.3.exe below.
3. Reopen your DAW and load Flash Drum. The plugin's build ID is 20261002-093107.

Windows 10/11, 64-bit VST3. The installer is not code-signed; Windows may show a SmartScreen prompt. Uninstall through Windows Settings → Apps → Flash Drum.

Verification

• 506 library tests, 1 MIDI helper test and 313 standalone tests passed.
• A fresh-install test checks that all 22 presets appear in the user preset listing.
• The complete preset data was verified inside the compiled plugin binary used by this installer.

Installer SHA-256:
59faf39463fd22c0ab8efcdf4cc52811d7f026471c2e4ed8e24c8fe5fcf28c36

Flash Drum is free software under the GPL v3. See RELEASE-NOTES.md for the version history.

Flash Drum 0.9.2 (beta)

Flash Drum is a free drum machine plugin (VST3, Windows 64-bit). It started as a sidekick for a Roland TR-606 and grew into a full instrument: a 64-step sequencer driving 14 modular lanes, each one able to host any of 25 instruments — synthesized, sampled (a real TR-606, multisampled), modelled, or hybrid (texture slicing, your own WAV files).

This is a beta: feedback and bug reports are welcome in Issues.

Install

1. Download FlashDrum-Setup-0.9.2.exe below and run it.
2. Windows may show "Windows protected your PC": the installer is not code-signed yet. Click More info, then Run anyway.
3. Accept the administrator prompt: the plugin goes to C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3, where every DAW looks for VST3 plugins.
4. Rescan your plugins in your DAW. Tested in Studio One and REAPER.

To uninstall: Windows Settings → Apps → Installed apps → Flash Drum → Uninstall.

Highlights

• Sound engines — synthesized kicks, snares, hats, toms, claps, cymbals, an 808-style kick and percussion; TR-606 multisamples (every hit picks a different layer); six modelled 606 voices; Rift (slices long textures); One-Shot (drop a WAV on the grid).
• Sequencer — 64 steps, per-lane length for polyrhythms, swing, humanize, per-step sound locks, probability, conditions (1:2, 1:4, not first…), ratchets, microtiming, fused cells that morph from one sound to another, pattern generators, a 16-pattern bank and a song mode.
• In your DAW — 14 stereo outputs plus the main mix, choke groups, 16 MIDI-learnable macros, drag your pattern into the DAW as MIDI, presets for instruments, patterns, kits and songs.

Changes since 0.9.1

• Grid header: the column headings sit over their columns again (they were shifted one column to the left).
• Kick-like voices: switching the Frequency row between Hz and Notes no longer shifts the rows below it.
• Installer: the uninstaller now lives in C:\Program Files\Flash Drum, outside the plugin folder; the GPL is shown for information (nothing to accept); the third-party notice is plain text; the full license texts of every third-party component ship with the plugin (THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.txt).
• Internal clean-up of the audio engine and the Sound panel, with no change to the sound.

Known limitations

• Windows only for now.
• The installer is not code-signed (see step 2 above).

Flash Drum is free software under the GPL v3; its source code is in this repository.