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XLN Audio wants to put the fun back in drum processing.

XLN Audio has announced the release of DB-30 Drum Butter, a sibling to the much-loved RC-20 Retro Color plugin that’s designed to bring “identity and awesomeness” to drums.

Inspired by the fundamental idea that “drums should be fun”, DB-30 is equipped with six independent effects modules that XLN Audio promises can add punch and character to any drum part.

At the start of the chain, Boom Shack is a dual module that introduces both low-end weight (the boom) with a sub-bass boost and top-end texture (the shack) via 18 different types of noise that can be layered across your snares and hi-hats.

Shift is a pitch- and formant-shifting module that can be helpfully targeted at either the transient or sustain portions of a signal, while Space is a reverb module equipped with numerous reverb types covering everything from natural drum rooms to vintage hardware units.

The Compress module does what you’d expect, bringing punch, energy and dynamic control to your drum parts via six compressor modes (Punch, Warm, Glue, Gentle, Smack and OTT) that have been optimized for drum processing. Saturate delivers six styles of saturation, including emulations of tube amps, four-track tape machines and analogue consoles.

Finally, the More module puts a finishing touch on things by placing a waveshaper and a clipper on the output stage. Both More and Boom Shack are fixed in place at either end of the chain, but the other four modules can be reordered to achieve different sounds – think putting the reverb before the compressor for creative pumping effects.

Below the individual modules is DB-30’s Master Section, which gives you access to high- and low-pass filters, transient shaping and global control over input and output levels.

XLN Audio’s RC-20 Retro Color plugin is a hugely popular plugin that makes it quick and easy to introduce lo-fi character and vintage-style warmth to any sound source. With DB-30, XLN Audio is hoping to bring the same kind of “instant magic” to drum processing, throwing a little fun and inspiration into an aspect of the mixing process that can sometimes feel like a chore.

“Just like when you get a new distortion pedal it makes you want to play guitar, I wanted that same feeling for DB-30,” says XLN Audio’s Design Lead Staffan Ösp.

“Some people love getting lost in surgical adjustments, but I like to be given opportunities to explore. There’s something much more fun about Big Knobs and x-faders that blend two different things. It has led to a lot of (joyful) distraction in the development process.”

XLN Audio DB-30 Drum Butter is available for macOS and Windows in VST3/AU/AAX formats. It’s currently priced at $99, but the price goes up to $129 on April 30. Find out more on XLN Audio website.

Audio Damage has introduced Evil Otto, an OTT compressor plugin for iOS, Linux, macOS and Windows.

Here’s what they have to say about it:

OTT (over-the-top) compression has become one of the most recognizable sounds in modern music production. If you’ve listened to anything in the EDM, pop, or hip-hop worlds in the last decade, you’ve heard it — that hyper-present, larger-than-life quality where every detail of a sound is pushed forward and nothing hides in the background.

The technique itself is straightforward: take a multiband compressor, apply downward compression to tame the peaks in each band, and simultaneously apply upward compression to boost the quiet parts. Do this across three frequency bands and you get a sound that is dense, detailed, and aggressively “right there.”

Features:

• Three-band upward + downward compression with adjustable depth and time.
• Per-band threshold and level controls.
• External sidechain input for ducking.
• Sidechain listen mode for dialing in the duck.
• Input and output gain with smooth bypass.
• Resizable UI with two color schemes.

Evil Otto is available now as a free download for the desktop version, and is $2.99 for the iOS version.

Today, Erica Synths has introduced the Pērkons Keys, the first portable drum machine keyboard.

It offers all the capabilities of the Perkons drum machine, but in a keyboard that you can take anywhere.

The developers say that they’ve also avoided features that would add weight or complicate the experience, including velocity and aftertouch, a battery, and a screen.

“We are proud to present Pērkons Keys,” they note. “We’ve poured a lot of work into developing it, and we hope this will help you unleash the creativity.”

Are you ready to ‘unleash the creativity’? Is this a prank? Share your thoughts in the comments!