i agree with your post, i would also like to see custom wavetables and conditional trigs.
i did this a lot as well, it helped to make patterns more interesting
thanks for making this, i was wondering about possibly making a similar tool at some point, this will come in handy. heres the link for other people who may find this thread:
I have received yesterday this little machine and I could only spend 30 minutes with it, but I am totally astonished about how good it is.
I have paired it with a DN2 and started also automating some parameters with the MIDI IN and LFOs of the DN2.
The sonic palette I could reach with the combo is simply incredible. Everything is basically automata le as the MIDI implementation is really wide.
Sonically it cuts the mix like a razor. So sharp drums. The FXs I couldnāt explore already.
So happy with the purchase. The kick engine makes HUGE bass drums!
Indeed, it opens up lots of possibilities. I need to try hooking up my FaderFOx UC-4 to the CyDrums.
As mentioned above, this machine remains a budget machine, so I find it a bit unfair to criticize it by comparing it to a DN2 or some other flagship instrument that costs 4X more.
The main issue, for me, is how complex the architecture of the sound engines can be, especially with wavetables. I like to have control over my sound engines for sound design, but with the CyDrums Iām essentially in random trial and error territory (which can yield very nice results, no question). This could probably be solved by a fair amount of woodshedding, but I understand the frustration of some people at the lack of immediacy.
I am not aware of the critics. Did you find some pain points?
Also I would love to join their discord. Do you have a valid invitation?
There are a couple of (valid) pain points mentioned in this thread, I think.
Regarding the Discord, I was not even aware there was one ^^
They donāt have an official one
These are awesomeā¦ reminds me of things Iāve gotten out of Battalion, but in hardware! Iāll need to investigate further.
Battalion example:
Wow that sounds great!
If I was not so antagonized to computers, Battalion would be among the very few plug-ins Iād buy and use (along with the full Fors series)
excellent sound example! battalion is one of those vsts that i have been curious about for a bit now, but havent got access to yetā¦
Audiofanzine review, for the frogs leaping around here:
They seem to like it, same wishes as here concerning opening up the sample/sampling/user wavetable side.
If Iād of posted over a year ago that weād get a new Boards of Canada album before a CyDrums firmware update youād of all laughed at me.
And a Massive Attack release!
I was smart enough to send it back to the shop. I think the time to support companies buying incomplete products is over. At least for me!
Itās as complete as when I purchased it, great device, pretty unique and very deep.
Just would be nice to have it support sampling and user wavetables.
What do you think is incomplete about it? I didnāt get along with the engine structures in the end but I thought it had everything a pure drum machine is supposed to
I mean it has a microphoneā¦
Itās a synth groovebox they somehow managed to get working on the SmplTrek hardware, just the fact that it exists is weird enough.
Sonicware has shown to support their devices fairly well, they are a small operation so support is spread across all their devices, but thereās usually a new update every few months. Looking at their website, I donāt think they released any updates this year, but on 2025 they updated ELZ_1 Play (big update), LOFI-12 XT (multiple smaller features), Liven Ambient (multiple smaller features), Cydrums (fixes), and SmplTrek (multiple smaller features). The device looks fairly feature complete, but now that ELZ_1 Play has a wavetable engine with the ability to load custom tables, Iād be surprised if this feature does not eventually land back on Cydrums.
Quite a versatile set of synthesis tools, pretty flexible and powerful I think. Sonicware get quite a bit of snark aimed at their gear, but I think a lot of it is unjustified given the price, the features and how young of a company they are, kind of remind me of early Elektron. I can easily see some of their current line up, once discontinued, being sought after beyond the modest original MRSP, personally I donāt care about that because mine arenāt going anywhere.
I think the CyDrums is very novel and perhaps covers a bit too much range sonically for surface scratchers to be an instant gratification machine, parameter choices and ranges are quite broad so dialling in standard traditional drum sounds requires patience and a reasonable understanding of synthesis, but on the other hand there are lots of alternatives for traditional drum sounds, so for people looking for something different this one is a very competent and actually quite versatile box.
The factory sounds are quite good, though the x0x presets arenāt going to fool anyone, it is absolutely capable of those kind of sounds In varying degrees, but where it shines is in the abstract and unusual, and even not as a ādrum machineā all the time.
I had the cydrums and loved the synthesis engine. The thing that made me sell it was the hardware, the box itself. I didnāt like the headphone adaptor being at the bottom, it made it awkward on my lap. But mostly I didnāt like the tiny screen. It just made using it a strain for me.