Monthly Archives: December 2023

Aly James Lab VSDSX v.1.3.0 [WIN]

The SIMMONS SDSV 80s Drum Brain.
Simmons 80s Drums SDSV An analog drum synth legend now in V2.
The Simmons hexagonal shaped Electronic drums were all over the place on countless records and live shows during the 80s , used by artists and bands like Genesis, King Crimson, Jean Michel Jarre, Prince, Herbie Hancock, Pink Floyd etc…

Often used in a lazy way to generate disco-esque pewww pewww tom sounds, the SDSV module could produced a wide range of sounds. It got great punch and sensitivity.
The SDSV successor called SDS7 added digital lo-fi samples and additional features such as bend direction or FM modulation as means for broader range of possible sounds.

The SDSV is a historical analog gear that has a place in the sound of the 80s and is still used today as secret weapon, drum layering or central part for genre defined music.
Only around 5000 of these drum brains where produced so don’t count on finding a working one easily and for cheap.
As there were no accurate VST for this legend out there…

I had to make VSDSX, a perfect recreation with tons of added new features! this is dedicated to Dave Simmons’s vision and to all drummers in the world.

VSDSX, which stands for Virtual Simmons Drum System Extended, provides the closest experience to the real thing, for each voice or as it was called (module) it models accurately the analog sound generation, internal circuitry tuning, trigger velocity sensitivity and all the details you can find explained inside the dedicated manual.
For its hybrid voices (HIHAT, CYMBAL, PROM & CLAP are a mix of analog/digital) clocks and counters reading EPROM memory at variable sample rate are perfectly emulated in realtime.
It models the SSM2044 filters offering fine tuning control over internal control voltages, trigger shapes, and VCA response. It also emulates how the module will react if triggered with pads or sequencer…MIDI velocity will change the synthesized sound drastically whether you use real drums trigger detection or piano roll style composition.
Offering multi output capability for your DAW, VSDSX will give you that legendary powerful analog punch! On top of the cake, two voices can load your own external EPROM image data (digital sample) like on a real SDS1 (EPROM based) pad…offering a whole new range of sounds.
VSDSX is now on version 2.3 and features among other cool things a perfectly emulated Simmons Digital ClapTrap module, a clap synth which combines a variable sample rate digital source combined with pitched analog noise, an original feature of the unit was to never produce the same sound twice. Although it is integrated inside VSDSX a dedicated ClapTrap 2.0 plugin which includes both analog and digital models, stereo widening, chromatic (per note) trigger, original hardware filter, EPROM replacing capabilty and way more controls like dual mode and analog clap generation circuit tuning is available separately.

VSDSX provides a huge synthetic drum sound by itself and can also be used with great efficiency in drum layering. Parameters automation and modulation can turn this thing into a crazy an creative sound source

Using it for layering with VPROM can produce a nasty funky sound which combines analog and early digital!

While VSDSX 2.0 adds a perfectly recreated ClapTrap voice (based on the digital MK3 model) you can go deeper with the extended ClapTrap 2.0 plug-in which includes all models (analog MK1, 2 and 3) and way more options.

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