A long-awaited release is finally here! But do we even care now?

In early 2021, Korg teased the release of their brand new compact drum machine, and after a long wait, the Drumlogue is finally here. It is a hybrid drum machine with 11 voices and three sound engines - analog, digital synthesis, and sample-based sounds.

The 11 voices are split into 4 analog voices (Bass Drum, Snare Drum, Low Tom, and High Tom), 6 Sample-based voices, and 1 Digital Synthesis Engine. It also packs a fully-fledged sequencer, and effects in a very compact device.

Analog Engines

The four analog engines are completely newly developed by Korg and have dedicated knobs on the front panel for some basic tweaking. And if you want more edits, there are also a few more parameters in the menu. The great thing is that the bassdrum and snare have a few different models to choose from so you’re not stuck on just a single timbre while on the high and low toms, you can’t just mess with a handful of parameters. like tuning, resonance, etc.

They all sound as you would expect, nothing crazy innovative here, and they work just fine for the foundation of a beat.

Samples

Although Drumlogue can play samples, it is NOT a sampler. You can not sample straight into it and you’ll just have to load up samples from your computer. And to be fair, that’s not the end of the world. Drumlogue is marketed as a powerful and affordable drum machine and not a sampler.

For sample playback, you can only play samples that are up to 4 seconds although you can import longer samples. You can also load stereo samples which is cool but the weird thing is that they chose to have very limited memory for sample storage. It has only 32MB for samples which can get full very quickly. It would definitely be nice to have more space.

Now if you want to tweak the samples you loaded, you’ll have to get to the menu and use the four encoders below the screen. Compared to something like a Digitakt, where you choose a sample and all pages and knobs correspond to it instantly, it feels much more time-consuming on the Drumlogue.

Digital Synth Engine

Drumlogue also has a synth multi-engine where you can use some custom synths and program them just like on a regular synthesizer. Our friends at Sinevibes also contributed with a brand new synth engine called Nano which sounds great! To control the synths, you can either program them on the grid or just use an external MIDI controller to add velocity-sensitive keys (Drumlogue’s pads are not velocity sensitive) and play them as a regular synth.

Sequencer

Drumlogue’s sequencer has all the features you’ll probably need of a drum sequencer. It has 64 steps, polyrhythms, per-step probability settings, per-step alternate trigger patterns, per-step micro offsets, per-track groove patterns, and more.

It has Motion and Accent recording and a Randomization function for further experimentation! You can chain patterns, use Loop mode to switch around different variations of your pattern, and more.

As you see the sequencer is pretty advanced and deep and can be great both in the studio or in a live show. Definitely a win here!

Effects

There are three categories of effects that you can use simultaneously. Reverb, Delay, and Master Effects. You can set the send amounts for each part for reverb and delay and bypass the master effects for some parts so every part is affected as much as you want. Also, you of course have a Sidechain bus which is always a must!

On the other hand, that means you can’t have a different effect on each part but that’s not a deal breaker here. And as the effects are open for third-party builders, you can load even more than the stock ones!

Conclusion

Drum machines nowadays are a weird gear category. And with the advancements of DAWs with their amazing capabilities when it comes to drum programming and the endless sample selection, drum machines are almost becoming obsolete as separate pieces of gear.

So how a drum machine can be exciting and usable in the modern world?

To me, there are two things to consider.

The first is its playability. If you want to jam and make interesting patterns and grooves live, a drum machine must be tweakable and have features that are meant to be played by hand. I remember the release of the Tr-8 by Roland where everybody was praising it for its hands-on approach. The sounds of the 808 and 909 are very old but the modern iteration of the Tr-8 made them fun and cool once again.

The second thing is the sounds and sound design. Classic drum sounds are quite boring and can be found anywhere for free. You can have a million samples of every drum sound ever made on your computer and you’ll never need a drum machine. So a drum machine has to bring something new to the table to be exciting. An example would be in the modular world where there are a few amazing and innovative drum modules (especially the ones by WMD) where you can sound design some very fresh and unique sounds that you don’t hear on every single record. Or even on the Model: Cycles and Syntakt by Elektron where they took a different approach to drum sound design. A massive kick and a snappy snare are something anyone can have today.

So where does the Drumlogue stand?

I think that the Drumlogue (like most drum machines nowadays) is lacking identity. It’s a somewhat do-all machine but with no focus on anything. The ability to play synth sounds and program synths are, to me, irrelevant and quirky, the analog sounds are just fine, and the samples are, well… samples. It doesn’t make any statement and definitely does not innovate. And while it’s feature-packed, it is still just another drum machine. Can you make great beats and patterns on it? Of course! But does that worth 600€? I don’t know…

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