Baby Audio Tekno Drum Synthesizer: Tekno for an Answer
3,0 / 5,0 | 
Is Baby Audio’s Tekno the last drum synthesizer plugin you’ll ever need?
Baby Audio Tekno Drum Synthesizer
I’m a sucker for a good drum synthesizer. Sample-based drums are fun and all, but there’s something so freeing about the control that a drum synth can offer. I suspect that Baby Audio feels the same way, as Tekno Drum Synthesizer looks to be a powerful and fully featured drum synth. And, with a name like Tekno, if you’re thinking this is probably aimed at electronic music producers, I don’t think you’re wrong.
18 Drum Engines
The new plugin offers 18 different drum engines built from a variety of synthesis architectures, including circuit-modeled virtual analog, FM, and other DSP, all designed to recall but not necessarily emulate classic 20th-century drum machines. These engines include two kicks (a hard 909-style and boomy 808-style) and two snares, plus a variety of other percussion sounds, including hats, toms, congas, a clap, a ride, and more. As Tekno is a synthesizer, you can freely adjust the parameters for every sound.
And, because it’s a synth, each drum hit is unique, much like the analog drum machines of old. You can also dial up this uniqueness with the humanize parameter, which can also affect MIDI timing and velocity. Based on that last sentence, and because there’s also swing, you might think Tekno has an onboard sequencer – but it doesn’t. It’s strictly a sound generator. You’ll need to use your DAW’s sequencer or one in a separate hardware device.
I should also mention that the drum synth was made in collaboration with Jatin Chowdhury, who you may know from ChowDSP. He’s something of a DSP wizard – and you can really hear that in the demos for this plugin.
Effects and Mixer
Baby Audio has a lot of effects plugins in its stable, so you’d probably expect world-class effects in Tekno, too. And you’d be right. Each drum engine has its own FX engine, such as analog-modeled tape saturation, excitation, and compression. There is also a global effects section with reverb and a limiter/clipper combo for punchy beats.
Something that I was excited to see was the extensive bus section in the mixer. Although you can route all sounds through the stereo master or put each sound on its own output, you can also bus them to create specialized effects chains in your DAW. It’s a little thing, but much appreciated.
Price and Availability
Tekno looks like another winner from Baby Audio. It’s available now in VST, AU, and AAX formats from Thomann* at a discount price.
More Information
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