Bram Bos (Ruismaker) is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the software drum computer Hammerhead in form of a modern re-interpretation for iOS.
In the 90s, when I was still building castles in the sandpit or playing with Lego, there was already software for making music. It was the beginning with significantly less mature user interfaces and features like today. According to musicians of the time, the Hammerhead software for Windows was celebrated with great acclaim. It was a free groove box with which anyone could program fast grooves and beats on the computer.
Bram Bos, known for his very sophisticated, high-quality apps, has now revived the classic for its 25th birthday as an iOS app.
Ruismaker Hammerhead
Bram Bos has taken over the beloved concept of the little shark in the iOS version and expanded it. It’s a fresh, mobile reinterpretation for mobile musicians. The basis is 8 channels, each driven by a sequencer.
Each channel can either be filled with classic factory or custom WAV. samples/loops or with a drum synth. The latter is small but surprisingly a lot of fun.
It has a single multi-wave oscillator with FM, noise generator with filter as well as a resonator. Perfect for creating your own drum/percussive sounds (kicks, bobs, tocks…). If you don’t have time you can also create sounds with the randomizer at the push of a button. To refine your sounds you have an additional one-click compression and distortion, with several algorithms.
The heart of Hammerhead is the sequencer that goes very deep. You can not only set steps like in any common drum computer but also give each step its own characteristic. This starts with independent velocity and pitch control. The latter gives you the option to play the steps chromatically, like a keyboard, which means you can build melodies with it. Then, you can set the decay, chance aka probability, flam, retrigger aka ratcheting, and the start point of the sample. All tools making very complex, varied grooves possible.
The Crazy Features
If these parameters are not enough for you, Hammerhead for iOS offers a set of crazy features with which you can chase your beats into unpredictable rhythm-scapes. The built-in random pattern generator lets you create endless new patterns. With pattern mutation, you can slowly or strongly evolve sequencer lines or glitch sonically disrupts your rhythms and introduces the beloved glitching effects.
And of course, the app also supports AUv3 with individual outputs per channel, MIDI output, and fullscreen modes. So you can use the app not just once but in several instances.
A nice reinterpretation of a classic. I am glad that Bram Bos sent me a code with which I could check out the app. I didn’t even know the software before. It’s fun and much more versatile than initially thought. Well done.
Hammerhead by Ruismaker (Bram Bos) is available now for $7.99 USD and runs on iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch as a standalone or AUv3 app.
More information here: AppStore
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