WaveREX DDD-11/15 PCM-cards bring sample import to the Korg DDD-1 & 5 drum machines

July 2, 2022 Synth Anatomy Drum Machines, Hardware, News 0

WaveREX DDD-11 and DDD-15 PCM cards allow you to load your own samples into the Korg DDD-1 and DDD-5 vintage drum machines.

Audio and music technology go on and on. Everything becomes more advanced, better, more complex, and more expressive. We live in a beautiful time with many innovations. The German company WaveREX shows that modern technology is not only finding its way into modern instruments but also into vintage ones.

They develop PCM cards for vintage synthesizers and drum machines with which you can load your own samples into vintage devices. Yes in PCM-based instruments, previously not possible today. Recently the company has expanded heir portfolio and published custom PCM cards for the Korg DDD-1 and DDD-5 drum machines.

WaveRex DDD-11/15

As a reminder, the Korg DDD-1 was a digital programmable drum machine from the mid-80s with 18 electronic drum sounds including kicks, snares, toms… Like the DDD-1, the DDD-5 was also a digital drum machine from the mid-80s with only 14 electronic drum sounds. It was a newer but less professional version of the DDD-1. They also had a significantly different user interface. They had an option to load additional sounds using specific ROM cards.

The new WaveREX DDD-11 and DDD-15 cards are PCM cards that can be freely loaded with samples. They feature a display with up/down buttons and can store up to 32 banks. The hardware units, however, can only read a single bank with up to 8 sounds per card. So you select the bank on the card (1-32) and the drum machine then recognizes it as a card. There is no length limit for the sounds.

Editor

The transfer is straightforward. On the card, you can find a micro-B type port (rrr wrong port decision) that allows you to connect the card to your computer. From here, you can transfer the samples using the WaveREX editor. It is used to convert samples from WAV and AIFF format as well as for the card organization. Unfortunately, the editor will initially only be available for Windows. A macOS version is coming later.

There is more to discover in the editor. The imported samples have the same character as the original. So with aliasing effects when transposed. Cool, the editor gives you the option to switch between a legacy mode and an anti-aliasing mode. In anti-aliasing mode, it reduces the sample rate of the samples and it will remove the effects. However, with no transposition in the device.