Digitalizarte 16 Drones is a new AUv3 expressive Synthesizer plugin for iOS and macOS with custom drone envelopes and more.
When you hear the term “drones,” you usually think of something static and rather monotonous. That’s true if you only turn up a saw or sine wave and let it play. It’s different when you add other ingredients to the drone oscillators, especially modulation.
This allows you to create evolving drones and or swarming oscillators. A new iOS and macOS app by Ruben Terron Rodriguez, aka Digitalizarte, called 16 Drones, offers exactly that.
Digitalizarte 16 Drones
16 Drones is an AUv3 ambient drone Synthesizer plugin for iOS and macOS. According to Digitalizarte, 16 Drones was built for evolving textures, harmonic soundscapes, and expressive in-key performance.
As the name suggests, there are 16 drone voices, each powered by a simple wavetable synthesis with per-voice control. You can select from various built-in wavetables (no import) and change the wavetable position.
To add extra depth and weight, you activate an additional subtractive layer with classic waveforms, and control over the level, detune, drive, pan, FX send, and a sub LFO.
One special feature is the motion that can be assigned to this voice. Out of the box, the voices drone when you send the sliders up. But you can easily exit the static drones by enabling the per-voice modulation.
Each voice has five color-coded motion options: pulse, ramp, scan, sample & hold, and LFO. Once activated, the individual voices begin to move, creating organic drones.
However, a current limitation is that this modulation cannot be edited. It seems they’re currently set to a specific speed and range. I hope this will be expanded soon; otherwise, it will be somewhat limited.
A dedicated section page also provides an overview of all assigned wavetables and modulations. Plus, you can tweak the main voice parameters quickly here, such as the wavetable position or FX send for each voice.
Play Your Drones
Everything stays in tune thanks to the app’s built-in scale function, which offers a variety of selectable scales.
As a nice bonus, you can play over the drones themselves. Digitalizarte 16 Drones features a dedicated Play section that lets you play a voice like a traditional Synthesizer.
You can adjust the wavetable and its position, change the octave, and work with an ADSR envelope. Plus, you can play on a keyboard with optional glide.
Finally, all voices (drones and play) are routed through a multi-FX section with a resonant lowpass filter and a reverb.
16 Drones also works as an AUv3 plugin and offers full MIDI support, including input MIDI and MIDI learn for hardware mapping. Aftertouch with polyphonic aftertouch is also onboard.
Further, Digitalizarte ships the 16 Drones app with various presets.
First Impression
At first glance, it’s an interesting drone synthesizer app for macOS and Windows. Does it bring anything new to the table? Not really at the moment. It doesn’t quite measure up to my personal all-time favorite, Shoom by Yuri Turov.
However, it’s a drone app with potential. At launch, version 1.0, not everything is running smoothly. There are minor bugs and light lags (for me) when changing presets or ranges. Well, no app is perfect at launch, even from bigger players.
Features like the ability to adjust modulation per voice are also missing. If you have some patience with updates, the app could become something worth exploring. I’m pretty sure this will happen.
Ruben Terron Rodriguez 16 Drones is available now as a free download for iOS and macOS. You can unlock the Pro version for $5,99/6,99€ via an in-app purchase. It runs as a standalone app and AUv3 plugin on macOS and iOS.
More information here: Ruben Terron Rodriguez /App Store
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