Raising a Drum Farm: Ethically Sourced Beats

Knobula's Drum Farm is a new 24HP drum/percussion Module; and it offers a staggering variety of sound design options:

Drum Farm is a performance-focused Eurorack drum module that brings synthesis, sampling and effects together into a single, hands-on instrument. With 16 drum models, 16 effects, and a 16-slot sample buffer, it's built for fast, iterative sound design -- sculpt, process, sample, and resample without breaking flow.

From physically modelled drums and spectral cymbals to classic analogue-inspired voices, Drum Farm delivers a wide palette of percussion with subtle variation on every trigger. The integrated sampler captures everything you create, letting you build layered, evolving sounds or assemble custom kits on the fly."

A fan of modular bangs and crashes, I was intrigued by the design choices behind this instrument. "A deeper dive into Drum Farm's fertile soil would surely make for an interesting article!" I mused - deciding to send designer Jason Mayo some questions about Drum Farm which he kindly answered. So I think it's now time to put on our cropduster jackets and get going!

So where did the idea for this instrument come from? You're well known for instruments like Monumatic - an 8-voice digital module with multiple algorithms - did you want to bring some of that endless sound variety to drum synthesis?

Hi Paulee, Great question. Yes, exactly. The appeal of multi-model synths and the availability of our 16 way switch inspired me to create a multi-model drum module, until then I was under pressure to release a series of snare, clap or hat modules. Better to gift them all into one hot module. The 16 model idea allowed me to be a bit more creative and not just emulate the classics. One of the models was going to be a sample player until I realised that an integrated self-sampler made more sense, allowing you to stack multiple snares or simply offload processor-intensive drum algorithms and free up the device for other sounds. Then it evolved into a sample creation workstation with effects. I thought it would be fun if people could patch it to self-generate sound libraries, which led to the Farm name.

Well that explains the name! So, did the experience of Kickain - your side-chaining kick drum module, also partially inspire this new instrument?

Kickain succeeded because it combined two elements: a kick drum and a stereo multi-band sidechain compressor. Drum Farm follows the same story: it's a virtual analog/physical model drum voice, a sampler, and an FX processor. OK that's three things! But the integration of those elements was important - the sampler is always on - triggered by the drum synth, the effects can trigger their own mod envelopes, the device still operates as a single unit.

Nerdy Question time! So I've recently been dabbling in pure data & HVCC to create fun little percussion synths - it's given me an idea of what you instrument makers go through! What's your process, and what development platforms do you favour when creating your Eurorack modules?

I develop in C++ on the Daisy platform. We have a long relationship with Electro-smith and their stuff just works, and when it doesn't its easy to swap out a board and save the rest of the pcb and hardware. My process starts with research: reading white papers, downloading libraries like STK (Synthesis ToolKit), and exploring existing code bases. Then I tend to tear it all up and start from scratch. The worst thing you can do is assume an academic's got it right, or that there is some empirical definition of a 909 snare drum in DSP code. That's the bit I enjoy, listening to the sounds and adding the imperfections of analog electronics in code, or approaching the problem as a record producer and asking myself "is this useable in a track".

Great idea! So 16(!) drum synth models is pretty ambitious - how did you choose them? Did you aim for a balance of standard workhorse drums and then weirder experimental stuff?

16 was a big task that represents over a year of my life! I needed some essentials: a 909 snare, an 808 snare, and a 909 clap and rim. There were ones I wanted for myself: Double Shaker and Kick Rumble. A few experimental ones, like Spectral Hats and Bloop, made it in.

Haha yes I noticed "Bloop" - could you talk us through a couple of the more unique drum models?

Double Shaker. It is a bi-directional shaker model that plays a push shake followed by a pull shake. After the first hit it then slurps back ahead of the next beat. Instant groove. It has controls for speed, pitch, doppler and can morph between shaker models: Large, Egg or Cabbassa with its zippy corregated metal tone.

Spectral Hats. I frequency-analysed popular hi-hats, like the 909 hat sample and recreated them using band-filtered noise. It can morph between five different hi hat types, allowing it to have  the character of a 909 hat but with stochastic differences on every hit.

And those 16 effects, any inventive highlights for fearless sound explorers?

The Cymbaliser effect takes the Spectral Hat data and applies it to a resonator modulated by noise. The input pings the resonator like a splash cymbal and opens the gate to endless sound design possibilities when combined with reverb and down sampling.

Multitude makes 8 copies of the input and pitch-shifts/filters them randomly; combined with the 12 person Super Clap you can theoretically produce a clap sound of 96 people with CV adjustable rhythmic ability.

96 people! So, from what I've gathered, the workflow seems pretty unique - a live mono-timbral drum synth channel that's joined by (and can quickly record to, internally) a couple of sample playback channels? What prompted this setup, and are you a fan of messing around with samples and re-pitching them?

My favorite snare sound often combined a 909 base layer with a shorter crack of a snare sample on top, one sound provided a live random noise element, while the other provided the steady tone. Drum Farm also uses a hybrid approach. The drum synth supplies a stochastic sound element and  the sampler is everything else, you keep sampling, oversampling, processing and collecting the results. The Player 1 voice can play sets of 16 samples with its round-robin capability, having the ability to sound randomised yet sampled, or to respond differently to a CV input. 

The round-robin feature, amazing for subtle realism - could also be misused I bet! One think I've noticed is that, whilst a complex module - Drum Farm looks really inviting and well laid-out. Did you experiment with different user interface designs (different module sizes, perhaps?) before settling on this one?

Yes there have been a few panel design prototypes to get to the production version, and I soon realised that our typical 12hp format was too small for this project.

My decision not to use displays or endless encoders in our products dictates much of the look and feel of Knobula. Despite their digital underpinnings, this rule enforces a retro look onto the designs which use traditional pots and selector switches to navigate fixed panel graphics, no small feat when designing a sampler.

A chance meeting with graphic designer Tatsu Ishikawa led to the latest version with its 32 icon designs, before that, the panel was very word intensive.

I think the design is honestly, very elegant. I guess the temptation with digital is to keep throwing things at a design and almost make it do "too much" for the panel to handle. I own many Eurorack drum synths, plus meta-style virtual modular panels, and some of them definitely feel "over-stuffed"! While I'm kind of ok with this, as I program a lot of 90's synths with cryptic UI's, a lot of people absolutely hate too many shift commands - it breaks their flow. So how do you, as a designer, find that compromise between power and usability?

We intentionally don't use screens at Knobula. This forces a particular design process where the UI is limited to less than the hardware can perform, so compromises have to be made, important decisions have to be committed to. That's where my background as a music producer comes in: I know the Decay control is more important to access than the Gain which is a Shift function. Gain can be adjusted downstream in a mixer but Decay is rooted to the machine - so it gets priority. But we also left in some quirks - the reverb effect can be always on or only on when selected (Shift function), I know it will drive a few people nuts but when you perform with it, everything will make sense. 

I'm sure plenty of people will add it to their live rigs - so Drum Farm, when is it out - and where can people find out more information?

Drum Farm will be shipping mid June price £375 excluding VAT. 

Check out the download section of knobula.com for manuals and guides.

Thanks so much for chatting to us Jason, and good luck with your artisanal, hand-grown membranophones! Be sure to check out our Superbooth video to hear Drum Farm in action.

• SonicLAB: Knobula Drum Farm 11-Sep-26
• Superbooth 2026: Knobula Drumfarm Module 08-May-26
• Knobula Releases Drum Farm 22-Apr-26
• LSPXPO 2026: Knobula Tease New Drum Thing 23-Mar-26
• Superbooth 2025: Knobula - Monumatic 09-May-25