Sixteen tracks of
synthetic drums.
MDSYN is a percussion synthesizer and a step sequencer in one box: 46 machines, a 64-step grid with a lock on every knob, a song mode — and a sampler for the day you need one.
Inspired, not emulated
A classic idea, rebuilt from zero
If you ever played a drum synth with a grid of sixteen buttons and a parameter lock on every step, you know the feeling: the machine becomes an instrument. MDSYN starts from that idea and writes everything else itself — our engines, our machine names, our sound. Nothing is sampled from anyone, nothing is copied: the machines are synthesized in real time. The few samples heard in the factory presets were recorded by us, and the sampler family plays yours.
The machines
46 machines, 14 families
Forty-one machines are pure synthesis, in thirteen families; five more, in a fourteenth, play your own files. Each of the sixteen tracks runs one machine. Pick by sound type — kick, snare, hat, tom, clap, bell, perc — or by family. Every machine has up to eight knobs, all lockable per step.
Analog-style & FM
Punchy kicks, snares, hats, claps and cymbals from two complementary engines. FM with a crunched ratio table, feedback, and pitch envelopes that actually bend.
Physical & modal
Membranes, bells, claves, congas, plates, metal clusters, struck wood, tubes, bowed bowls, grain clouds, snare wires that only rattle when you hit hard.
Hybrid & dirty
Overdrive-fed kicks with exact harmonics, a room machine with a gate, hybrid drums with a second strike — the sounds that sit between categories.
Sampler
One-shot and loop players, a recorder that samples the main mix or any track straight from the sequencer, a bank of 48 slots per project, and imported wavetables.
Your samples
Your WAV files, in the grid
Any track can run a sampler machine instead of a synthesized one. Point it at a WAV file, and the file becomes a drum: the same sixteen steps, the same locks, the same song.
One-shot or loop
Play a file once, or loop it between two points for as long as the envelope holds. Pitch is playback speed, two octaves either way. Set the end before the start and it plays backwards. The display draws the waveform of the file.
Shape it
Start, end, decay, hold, a bit-reducer down to two bits, and a retrigger with musical divisions. Hold is counted in steps of the tempo — up to a bar — and decay can run to infinity.
Sample your own machines
Record a take from the main mix or from any track straight from the sequencer, and play it back on the next trig.
A bank of 48 per preset
Forty-eight slots saved with the preset, and the slot can be locked step by step: sixteen different hits on one track. Imported waveforms turn a file into an oscillator.
On screen
The real thing, full size
A straight screenshot of the plugin, running — no render, no retouching.
The sequencer
Sixty-four steps, and every knob remembers
PARAMETER LOCKS
Hold a step, turn a knob: that step keeps its own value. Up to 32 locks per step, machine parameters and track chain alike. Slide between locks.
PATTERN LOCKS
One kit per project, with per-pattern overrides on any control. Change the kick level everywhere at once — or on this pattern only.
CONDITIONS
Play a step every 3rd of 4 loops, only on FILL, only after the previous one fired. Probability, ratchets ×2 to ×8, micro-timing per step.
PER-TRACK LENGTH & SPEED
Polymetric by design: each track has its own length, multiplier and direction — forward, reverse, ping-pong, random. Euclidean fills in a click.
LIVE RECORDING
Record notes and knob moves while it plays; locks land on the next step of the track. In KEY mode the chosen track plays at different pitches from a MIDI or computer keyboard, and with REC armed each note writes a step with its pitch locked. Sixteen pads mirror the sixteen steps.
SONG MODE
Up to 99 rows: patterns, repeats, loops, jumps, halts, tempo and mutes per row. Follows the host position, or runs on its own clock in Standalone.
Around the machines
A full track chain, and a master section
- Per track: drive, resonant filter (12 or 24 dB, variable width), amplitude modulation, EQ, sample-rate reducer, LFO to any target on any track, sends.
- Master effects: tempo-synced echo, room, three-band EQ, compressor — 31 controls, four pages.
- Export: render a pattern or a whole song to WAV, offline, on the same engine.
- Content: 99 factory kits and 50 complete projects — patterns and songs included — from techno to breaks to EBM.
Separate outputs
Eight buses to your mixer
Sixteen drums rarely belong on one stereo pair. MDSYN has a stereo main output and eight more stereo buses: send the kick to one, the snare to another, the hats and percussion to a third, and mix them in your DAW.
Any track to any bus
Each track is set to MAIN or to one of the eight buses. Two tracks can share a bus: a bus is a send to your mixer, not a track.
Like a console channel
A bus output leaves the track before the master level, as a console channel would. A routed track leaves the main mix, so nothing is doubled.
Sends still return
A track's effect send still returns on the main mix, even when the track itself is routed to its own bus.
Safe by default
The extra buses are off until your DAW enables them, and a bus your host has not enabled falls back to the main mix — the sound never goes silent. The offline WAV export renders the main mix.
Specifications
Under the hood
Free demo — MDSYN
The full instrument, with a periodic reminder. Install it, play with it; a licence key turns it into the complete version, in place. Factory presets included.
Buy — MDSYN
The complete version, yours forever. VST3 · AU (macOS) · Standalone, on macOS and Windows.
Both synths, linked: MDSYN + MMSYN for 50 € excl. VAT — save 10 €. Get the bundle ↗
Community
Tell us what it should do
MDSYN is built by one person who listens. Missing a feature, a format, a workflow? Say it — the things people ask for most are the things that get built.
Follow the build and send your ideas: @stigmasoft__ · Ideas, support, early builds — or just an email, if you prefer.
A STIGMA AUDIO INSTRUMENT · 16 TRACKS · 46 MACHINES · PARAMETER LOCKS · SONG MODE