Drummatic drum machine in black anodized aluminium, keys lit in track colours, the LazerDrum sequencer on its touch screen

Drum machine · LazerDrum firmware 2.2

Built like an instrument. Made to keep evolving.

Drummatic is a hand-assembled drum machine in milled and anodized aluminium, with 46 lit keys, 9 encoders and a 5-inch touch screen. It ships with LazerDrum: 64 synthesis engines, a break generator and a 16-pattern sequencer with song mode. Everything inside it can be updated.

Listen to it Join the waitlist

64synthesis engines in 16 families

8 × 64tracks × steps, 16 patterns + song

46 + 9RGB keys + encoders

8 mmCNC-milled aluminium cheeks

Film

Ten seconds around the machine

Rendered from the production CAD files; the soundtrack is a track made with LazerDrum.

Sound

Every clip here came out of the machine's own engine

No processing after the fact, no samples from elsewhere: the LazerDrum firmware rendered these offline with its own effects and mastering. Tap a key to play it.

The instrument

The knob is next to the value it turns

The screen is laid out like the panel. The eight values on the right sit in two rows of four, exactly like the eight encoders beside them. The bottom of the screen names the fifteen keys above the keyboard, in order. One modifier, FUNC, and one gesture, hold a step to edit it, cover the rest.

Launch firmware · LazerDrum 2.2

A breakbeat machine with a synthesizer behind every key

ENGINES

64 engines, 16 families

Each track plays one of 64 synthesized sounds, and any single step can call a different one. Twelve sound controls per engine: pitch, attack, decay, tone, noise, FM, FM ratio, FM index, resonance, drive, crush and a tail with nine resonant modes.

The 16 families, one by one

GENERATOR

A break generator that knows the genres

Eight styles, from Amen jungle to drill'n'bass, with chop, ghosts, rolls, fills, hats and zaps as live controls. MATRIX builds a whole world in one press: style, tempo, break, kit and all 64 engines.

MARKOV: variations learned from your own pattern
EVOLVE: the pattern drifts slowly, MANUAL brings it back
28 break presets and 146 sound presets on the DATA encoder, the IDM ones first

SEQUENCER

8 tracks × 64 steps, locks on every step

Hold any key of the sixteen and the encoders write only into that step: velocity, probability, retrig, nudge, pitch, engine, a throw into the echo, a repeat, and a lock on each of the twelve sound controls.

Live recording from the eight track keys
Copy and paste of pages, tracks and patterns
24 levels of UNDO and REDO

ARRANGE

16 patterns and a song, switched in time

Each project holds 16 patterns sharing one kit. Pick the next one while the current one plays: it waits, blinking, and takes over the moment the current one ends. Chain them into a song of up to 99 rows with repeats, looping or stopping at the end.

EFFECTS

TAPZ, REPEAT, COLOR, mastering

TAPZ is a multi-tap echo with five spatial modes, sync and freeze. REPEAT is a stutter you can hold live or trigger per step. COLOR adds tape, tube, transformer or fuzz. A mastering stage with genre profiles keeps every pattern at a target loudness.

CONNECT

MIDI in four flavours, clock in and out of step

MIDI DIN in and out plus USB MIDI. Incoming notes can play the 64 engines, the 8 tracks, one engine chromatically, or the 16 steps. Set CLOCK to EXT and Drummatic follows start, stop and song position from any machine.

LazerDrum sequencer page on the Drummatic screen — SEQ: eight tracks, the 64-step strip, and the encoder values on the right.

LazerDrum song page on the Drummatic screen — SONG: rows of patterns and repeats, edited with the keys and encoders.

The engines

Sixteen ways to make a sound, four variants each

Every engine is synthesis, not playback. Each picture is the real spectrogram of the four variants of that family, struck one after the other: time runs left to right, pitch rises from bottom to top.

Build quality

Aluminium, steel and switches you can hear

No plastic shell and no glue. The case is machined and bent aluminium held together with countersunk screws and pressed-in steel fasteners, so every part can be opened, serviced and replaced.

MILLED · ANODIZED

Milled side cheeks

CNC-milled from solid aluminium, bead-blasted and anodized black. They give the machine its playing angle.

ANODIZED · ENGRAVED

Engraved top panel

Black anodized aluminium with laser-engraved legends. Everything is fixed from below: nothing shows on the top face but a few screws.

BENT · POWDER-COATED

Bent chassis tray

A single bent sheet with pressed-in steel fasteners, powder-coated matte black, on rubber feet.

MECHANICAL · HOT-SWAP

Mechanical keys, replaceable in seconds

Clicky low-profile switches in hot-swap sockets under transparent caps. Each of the 46 keys has its own RGB LED, so the panel shows tracks, steps and the playhead in colour.

DETENTED · PUSH

Encoders with a push

Nine detented push encoders under solid knobs, and a potentiometer for the volume. A push resets a value or clears a step lock.

PANEL-MOUNT

Panel-mount connectors

Panel-mount USB-C power and USB host, stereo in and out on 6.35 mm jacks, MIDI DIN in and out. Nothing hangs off a circuit board.

The eight encoders mirror the eight values on the screen.

The milled cheek sets the playing angle.

Rear panel

Indicative layout. USB HOST takes a USB stick for backups and updates, or a MIDI keyboard.

Built to evolve

The hardware is finished. The instrument never is.

Drummatic was designed so that what it does can change after you buy it. LazerDrum is where it starts.

Updates

One file on a USB stick

Copy the new firmware to a stick, plug it into USB HOST on the back, and the machine updates itself, including the controller that reads the keys. No computer, no opening the case.

Panel

Neutral by design

Only fixed legends are engraved: numbers, transport, FUNC, arrows, DATA, VOLUME. Every other key is named on the screen, so a new firmware can turn the same panel into a different instrument.

Inside

Standard, serviceable parts

Known, widely available parts with years of headroom, swappable keys, screws instead of glue.

You

Your ideas go on the list

Tell us what Drummatic should become in the waitlist form. Requests from the first owners decide what comes after LazerDrum 2.2.

Firmware so far

2.0.0
LazerDrum on Drummatic: the full MPC plugin engine, the panel layout, UNDO, the FUNC map, the virtual panel.
2.0.1
Direct audio output, lower latency.
2.0.2
Larger type for the 5-inch screen, audio load and dropout meter.
2.1
16 patterns per project, pattern switching in time, song mode.
2.2
IDM kits: 56 sounds in seven folders and 12 IDM break presets of 32 steps, first in their lists.
2.2.1
An empty pattern starts as a copy of the one you come from; after STOP the song starts again from row 1.
next
Being explored: step pages that follow the playhead, more engine families, new instruments for the same panel.

Six releases in the first weeks of work on the prototype.

Specifications

Technical data

Sound: 64 synthesis engines in 16 families, 8 tracks, per-step engine choice
Sequencer: 8 tracks × 64 steps, per-step locks, 16 patterns per project, song of up to 99 rows
Effects: TAPZ multi-tap echo, REPEAT stutter, COLOR saturation, mastering with loudness target
Memory: 16 project slots, automatic session save, USB backup
Screen: 5" touch display, 1280 × 720
Controls: 46 mechanical keys with RGB LEDs, 9 push encoders, volume potentiometer
Audio: 24-bit converters, stereo out and stereo in on 6.35 mm jacks, engine at 48 kHz

MIDI: DIN in and out, USB MIDI, clock follow (start, stop, song position)
Computer: Quad-core computer with active cooling
Power: USB-C, 27 W supply included, side power button
Case: Milled and bent aluminium, black anodized and powder-coated
Size: 356 × 230 mm, 45 mm high at the front and 75 mm at the back, plus feet
Updates: From a USB stick, for both the instrument and the key controller
Assembly: Hand-assembled and tested in Rome, Italy

First run

Reserve a Drummatic

The first machines are built in a small run, by hand. Joining the waitlist costs nothing and commits you to nothing: you get the final price and date before anyone is asked to pay.

Drummatic with LazerDrum 2.2 installed
27 W USB-C power supply
Every firmware update, free
The full manual as PDF

Images on this page are renders made from the production design files.

FAQ

Questions

Do I need a computer?

No. Drummatic is a standalone instrument: power it, play it, plug headphones or a mixer into the outputs. A computer or a phone on the same network can open a virtual copy of the panel in a browser, which is handy but optional.

Can it run things other than LazerDrum?

That is the idea behind it. The panel carries only neutral legends and the keys are named on screen, so a different firmware can make it a different instrument. LazerDrum is the first.

How are updates installed?

From a USB stick in the USB HOST socket on the back. The same stick updates the key controller, so the case never has to be opened.

Can it sync with my other gear?

Yes. It follows MIDI clock with start, stop and song position over DIN or USB, and incoming notes can play its tracks, engines or steps.

Is this the final look?

The images are renders of the production design: the case parts, the control board and the keys shown here have been made for the prototype. Small details may still change before the first run.