CM-505
is one of my favorite drum synths. It is capable of making a nice
variety of electronic percussion sounds, and vintage drumbox emulation.
It's easy to use and it sounds great. The cons are that, as another
reviewer mentioned, it doesn't hold settings between sessions, and you
have to open the UI at the start of a session or you don't get any
sounds. My other complaint is that the default mapping for the first
kick drum pad is B0 (I use a 61-key controller so it's off the
keyboard), but that's easily remedied by changing to C#1. It's stable,
it sounds great, and it's free, so what else could you want? I do hope
they come out with an upgrade to fix those problems, it really is an
excellent piece of freeware.
Much of the previous reviewers comments are correct. It definitely is best suited for more "dirty" drums overall.
For
a free program, I like it. It is very easy to use. There are not a
whole lot of parameters which makes for quick tweaking.
It has
been mostly a stable program. The only problem I have had is using it
with the VST wrapper both in Sonar 2 & 3. It doesn't remember the
settings for the project so you need to make sure to save your settings
as a preset or you will be SOL. Also, when you first open up a project
using 505 in Sonar you have to also open up CM505 and bring up your
preset or else you won't hear any sounds. Kind of a pain.
There
is a little disclaimer regarding this program as being "as is", but from
what I have heard they may be a future release with some bug fixes.
As far as support, the computer music forum's have a forum dedicated to all their "exclusive" instruments.
I
didn't even look for any literature (manual, read me, etc.). It is
really straight forward. It even shows you the routing right on the
front of the GUI. CM did a tutorial for it. I don't know if it has
been posted on their site or not.
As far as sounds go:
I
have to say that I have been using this primarily for kick drums. This
thing is very versatile for kicks and you can coax a wide variety of
sounds to suite your needs. Tight, boomy, warm, low-fi, whatever. The
bit crusher on the kick sounds great.
I don't think the rest of
the drums sound as good or are as versatile as the kicks on the 505.
The snares and claps are OK, but nothing special. Very typical electro
snares, they sound better with some external effects added.
The
hats are OK, as well. Better for closed hats than open. The OH's
sound just like the closed, but with a longer tail. Ride sounds decent,
but hardly realistic.
I haven't really messed around with the toms, but they sounded usable.
The "plop" is cool for little electro bleeps and blips.
CM-505 is a relatively new drum synth produced by Linplug for bundled distrobution with the Computer Music magazine.
I
really wanted to like this synth, because its pretty flexible and has
alot of desirable options, but I basically never came to appreciate the
sound. The sound can be characterized as: buzzy, lo-fi, quirky noisy
bits, and sometimes industrial-ish.
I'm guessing this was the
intent, since the effects included are distortion and bitcrusher - which
lend to the types of sound described above. I'm into more smooth,
and/or pseudo-acoustic sounds, but if this is your style you might love
the sounds.
What else? Hmm, quickly: the interface is very good,
nicely laid out; many, many presets are included to get you started;
and its fairly low-cpu and perfectly stable so far. My only issue is
sometimes I need to click on the pads a few times before it will emit
sound, after first opening a project containing 505.
Still, if
you are planning on buying an issue of CM just for 505, I would think
twice if you aren't into the sounds I described above. It didn't really
fit my needs or expectations.
Latest 3 reviews from a total of 3
My KVR
Abletunes release "Grand Piano Racks" Ableton Live Pack 
KVR Giveaway: Fender SLIDE Mobile Audio Interface - 10 Up For Grabs 
Resonance Sound releases "EDM & Big Room Sylenth1 Presets" 
Cableguys update VolumeShaper to v4.0.1 
Sonarworks releases Reference 3 Headphone Calibration Plug-in – High Accuracy and Low Latency Combined 
Alex Hilton announces A1StereoControl v1.1 with AAX / RTAS support for Pro Tools 
Alonso Sound releases "Joachim Garraud Sylenth1 Soundset" for LennarDigital Sylenth1 
Tritik updates tkDelay to v1.1.1 
Leap Into The Void releases "Canto Con Brio Electric" for Bazille 
Findasound releases Oriental SoloistRead All News