MATRIXSYNTH: Cactus DesertDrums


Thursday, April 02, 2009

Cactus DesertDrums


via this auction

"Cactus Desert Drums electronic synth drum brain - a very rare UK-designed electronic drum module from the '80s. There's not much information available about this, but I believe it was manufactured in the UK in the '80s in competition with companies like Simmons. Like the Simmons SDSV, it's a modular design - it has 5 instruments fitted, and you can insert up to 5 extra cards - one has been added here. There are 10 trigger inputs and a separate output for each instrument plus a stereo mix output. Each instrument has a range of controls such as pitch, decay and filter, and there's a headphone socket and a digital interface socket of some kind. It's big, heavy, fairly battered and has wooden end cheeks.

It's sort of working - each instrument makes a sound when triggered, and all the knobs seem to do something. I triggered it using a drum machine, but you can use pads, clicks from tape, whatever. The sounds are a bit odd - they should be Bass, Snare, Tom 1, Tom 2, Tom 3 and Digital Tom, but they're actually more like a white noise splash, a thump, a squeak, an orchestral hit, a clank and and a clap. Obviously the sound chips have been modified - I'm not sure whether they are compatible with Simmons chips. So it does make a wide variety of weird noises, but perhaps not what you would expect. No substitute for a modern digital drum kit then, but possibly useful for weird sounds, modification, spares for another Cactus kit, or experimentation."
You can find some specs and an additional image on sequencer.de

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