Vermona DRM

via this Reverb listing

"I had this beautiful drum machine shipped over from Bulgaria in 2023 and it’s likely the only original DRM in this good of condition in the US. Has the original leather briefcase that goes with it as well.

There’s not much content on this machine online (and there are very few left in good condition) so I just uploaded a demo/jam on YouTube (see below). And here’s my elevator pitch: The 1987 Vermona DRM is THE drum machine to buy if you want the analog sounds of the drum machines from the 70’s combined with the sequencing control of drum machine’s introduced in the 80’s. The DRM was Vermona’s answer to Roland’s 808. It has a 32 step sequencer, with all 32 steps visible and controllable at once for any one of the 12 analog drum sounds, which is incredible and a very unique/rare workflow. On top of that each sound has a dedicated volume control on a fader which makes it super interactive and quick, therefore being great for performance as well.

I’ve spent the past couple years programming drums on either this or my Elektron Syntakt. There’s more flexiblity on the Syntakt obviously but I still could never get my Syntakt to sound as “analog” as the DRM. Even with the analog circuits on the Syntakt, nothing sounded as good in a mix as the DRM.

And it just looks so cool.

I’m selling both the DRM and the Syntakt because I’m ready for a change, specifically wanting to do more with live drums.

Only 'negative' note with the DRM is that I could never figure out how to get the MIDI to work. I have the latest version eprom chips (ver 10) installed but it still always acted weird when I tried to input MIDI clock. Could be my mistake but it also could be an issue with the MIDI circuitry, not sure. Oh and the “cymbal” circuit likely needs a recap as it doesn’t produce sound all of the time. This is a recent development but hasn’t bothered me because I didn’t use the cymbal sound much anyway since I prefer the sound of the open hi-hat."