I grew up listening to a lot of 80s music, the Simmons drum sound was preeminent and was a huge
part of the sound. The SDS-V was mostly analog, a secret tool the make some drum layering with
real drums or drum machines like the Linn LM-1 or DMX…the clever design allows a great range of
drum sounds from real sounding drums to sci-fi and experimental sounds.
Lots of real drummers praise the Simmons Kits, even today! More recently the electronic scene has
also embraced again analog and the Simmons drums are highly praised. The special sample based
hihat and cymbals are unique and you will discover why in this manual.
The coolest thing was that raw analog character and the awesome punch the brains delivered. All of
these have been studied and I have tried to reproduce accurately the sound generation. I think the
result is pretty nice, so let’s bring back the Simmons sound together! VSDSX gives you even more
control over the sound generation than the real Simmons brains
.
It is based on the SDS-V but also mixes some features from SDS3, SDS7, and SDS1.
This emulation is based on reverse engineering and old datasheets; it uses a C++ custom core with
modeled Analog circuitry, Oscillators, Counters, OPAMPs & Filters.
Since Version 2.0 a new CLAP voice has been added, closely based on the mighty Simmons Digital
ClapTrap.
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Thanks to all the nice people that started to use VSDSX and support my projects and to proud
owners of original Simmons Units who have sent me some of their lovely machine.
