The Pearl Syncussion SY-1 is an extremely rare analogue drum synthesizer
originally manufactured in 1979 by Pearl Musical Instruments. This freaky
little box is capable of producing a huge palette of percussive sounds,
powerful kicks and experimental sound effects which carry a vintage sound
inherent to its unique drum synthesis methods and extremely raw sounding
oscillators!. After finally getting our hands on one of these rare instruments
we just knew we had to sample it!.
Syncussion Drums by Wave Alchemy captures the Pearl Syncussion’s unique
sonic character by offering no less than 1885 carefully recorded 24-bit drum
samples.
Sampling the Syncussion
Our goal was to record a versatile collection of drum hits from one of the
rarest and most powerful drum synths ever made…
We worked extremely hard to capture the raw sound of the Syncussion SY-1 by
recording both a huge selection of dry/unprocessed drum hits as well as a
variety of round robin samples and velocity variations.
On top of this we recorded a wealth of sounds directly through our boutique
selection of analogue outboard processors and high-end pre-amps.
Additionally, a number of sounds were re-sampled through our EMU SP-12 Turbo
to obtain a more lo-fi and gritty sound.
Last but by no means least we visited the world of analogue tape (a Wave
Alchemy first) by recording over 800 drum hits to 1/4” tape via a Studer
A80 Mk1 tape machine!