Recording - December 2019 - 42

REVIEW

IK Multimedia UNO Drum:
Beat Creation Station
A groovy, portable, unique-sounding
drum machine fresh from Italy
with both analog and digital sounds
at a stellar price
REVIEW BY PAUL VNUK JR.

n our December 2018 issue, Mike Metlay introduced readers to the first hardware synth from IK
Multimedia: a super-portable, all-analog monophonic synthesizer called UNO Synth.
Now, one year later, it's my pleasure to introduce
you to the second product in the IK Multimedia UNO
line (drum roll, please): UNO Drum!
UNO Drum, like UNO Synth, is a monophonic
device, but unlike its all-analog synth sibling, UNO
Drum is a hybrid box with both true analog and
PCM-based samples onboard.
UNO Drum and UNO Synth are twins. They're both
housed in the same 10.1" x 8.9" x 1.93" enclosure.
Like UNO Synth, UNO Drum can be battery powered (about three hours with four AAA batteries), or
bus-powered with an included USB cable that attaches to a Micro-B USB port on the back of the unit. This
same cable can also handle MIDI transfer, but if you
prefer, there's a pair of 2.5mm minijacks for attaching breakout cables with old-school 5-pin MIDI I/O.
Audio I/O is also on the back of the box. You get a
pair of 3.5mm (1/8") mono jacks comprising a dual
function mono/headphone output, and an input that
allows external sources to be heard and processed
through UNO Drum.

Touch and Turn

The UNO drum makes use of four endless rotary encoders
across the top for parameter adjustments, a stepped encoder for
data selection (sounds, kits, and patterns), and a pair of knobs
for setting tempo and master volume.
Additional data selection, further tweaking, and most importantly, playing sounds and programming grooves, all happen on the flat textured surface of UNO Drum. While it may
look like a simple collection of membrane pads and buttons,
42 RECORDING December 2019

the surface is actually a capacitance-sensing touch surface
just like UNO Synth. It's firm and solid enough to take a literal pounding, yet sensitive enough for fast triggering. I was
happily surprised that mistriggering on adjacent pads was a
non-issue in my case.

Tones

UNO Drum contains twelve pads laid out as Kick 1, Kick 2,
Snare, Closed HH (hi-hat), Open HH, Clap, Tom 1, Tom 2, Rim,
Cowbell, Ride, and Cymbal. Despite having twelve pads, it offers
eleven-note polyphony; the open and closed hi-hat share a voice.
Drum pads can be loaded with a variety of sounds. The
bottom row (Kick through Clap) each have a choice of one
true analog or four digital PCM samples. The top row (Tom
1 through Cymbal) allows a selection of five digital PCM
samples each. While PCM-based, many of these sounds are
vintage-flavored 12-bit samples, although they all play back
through a 32-bit playback engine.

Level, Tune, Snap, Decay, Filter, and Sweep

All sounds can be tweaked for tuning and decay, and the
analog snares and kicks have additional control options; the
analog snare has 'Snap' and lowpass filtered noise controls,
and Kick 2 also has a Snap control while Kick 1 gets Snap
and sweep, as well as the added tonal color of FM (frequency
modulation) with amount and tune controls. 100 tweaked kits
can be stored in memory.

Sequence

Along the bottom of the control surface are sixteen step buttons with four banks, for a total of 64 possible steps. Drum
patterns can be step-written or played in real time and stored
in 100 preset locations. Patterns can then be chained in Songs
mode, although the unit only holds a single song.

Recording - December 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - December 2019