RU-8

A drum machine you play, not program: pads that carry their own steps, kits that change the whole sound. $25 · Standalone app, VST3 and AU instrument on macOS; standalone app and VST3 on Windows

Open RU-8, press play, and you have a groove. Pick a kit and the whole machine changes its sound; pick a set and only the rhythm changes. Every pad is a drum synthesized inside RU-8 with its own pattern of steps, so you shape a beat pad by pad, by hand, and drag it into your DAW as MIDI when it is right. Strong without being pushed, clean by default.

On the panel

Cream

The default face. The pad bed in the middle, the channel strip for the selected pad on the left, SPACE and ECHO on the right, the readout on top.

Night

The same machine in the dark: same sound, the panel you like to look at.

Powder

Powder: a soft, cool face for the same controls.

Pink

Pink: a warm face for the same controls.

Rear panel

Turn the machine around: COLOR (tape, dust and crush), the MIDI note map and the outputs.

Play first, program later

Press play and RU-8 runs a full rhythm from the start. A and B switch on the next bar, FILL drops a fill on the next bar, and AUTO plays A, a fill, B and a fill by itself, so you can jam over it before you touch a single step.

Pads that carry their own steps

Each pad holds its own pattern of steps, so the kick, the snare and the hats are written separately and layered on the grid. Notes from your DAW or a controller play the pads at the same time as the sequencer, with velocity.

Kits bring the character, sets bring the rhythm

Pick a kit and the whole machine changes its sound: the drums, and the settings of SPACE, ECHO and GLUE that go with them. Pick a set and only the rhythm changes. Any set plays on any kit, so a trap rhythm on a lo-fi kit is a valid sound. Loading either one makes the knobs glide to their new values.

Drums made inside, not played back

Every sound is synthesized by RU-8 itself, so tune, decay and level reshape the drum rather than stretch a recording. SPACE is an algorithmic reverb with ROOM, PLATE and HALL; ECHO is a tempo-synced ping-pong delay. Every pad has its own send to each, so the snare can sit in the room while the kick stays dry.

Clean by default

A gentle glue on the bus and a safety limiter at −1 dBFS, nothing more. Character that needs tape saturation, dust or bit reduction comes from a kit’s COLOR on the rear panel, and most kits leave it off.

An interface you can read

One panel, no hidden pages: the pad bed, the channel strip of the selected pad and the effects all in view. The panel scales up for large screens, “?” opens help as notes over the panel, and the moods change only the colours.

Take the rhythm with you

Drag the selected pad’s pattern, or the whole drum, from the panel onto a track in your DAW as a MIDI clip: standard MIDI, channel 10, with the swing written into the timing. Inside a host the steps follow the host’s timeline, so the same project plays and bounces the same way every time.

The controls

• KIT — Large readout with arrows. Loading a kit moves its channel, SPACE, ECHO and GLUE values; the knobs glide.
• SET — Small readout with arrows. Loads both sections, the tempo, the swing and the echo time, and lands on the next bar while playing.
• A · B · FILL · AUTO — Switch section, play a fill, or let RU-8 arrange them.
• TEMPO · SWING · HUMAN — Tempo (standalone; the plug-in follows the host), swing, and a little human timing and level.
• GLUE · VOLUME — Bus compressor and master volume, before the −1 dBFS limiter.
• Channel strip — For the selected pad: level, tune, decay, pan, and its sends to SPACE and ECHO, plus mute and solo.
• SPACE — ROOM, PLATE or HALL, with size, damping, pre-delay and return.
• ECHO — Tempo-synced ping-pong: note value, feedback, tone and return.
• COLOR (rear) — TAPE, DUST and CRUSH, set per kit.
• MIDI — Host notes and controllers play the pads; patterns drag out as MIDI clips.
• Moods — Cream, Night, Powder and Pink. Colour only.

Drag a knob up or down; double-click returns it to the value of the kit or set that is loaded now. “?” opens help over the panel.

Price and download

$25. Includes 2 years of updates; the version you have keeps working forever. No licence key to type: install it on your own computers and play.

macOS 11 or later (Apple Silicon and Intel) · Windows, 64-bit · Standalone app, VST3 and AU instrument on macOS; standalone app and VST3 on Windows · One licence, your own computers, personal and commercial use · 2 years of free updates · Paid through Lemon Squeezy in US dollars; refunds: subverselab.com/refunds

Browser tools for producers

• Arrangement GPS — A genre-aware arrangement starting point you can rebuild in your DAW.
• Sensei Drum Generator — 8-bar MIDI drum patterns in 22 genre styles, exported as MIDI.
• Mix Check — LUFS, sample peak and spectrum of your mix, against a reference.
• Splitter — Stems, vocal removal and key/BPM analysis in the browser.
• Visualizer — Song and cover into a 1080p YouTube video.
• SynthPulse — 16-step synth patterns, exported as MIDI.
• Time & Frequency Sync — BPM-synced delay and reverb times, key-to-Hz and repitch math.