Over 100 studio quality drum samples
The Access Virus B, a cornerstone of late '90s and early 2000s electronic music, is renowned for its lush pads, searing leads, and unmistakable "ballsy, punchy" character . While it's celebrated as a quintessential virtual analog synth, its capabilities extend far beyond basses and melodies, reaching into the realm of percussive synthesis. For the musician willing to delve into its architecture, the Virus B is a surprisingly potent and flexible drum synth, capable of producing everything from thumping kicks to complex, rhythmic textures entirely through synthesis, with no samples in sight .
The foundation of the Virus B's drum-synthesis potential lies in its robust sound engine. This hardware revision of the original Virus A upped the ante with a more powerful DSP, 24-voice polyphony, and crucially, a third oscillator per voice . It features three audio oscillators plus a dedicated sub-oscillator, a noise generator, two multi-mode filters, three LFOs, two envelopes, and a versatile saturation stage . This toolkit is more than adequate for sculpting the transient pops, body, and decay of synthetic drums. A firmware update to OS4 further enriched its capabilities, making it an even more compelling tool for sound design . The Virus achieves its signature "tight, fat sound" through 24-bit converters and a "characteristic dark tone colour," partly due to its oscillators having less high-frequency content than some competitors, a trait that can lend drums a certain weight and punch .
To understand how to create drums on the Virus B, it's helpful to think like a sound designer building each sound from the ground up. A kick drum, for instance, is typically a combination of a low-frequency oscillator (LFO) or an oscillator with a quick, sharp pitch envelope—often called a "pitch drop"—to create the initial thump, layered with a noise burst for the attack of the beater. The filters and the saturation stage, which offers tube and distortion effects, are then used to shape the body and add grit . A snare drum might begin with a burst of noise from the noise generator, shaped by an amplifier envelope for a quick attack and medium decay. This could be layered with a short, detuned oscillator hit to add a tonal "crack." The twin multi-mode filters are then crucial for carving out the right frequency balance, with one filter perhaps handling the body of the sound and another shaping the noisy top end . For hi-hats and cymbals, the noise generator becomes the star, shaped by very fast envelopes and filtered by a high-pass filter to achieve that metallic, airy quality. Ring modulation, available within the oscillator section, can also be used to generate complex, clangorous tones perfect for more metallic or industrial percussion .
The user community has long explored these very techniques. On forums, users confirm that the Virus B is more than capable of producing "drum patches (either single shot and rhythms)" entirely through its synthesis engine . While it doesn't come pre-loaded with traditional "drum kits" like a ROMpler, it includes numerous patches that demonstrate synthesized drum and percussion sounds . This approach requires a different mindset: instead of selecting a pre-made sample, you are crafting the sound itself. This philosophy extends to emulating classic drum machines. For example, a detailed user guide from the Infekted.org forum explains how to coax a convincing Roland TB-303-style bassline out of a Virus, a process involving a single sawtooth oscillator, two filters in series with high resonance, and careful envelope shaping . The same principles can be applied to emulate the synthetic kicks and snares of a 606, 707, or 808, using the Virus's oscillators, noise, and filters to approximate those analog circuits.
The Virus B's architecture offers further depth for complex percussion. Its extensive modulation matrix, featuring 27 sources and 90 destinations, allows for intricate, evolving drum sounds . For instance, an LFO could be modulating the filter cutoff to create a rolling, timpani-like effect, or velocity could be routed to control the decay of a snare, making it respond dynamically to how hard you play . The arpeggiator, which can function across all 16 multi-timbral parts after the OS4 update, can also be a powerful tool for generating rhythmic sequences and patterns using your synthesized percussion sounds . This transforms the Virus B from a mere sound module into a rhythmic hub.
This approach stands in stark contrast to a machine like the Boss DR-880 Dr. Rhythm [previous article]. The DR-880 is a dedicated groovebox, filled with sampled acoustic and electronic drum kits and designed for quick pattern-based composition with its EZ Compose feature. It offers a massive library of realistic, ready-to-play sounds. The Virus B, on the other hand, is a blank canvas. It offers no pre-loaded drum kits . Its strength is not in providing instant, realistic drum sounds, but in offering the tools to synthesize utterly unique and personal percussion. You won't find a sampled acoustic kick, but you can spend an afternoon designing a kick drum that sounds like no other. This makes the Virus B a more challenging, but potentially more rewarding, tool for the dedicated sound designer. Its drum sounds are not found; they are created. The extensive parameter list in its manual, covering everything from oscillator waveshape to filter routing and saturation types, is an invitation to explore . It's a machine where the process of synthesis is as important as the final beat, offering a path to a truly signature rhythmic sound that is entirely your own.
