With the 80-button Ableton Push coming out this year, we’ve reached a new level of controller complexity, and you can do more on the fly than ever before. But do you remember the simpler days when all you needed was a synthetic kick, snare, and hi-hat? In the end, you could have 1000 sounds at your fingertips and you’d still come back to the basic tenets of beatmaking. And no one has a better appreciation of the old paradigm than Stones Throw’s master of old school boogie DâM-FunK.Last year, the musician gave his fans the ability to funk like he does with the Dam Drum, a tiny, simple drum machine with four buttons, each assigned to a sound hand-selected by DâM-FunK. Those bad boys sold out so quickly that Stones Throw has decided to do a second run, but with a few upgrades this time.The Dam Drum 2.0 is a bit sleeker than its predecessor and contains brand new sounds inspired by the Roland R70, as well as one bass tone based on the Juno 106. Like the original, you can alter the pitch of two of the sounds, create loops on a metronome, and assign entire patterns to each button that you can switch between seamlessly.A couple of little details that will appeal to any beat nuts out there: When you record a loop it will also record any pitch automation, there’s an option to reverse all the sounds, and you can adjust the tempo with a tap button.It may look limited, and it is, and that’s what makes it so great.@ImYourKid
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