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Elsita-V Is A FREE Vintage USSR Drum Machine VST/AU Plugin

By 11 Comments3 Mins Read
Elsita-V by Digital Systemic Emulations

Digital Systemic Emulations has released Elsita-V, a freeware emulation of a vintage drum machine in VST, VST3, and AU plugin formats for digital audio workstation software on PC and Mac.

Elsita-V is a virtual emulation of the RMIF Elsita analog drum machine, which was manufactured in the USSR until 1991. The instrument features a rather barebones analog drum synthesis engine reminiscent of the first electronic drum instruments from the 1970s. It sounds similar to early Simmons electronic drum models, as well as the Lell UDS drum module, which is featured in our free BPB Mini Analogue Collection sample pack.

See also: BPB Cassette Drums – Free Drum Machine VST/AU Plugin

The instrument features four drum channels with identical controls but slightly different sound properties. This is indicated by the plugin’s color scheme, which uses the white color for channels 1 and 3 and a yellow shade for channels 2 and 4. Speaking of the user interface, the labels are printed in a Cyrillic font that fully resembles the visual style of the original instrument. All four channels feature a switch for selecting the tone or the noise oscillator. Additionally, the user can adjust the volume, filter cutoff, pitch, and decay time parameters for each drum channel individually.

As for the sound, Elsita-V is a fun little tool for those whole enjoy using old electronic drum modules. Its sound palette is very limited, but there’s definitely some fun to be had with automating the parameters to add variation to drum grooves. In addition to the virtual instrument, the developer has also included a set of drum sampled that were captured from the hardware RMIF Elsita drum machine.

YouTube video

Elsita-V is available in VST, VST3, and AU plugin for both PC and Mac. The plugin was developed using SynthEdit, so I was somewhat surprised to see that all these different plugin formats are supported. Apparently, SynthEdit has come a long way, and I simply wasn’t paying attention. Back in the day, SynthEdit could only export 32-bit VST plugins for Windows. I tested Elsita-V in a 64-bit plugin host on Windows, and it worked just fine.

More info: Elsita-V (7.57 MB download size, ZIP archive, 32-bit & 64-bit VST/VST3/AU plugin format for Windows & macOS)

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Tomislav is a music producer and sound designer from Belgrade, Serbia. He is also the founder and editor-in-chief at Bedroom Producers Blog.

11 Comments

  1. MRG

     on

    Admit it, you like your drum sound to go Pew, Pff, Pok, Tss and Tschak.
    A perfect companion to Hexagon ’85 and the Tromine range from Marvin Pavilion, Tactile Sounds TS-808 or Third Harmonic Studios EXD-80. Which is probably the highest praise in my book.

    Reply

    • Pete

       on

      I was so sad when I migrated to a 64-bit Windows 10 machine and discovered that Tromine GT (the 808 emulator) no longer worked in Reaper. (Tromine and Tromine Z still work, however.)

      Reply

      • Tomislav Zlatic

         on

        Yes, same with the old Variety Of Sound plugins which were among my favorites. I still keep a 32-bit audio editor installed just so that I could use these plugins for rendering.

        Reply

        • synthicide

           on

          you don’t have Jbridge?!?
          I held off going to 64bit because of VOS, so I simply installed Jbridge and it works perfectly.
          I still always use VOS plugs on everything.

          Reply

          • Tomislav Zlatic

             on

            For some reason, I never purchased jBridge. That’s indeed quite silly because I do love a bunch of old 32-bit plugins. Thanks for the reminder, I’ll test it in my DAW and purchase it if it works well.

            Reply

          • MRG

             on

            Ah, bridges.
            Reaper has one integrated. Sonar had/might still have their BitBridge technology. Cubase used to have one, but Steinberg is literally burning them… and VST2. You maniacs!
            jBridge was mentioned. DDMF is doing one called Bridgewize.
            Any other?

            Reply

  2. Pete

     on

    Since it’s an emulation of a Soviet electronic product, is there a control to make it glitch out randomly and only start working again if you hit it? I’m thinking a MIDI note outside its range with velocity greater than 96 would do the trick. :)

    (My wife, who’s from the Baltics, used to work for an aerospace company in Los Angeles that employed a number of Soviet-trained engineers. They were very good, but they had to be reminded not to hit things to make them work.)

    Reply
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