Drum design plays a prominent role in arranging and producing a song. While professionally-recorded sound libraries are available for editing, browsing sample packs or fiddling with expert controls in a sampler can be a barrier to creativity for some people.

DrumGAN is a technology researched and developed by Sony CSL to generate unique drum sounds using AI. Instead of relying on existing audio samples, DrumGAN allows creators to effortlessly synthesize original drum sounds from scratch by adjusting smart parameters, such as "kick-ness", "snare-ness", and "cymbal-ness".

DrumGAN's core technology is Neural Audio Synthesis, a new audio generation technology based on neural networks. Neural networks are widely used on images, to generate realistic-looking pictures of human faces, for instance but they can also be applied to audio. This research was led by Stefan Lattner and Javier Nistal in Sony CSL Paris.

Collaboration with Producer

In 2020, French hip-hop beatmaker/producer Twenty9 released the world's first AI-powered drum kit using DrumGAN.

The collaboration between DrumGAN, which is capable of generating a vast amount of samples, and Twenty9, an outstanding and experienced producer in sound creation, has resulted in a timeless drum kit.

The AI Drum Kit, by Twenty9 and Sony CSL

TechHub Web : https://techhub.developer.sony.com/drumgan/
#TechHub is a website that showcases some of Sony Group Companies' research accomplishments.