Pro-Drum

Pro-Drum is a drum machine that enables you to write some backing drum tracks on the Commodore 64. There are two modes (press F1 to switch between the modes): one for creating drum patterns (on two channels) and one for putting the patterns together to actually make the drum tracks.

This neat little drum machine was released by Dutch-USA Team in 1988. The interface is very well done and there’s really no need for a manual to create some beautiful drum tracks within minutes. Of course, having only two channels at your disposal is a bit of a drag but what can you do? Also, it would have been nice to label the steps (1,2,3, etc), makes it a tad easier when editing a pattern.


In the video above, two similar drum sequences (00 and 01) are created in edit sequences mode (sorry about the lack of sound during the tedious editing process of the 2 patterns but it is well worth the wait) and then assembled into a drum track (in the order 00, 01, 00) within the edit drum track mode. As you can tell, I am a big fan of the cowbell and the hand clap.

There is a Pro-Drum 1, 2 and 3 for our beloved C64. Versions 1 and 2 are very similar and differ only by the drum samples you can play with. Version 3 looks much different and I have not been able to figure out how it works ... yet.