How to beef up your drummachines?

[FUZZZZzzzz]

Hi Guys!

I've been looking for a good way to beef up my drummachines. I've collected a few over the year which I use on a regular basis. I've tried a couple of different pedals and some seem to work and others dont (obviously). I thought a compressor could do the trick, but the normal compressor pedals dont seem to give enough result. Also, maybe something with tubes to colour the sound. Maybe a preamp of some kind. What do you guys use (if any at all?) preferably DIY

Also, I wont mind if it works on old synths as well

[anotherjim]

I think that if you only have the whole kit in a stereo mix, there isn't anything too drastic you can do. It helps to have some aux outputs that can have some of the instruments routed to such as Kick & Snare. There are too many dynamic sounds in a drum kit for any single compressor to react to sensibly, although a good solution is parallel compression so the original dynamics still get thru and the compressed version mixed back in beefs up the overall level.

I'm not sure about tube sound. I have a Korg Electribe with a pair of 12AX7 and the trouble is that when the drive is enough to colour it up, some elements get too much of it. That said, the unit has an extra pair of clean outputs but of course, the downside is you need an extra pair of mixer inputs. Then again, in Electro/Industrial genres, everything getting grunged up isn't considered a bad thing!

[FUZZZZzzzz]

Separate outputs would be probably best for beefing up the sound, but not always an option with older machines. I sometimes send them through an old mixer (tascam 464) and use it for colouring and eq.