Axon 3

What it does

A drum synth whose rhythm comes from a small network rather than a sequencer grid. Seven nodes, called neurons, sit in a ring; the centre one always fires, each connection passes pulses along, and a threshold and offset per neuron set how many pulses must arrive before it sounds. Every neuron carries its own voice, an oscillator with bend and pitch quantizing, a filtered noise section, FM and AM buses, envelopes and a click, plus ratchet and trigger probability. A mixer page adds pan, sends, a delay and the Rough Rider compressor, and each neuron can play internally, send MIDI out, or both.

In the demo

Jade starts from an initialized patch with a single hi-hat and adds one connection at a time so each relationship is audible, then runs through factory and designer patches and routes MIDI out to FAC Drum Kit while the internal voices keep playing.

Worth knowing

Patterns emerge from the network rather than being drawn, and the manual itself says straight beats are not what it is for. Playing it from a keyboard means zeroing every threshold and offset first. iPad only on iOS, with a desktop version sold separately.