Roland’s drum design is driven “by drummers, for drummers.” This is obvious in their sound, look, feel and playability, but less obvious in the technology behind the sounds, namely, COSM®. Short for Composite Object Sound Modeling, COSM makes it possible for drummers to create and edit sounds using “real life” parameters. What a great idea. We don’t have to learn much more than a few button pushes to enter the world of cutting-edge electronic drums. A derivative of COSM, called Variable Drum Modeling (Modeling for short), is found in the TD-10 and TD-8 drum modules. Modeling allows us to use icons, or pictures to do most of the editing. You’ll see how ingenious this is a bit later.

COSM and the V-Drums
Of the three current drum modules—the TD-10 (V-Session), TD-8 (V-Stage) and TD-6 (V-Club®)—the top of the line TD-10 makes the most extensive use of COSM. The TD-8’s COSM use draws from a sub-set of the TD-10’s modeling parameters; with the exception of button pushes, the TD-8’s COSM editing is nearly the same as the TD-10, but with pared down editing parameters such as “shell depth” and “EQ”. Being designed after the TD-10, the TD-8 incorporates many of the software and sound enhancements of the TDW-1 expanded TD-10—including “pitch bend” via the FD-7 hi-hat controller—making it extremely powerful. The TD-6, although benefiting from COSM, is technically not a modeling drum module. But, if you’ve played the V-Club Set you can certainly hear the drum modeling influence, as the TD-6 sounds incredible—much better than its low price would suggest.

Beyond Sampling…
COSM technology is much more advanced than plain old sampling. With sampling, any edits made will affect the entire sample. This isn’t very sophisticated. For instance, if you change the pitch of a sampled snare drum, every aspect of that snare sound changes—attack, snare buzz, overtones, etc.—making it unrecognizable after as little as a fourth of an octave pitch change! With COSM technology, pitch changes of four octaves or more are possible without changing the original sound’s characteristics. That’s because modeling can change just the specific part of the sound, if needed, leaving the others alone. All this editing power is invisible to the user. Take a V-Edit snare, drop the pitch two octaves and you’ll hear COSM at work. Modeling rocks!

Try Some V-Editing
I meet a lot of drummers that never venture into the editing of their V-Drums® at all, and this is fine. V-Drums sound GREAT right out of the box, because the factory drum kits are programmed by some of the best professional drummers in the business. But even if you haven’t done any editing, read on to see how COSM makes it simple to create your own custom set. Remember, you can always retrieve the factory sounds.

Editing COSM drum sounds is very easy and follows the natural path of the acoustic world “audio chain”:

• Creating a drum including the shell, head, drum size and more.
• Miking the drum and placing it in a room to create the “ambient” sound.
• Plugging it into a control room for mixing, compression, EQ and effects.

Let’s take a look at some of the editing subtleties within these three steps in the audio chain.

After choosing a drum we like from the 1,286 sounds on the expanded TD-10, we enter Edit mode and the fun begins. You can choose from wood, steel, or brass shells for the snare (editing parameter to the TD-10, preset sound on TD-8). Keep in mind these aren’t three different samples, rather the sound’s “model” is altered to match how this shell change would sound in the acoustic world (see Fig. 1).

Figure 1

Accomplished, professional drummers worked with design engineers to make sure all the sounds are as true to life as possible. Some of the additional parameters that can be changed when designing a drum kit on the TD-10 & TD-8 are “shell depth”, “tuning”, “head type” (clear, coated or pinstripe), “snare tension” (off & various tightness) and “muffling”. Muffling is one of my favorites. Roland has built in an “endless roll of duct tape” in both sound modules. You can choose from no muffling, one or two pieces of duct tape or one of two sizes of doughnut-style muffling rings. Like I said earlier, all the editing is done with acoustic drum parameters (see Fig. 2 & Fig. 3).

Figure 2
Figure 3

The next step in the audio chain is the “studio.” Here, a room is created to add ambience to the drums. Ambience is what helps the sound of the drum set meld together into one cohesive instrument. Both the TD-10 & TD-8 have many settings for “room type”, including “garage” and “theater”, my favorite (see Fig. 4 & Fig. 5). Each of the room types can be made different sizes, and the wall covering can be changed to further color the sound of the room!

Figure 4
Figure 5

The last stop in the audio chain is the “control room.” While the TD-10 & TD-8 both have mixing and EQ, the TD-10 also has compression as well as an effects section (see Fig. 6). This is the easiest to understand COSM area, as most of us have experienced these types of sound control in the acoustic world.

Figure 6

Whether you just play the factory Patches or create your own custom kits, COSM brings the TD-Series drum modules to life using real world parameters. They’re easy to use, sound great and enhance your practice, live performance and recording in ways your acoustic drums cannot. Dig in and unleash the power of COSM.