Sampleson Haptic Perc

Trigger physically modelled percussion sounds with your fingers.

Sampleson seem to have a bit of a thing for virtual instruments with a slightly quirky streak. That’s certainly true of Haptic Perc. Under the hood, this uses physical modelling to create percussion sounds and provides a modest number of preset starting points organised into Bars, Membranes and Metallic categories and that include a conga, bongo, pot, zurdo, metal bar, triangle and a water tube, among a few others. As shown in the screenshot, the user then has a number of parameters they can change to adjust the sound created by the modelling. When purchased, Perc (which works with AU and VST3 hosts) is supplied in two forms; a ‘synth’ and an effects plug‑in. With the former, you can simply insert it as a virtual instrument and trigger the selected sound via your MIDI keyboard. The physically modelled sound then responds to MIDI velocity dynamics (although not to pitch as far as I could tell) and is playable in a standard fashion.

That epic drum solo played with two fingers on your desktop can now become an actual percussion part.

Hit It!

So far, so normal. However, the effects plug‑in version is intended to be used as an insert or send effect on an audio channel and, in this configuration, it’s the incoming audio that then triggers the physical model. That audio can, of course, be any sound, be it pre‑recorded or played live... so, any combination of striking one object with another object can be used to generate a percussion performance with Haptic Perc. This is actually a lot of fun and the triggering seems to be both accurate and sensitive. That epic drum solo played with two fingers on your desktop can now become an actual percussion part thanks to Haptic Perc’s modelling engine.

Used in this mode, the UI includes a gate and gain control combination to adjust the sensitivity of the triggering. The other controls — Decay, Atten, Tuning, Damp and Strike — allow you to adjust the tonal character, pitch and envelope of the sound generated. There is plenty of scope here to take the preset sounds in different directions. You also get a decent reverb and a stereo width option.

Interestingly, in this ‘effect’ mode, the nature of the incoming sound does seem to interact with the model, both in terms of its tonal properties and pitch. Therefore, if you use different combinations of objects to hit as the input trigger, the engine responds somewhat differently. This is particularly obvious if you feed it with, for example, a conventional drum loop, where the kick and snare create a different response within Haptic Perc’s modelling. This is rather cool and a very interesting way to create a totally different sonic version of a drum part while retaining the same rhythmic feel. If you use Haptic Perc on an effect send, you can then blend the two sounds together in some interesting ways. That said, a wet/dry control within the UI might be a convenient addition at some stage.

Conclusion

Given the relatively modest cost, you are getting a physically‑based synth for percussion sounds that offers three different triggering approaches — from MIDI, by ‘finger drumming’ or pre‑recorded audio (such as a drum loop) — all of which can produce useful results. Yes, Haptic Perc is perhaps something of a ‘nice to have’ product, but it’s cool, quirky and an interesting bit of music technology. It will be interesting to see if Sampleson take the engine further and expand upon the range of sounds the engine can generate. However, if your drumming skills go no further than two fingers on a desktop, a pen on an empty beer bottle, or some other pair of household objects brought together in a suitably rhythmic way, Haptic Perc will let you add that to your musical projects in a rather neat fashion.