Background & Challenge: Waslio Audio is an audio unit plugin company from Chicago, IL. Their flagship product, Waslio FM promised (and succeeded!) in making FM synthesis, a powerful but notoriously convoluted tool simple without sacrificing complexity.

While Waslio FM tested well with users, the small company had exhausted its resources and needed a way to promote the product on a minimal budget. I suggested developing freeware using their own existing code from their flagship product to increase press and web traffic while building trust with the brand.

Approach & Results: Within days of launch, web traffic increased by over 700%. The project was a success in two ways: first, Waslio’s reputation as a brand increased after users tried their freeware; second, sales of Waslio’s flagship product increased dramatically due to both increased traffic and user confidence.

User Research: To begin the process, I needed first to find areas of opportunity to pursue. I contacted eight musicians to ask about their process when producing, and other tools or products they reach for. Overwhelmingly, all musicians put emphasis on the difficulty and importance of drums; specifically the kick drum:

However, while all participants agreed on the kick being the “backbone” of every production, their individual tried-and-true methods couldn’t be more different. A particularly convoluted method used by one interviewee involved recording a low-pitched synthesizer into a sampling device, re-pitching it multiple times and layering each re-pitched version together using a compressor before recording it to the sampler once again. The process took several hours and used thousands of dollars of equipment.

While creating kick drums in my research was a very personalized process in every case, every method used by interviewees could be placed into two primary categories: sample-based and synthesis-based. The former relies on pre-recorded kick drums (either from live music or often classic, revered drum machines), a very convenient method, although limited in terms of shaping a specific sound to your liking. The latter relies on creating the sound “from scratch” so-to-speak, combining different waveforms from a synthesizer to resemble a kick drum. While much more flexible than sample-based methods, synthesizing drums from scratch comes at the cost of equipment and knowhow.

Competitor Research: Attracted to the synthesis route for its flexibility, the project would need to go this route anyway due to the constraint of using already existing code. To convert users of a sample-based workflow became a top priority, so offering a sense of immediacy was paramount to the project. In addition, offering the complex flexibility expected for those already using the synthesis-based workflow in a leaner, more specialized package is to be expected

Concept 1, Accent Matrix:
The first concept revolves around the “accent” parameter found on a variety of drum machines. Put simply, accent mimics a drummer hitting a drum harder than usual to put emphasis on particular beats, giving a more “human” feel. While on some machines, accent simply makes the sound louder, users expressed a desire for more tonal variation to add more variability. In this concept, instead of simply adding volume, users can select up to four parameters to control simultaneously on accented notes, allowing for highly variable beats without resorting to tedious methods.

UI:

Synthesis in general (and drum synthesis in particular) are inexorably linked to the 80s. While I wanted to nod to design in the 1980s, I didn’t want to go so overboard as to make the entirety of the product appear to be a throwback, so steeped in reference to imply it was a software clone of some rare product. So, I needed to find source material that referenced the past that wasn’t as done-to-death as neon, palm trees, early segmented digital typefaces, etc. My solution was a synthesis of two main sources: 80’s European car design and electronic test equipment. The former a nod to the decade as well as the product’s speed, the latter a nod to the product’s complexity.

Calling back to users’ comments that they liked how powerful our product was “under the hood”, I chose a color scheme to reference this automotive trope, modeling it after the pale greens of electroluminescent dash boards, white printing, and red/orange indicators.

While the PDL-1 was only the first of a suite of drum synths to be released together, it easily had the furthest reach. The basic process of designing the PDL-1 informed how we’d move forward with the rest, quickening the process. Within a week of release, web traffic increased by over 700% and sales of Waslio’s flagship increased proportionately.

Since release, the community of musicians using iPads as standalone instruments integrated into a larger hardware setup has increased substantially. Work has already begun on porting the PDL-1 to iOS with some special considerations to the difference in workflow tablet users have.