Impulse: eight tuned slots for a drum pattern
Impulse is a compact drum sampler: eight slots, one key each, and a per-slot processing strip. Read the panel as eight small instruments that share only a global volume and transpose.
One key per slot, one strip per sound
Impulse assigns its eight slots to fixed keys - C3 up the white keys to C4 - so a MIDI drum pattern selects slots the way it would select pads. Every slot carries its own strip of controls: sample start, transpose with velocity and random amounts, a decay stage, a filter, a saturator, pan and volume. Nothing on one strip changes a neighbour. When slot samples are loaded, the example pattern below plays the groove through those strips.
Eight slots answer a MIDI groove one key each
Interactive MIDI example
Trigger versus gate decay
Each slot chooses how its decay stage reads the MIDI note. In Trigger mode the countdown starts at note-on and the note length is irrelevant, which suits one-shot hits: the drawn note can be a short tick while the sound rings for the full decay time. In Gate mode the decay starts at note-off, so lengthening the note holds the sample open longer - useful for cymbals or reversed material where the tail should follow the arrangement rather than a fixed time.
The example sets three different decay times (800, 400 and 200 ms) on the first three slots. Comparing them against a shared value is the quickest way to hear that decay is per-slot: shortening one hat never tightens the kick.
Per-slot colour before the shared bus
The filter and saturator sit inside the slot strip. A lowpass on the kick slot or drive on the snare slot changes only that voice, which is the opposite of putting one effect after the whole instrument. Reach for the per-slot filter first when a single hit sticks out; reach for a device on the track when the whole kit needs the same treatment.
Slots 7 and 8 can be linked so that triggering one chokes the other - the classic open/closed hat pair. The example leaves the link on; notice that the choke is a property of those two slots, not a general choke-group system.
Global controls stay global
Volume and Transpose at the panel's end affect every slot after the strips have done their work. Global transpose re-pitches all samples together, so a kit tuned around one hit will move as a unit. If only one slot needs re-tuning, use that slot's own transpose and keep the global control for whole-kit decisions.