D16 Drumazon 2 Review: The 909 With a Mixing Desk Attached

June 1, 2025

The 909, With A Mixing Desk Attached

The TR-909 has been holding up house and techno since the mid-80s, and a working original now changes hands for serious money. D16's Drumazon was already one of the most respected 909s in software. Version 2 keeps the drums and builds a small studio around them: channel strips, two effects buses, a master section and a much better sequencer.

D16 Drumazon 2 TR-909 drum machine plugin interface

What It Is

Drumazon 2 is a TR-909 emulation that runs as a plugin in your DAW. It covers all 11 of the original's voices: kick, snare, low, mid and high toms, rimshot, clap, closed and open hats, crash and ride. Every voice is editable, and D16 have built the rest of the interface around getting those voices mixed and sequenced without leaving the plugin. For the backstory on why the 909 matters, see our History of Techno Part II.

The Sound And The Architecture

The kick is the reason most people buy a 909, and Drumazon's has that tight, pitched thump with a click on top that cuts through a club system without needing much help. The snare and clap snap, the toms have that slightly synthetic boing, and the hats and cymbals sizzle across the top of a groove. Turn up the tune and decay on the kick and it gets longer and boomier; pull them back and it's all punch.

The top half of the interface switches between four views: the synth panel, the channel strips, the trigger outputs and the master section. The sequencer sits permanently along the bottom.

Channel Strips

Each instrument gets its own strip with high-cut and low-cut filters, a two-band parametric EQ and a compressor with optional look-ahead, plus panning and stereo spread. Each strip can feed either of two effects buses or go straight to the master. In practice you can do most of the kick-and-hats tidying you'd normally do with DAW inserts inside the plugin itself.

D16 Drumazon 2 channel strip and mixer view

Effects Buses And Master

The two buses have five slots each, drawing on eight algorithms: bitcrusher, distortion, reverb, delay, chorus, dynamics, EQ and filter. The master section has a three-band multiband compressor followed by a limiter with an optional soft clip, which is useful for gluing the kit together and adding a bit of weight.

D16 Drumazon 2 master section with multiband compressor and limiter

Trigger Outs

The original 909 had trigger outputs for firing external gear. Drumazon 2 models these as short audible pulses on up to three instruments, so you can route them out of your DAW to hardware that accepts audio triggers, or just use the clicks as extra percussion.

Sequencer

Accented and normal steps with an optional global accent boost, per-step flams and substeps for rolls, a tap function for recording grooves live, and a randomiser. Patterns can be triggered from MIDI notes, MIDI CC or the interface, and dragged into your DAW as MIDI. There are over 1,000 factory presets and patterns to start from.

What It's Good At

Four-to-the-floor music, mainly. If you want a 909 that sounds right straight out of the box and can be mixed and processed without a stack of inserts, it's hard to beat. D16 have also kept it up to date, with native Apple Silicon support and macOS 26 on their compatibility list, which isn't something every older drum plugin can claim.

Where It Falls Short

It's a 909 and nothing else, by design, so if you want a broader palette you'll be layering it with something else. The view switching means you can't see the synth panel, mixer and master all at once, which slows things down on a small screen. And there's no standalone version, so you need a DAW open to use it.

Who It's For

House, techno, trance and acid producers who want the real 909 character with modern mixing built in. Pair it with D16's Phoscyon 2 and you've got the classic acid house rig without the second-hand prices. If you need a do-everything drum sampler, look elsewhere.

Specifications

Version 2.0.7
Emulation of all 11 TR-909 voices
Per-instrument strips: high-cut and low-cut filters, two-band parametric EQ, compressor with look-ahead
Two effects buses with five slots each, eight effect types
Master section: three-band multiband compressor and limiter with soft clip
Audible trigger outputs on up to three instruments
Sequencer with flams, substeps, accents, tap recording, randomiser and drag-and-drop MIDI export
Over 1,000 factory presets and patterns
Mac: Mac OS X 10.13 to macOS 26, Intel or Apple Silicon. VST2, VST3, AU and AAX, 64-bit hosts only
Windows: Windows 7 or newer, Intel or AMD. VST2, VST3 and AAX
Plugin only, needs a host. 44.1kHz sample rate or higher