Cherry Audio KR-55C – A Plus B Equals C!
KORG's classic preset drum machine gets the Cherry Audio treatment
4,3 / 5,0 | It might not have the gravitas of its Roland counterparts, but the KORG KR-55 was used on many influential records of the day. Now you can rediscover it thanks to Cherry Audio and the KR-55C.
Mention the KORG KR-55 to me and I’m instantly transported to one of two places. New York City, courtesy of Joe Jackson’s “Steppin’ Out” or Basildon, Essex thanks to Depeche Mode. Why? Here’s why…
And…
Both were hugely influential to teenage me back in the day and that drum sound, so distinctive because it wasn’t the ubiquitous Roland or Linn sound we were being bombarded with, really stood out. To me, it almost sounded like how a British drum machine would sound. It was clean, crisp, inoffensive and utilitarian.
And yet it was, as most things were back then, completely and totally Japanese. But such was its connection with British bands like Depeche Mode, the impression stuck. And now we can all wallow in the glorious nostalgia of this oft-overlooked rhythm unit thanks to the brilliant people at Cherry Audio.
The Cherry Audio KR-55C
Their KR-55C takes the KR-55A and KR-55B, the latter being an upgrade on the first, and chucks them all, lock stock and smoking hand claps, into a drum machine that never was, but now is! But of course, with this being 2025 and having Cherry Audio at the helm, the ‘C’ variant is so much more than the sum of its parts.
All the original presets, intros and fills are here from the original hardware units, plus a further 200 created specifically for the KR-55C. But now we have complete control over each sound. the Instrument Edit screen allows for tweaking of the EQ as well as decay and tuning.
Effects
Four effects have been built in, including Reverb, Echo, Overdrive and a Flanger/Chorus. There’s also a compressor and limiter, and all of these can be applied per instrument via the FX routing matrix. Obviously lacking in the original hardware, these alone allow you to go way beyond what you could back in 1981!
Programmability
There are two modes to play around in, with preset mode giving you the authentic KR-55 experience and user mode allowing you to do what you could never do on the originals. Using an x0x style sequencer, you can program in 16 or 24 steps, creating up to 99 patterns that can be chained up to a total of 99 within a song. You can also add swing where desired.
Patterns can be dragged and dropped into your DAW as MIDI tracks or as Standard MIDI Files (SMF) from the standalone version. You can also externally trigger all sounds via MIDI with velocity sensitivity, allowing you to play the KR-55C from a drum pad or e-Drum kit!
More Information
The Cherry Audio KR-55C is the next in a long line of impressive plugins from the team that also brought you the brilliant CR-78 recreation. It’s available right now for $49 USD. It comes as an AU, VST, VST3 and AAX plugin as well as a standalone version. There is a free 30-day trial also available.
Sound designer James Dyson has already created a preset pack for the KR-55C called ‘Pattern Theory’ and can be bought from the Cherry Audio website for $9.99. It features an extra 100 preset patterns within 10 categories that make full use of the voice editing and effects.
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