Owner`s manual

Roland Drums & Percussion Resource Guide

COSM

Explained

Using COSM

in the Drum World

Roland’s drum design is driven “by drummers, for

drummers.” This is obvious in their sound, look, feel and

playability, but less obvious in the technology behind

the sounds, namely, COSM. Short for Composite Object

Sound Modeling, COSM makes it possible for drummers

to create and edit sounds using “acoustic drum”

parameters.

What a great idea. We don’t have to learn much more

than a few button pushes to enter the world of cutting-

edge electronic drums. A derivative of COSM, called

Variable Drum Modeling (Modeling for short), is found

in the TD-20, TD-12, and TD-9 (ambience only) drum

modules. Modeling allows us to use icons, or pictures to

do most of the editing. You’ll see how ingenious this is a bit later.

COSM and the V-Drums

Of the ve current drum modules—the TD-20 (V-Session), TD-12 (V-Stage), TD-9 (V-Tour®),

TD-3(V-Compact®) and HD-1 (V-Drums Lite®)—the top of the line TD-20 makes the most

extensive use of COSM. The TD-12 and TD-9’s COSM use draws from a sub-set of the TD-20’s

modeling parameters; with the exception of button pushes, the TD-12’s COSM editing is nearly

the same as the TD-20, but with pared down editing parameters such as “shell depth” and “EQ”.

The TD-20, TD-12, and TD-9 include the ability to “pitch bend” via the hi-hat controller pedal—

making them extremely powerful. The TD-3, although beneting from COSM, is technically not

a modeling drum module. But, if you’ve played the V-Compact Set you can certainly hear the

drum modeling inuence, as the TD-3 sounds incredible—much better than its low price would

suggest.

Beyond Sampling…

COSM technology is much more advanced than plain old sampling. With sampling, any edits

made will affect the entire sample. This isn’t very sophisticated. For instance, if you change the

pitch of a sampled snare drum, every aspect of that snare sound changes—attack, snare buzz,

overtones, etc.—making it unrecognizable after as little as a fourth of an octave pitch change!

With COSM technology, pitch changes of four octaves or more are possible without changing the

original sound’s characteristics. That’s because modeling can change just the specic part of the

sound, if needed, leaving the others alone. All this editing power is invisible to the user. Take a

V-Edit snare, drop the pitch two octaves and you’ll hear COSM at work. Modeling rocks!

Try Some V-Editing

I meet a lot of drummers that never venture into the editing of their V-Drums® at all, and