Steinberg Launches Backbone Drum Re-synthesizer for Unique Sound Production

Backbone is Steinberg’s one-of-a-kind drum re-synthesizer, introducing new ways to design intricate drum sounds for every style of music.

HAMBURG, Germany — Steinberg today announced the immediate availability of Backbone, Steinberg’s latest virtual instrument with a well-defined emphasis on creating unique kicks, snares, cinematic impacts, hi-hats and other percussive sounds.


Backbone is a VST, AU and AAX compatible plug-in that offers exclusive tools to design drum sounds from the ground up. Users start off by layering up to eight samples and move on to modify individual tonal or noise elements or re-synthesize individual layers, only to leverage the other audio manipulation tools that are easily accessible through the clearly laid out user interface.

At the core of Backbone is the re-synthesis engine, where samples are transformed into a synthesized version within the spectral domain, allowing users to manipulate samples with the freedom of a synthesizer. And the additional customizable spectral filter provides maximum control for creating new sounds.

Audio decomposition is another extremely powerful tool featured in Backbone. It allows users to separate sounds into their tonal and noise elements and adjust each of these with re-synthesis and classic subtractive synthesis.

Senior Marketing Manager Florian Haack says: “Backbone lets you create and manipulate drum sounds in unprecedented ways. You can feed the Drum Re-synthesizer with your own recordings and combine them with any kind of drum sample. It is such a powerful tool for those who like to get creative and want to develop their own signature drum sound. Personally, I have never had so much fun in crafting sounds as with Backbone.”

Availability and pricing

Backbone is available from local resellers and through the Steinberg Online Shop. The suggested retail price for the download is US $149.99.
Key features

  • Intuitively design drums with up to eight layers
  • Re-synthesize one-shots and loops
  • Directly export audio for clip-based music production
  • Backbone supports VST 3, AU and AAX