d16 Group PunchBox 2 - Wavetable Kick Design for Drum and Bass Producers

Ten years between versions is a long gap in plugin development. d16 Group released the original PunchBox in 2016 and it became a reliable go-to for producers who needed focused, single-interface control over kick transients, body and tail. Version 2 keeps that workflow intact and fills in the parts the original left open.

The engine runs four generators in parallel. Three universal sample-based layers handle transients, noise and supporting body, each with independent tuning, stereo placement, sample start point, filtering and FX routing. The main Kick generator is where the new architecture lives. Five selectable modes cover Sample, 909, 808, 606 and a brand-new Wavetable engine backed by 66 onboard wavetables. That wavetable mode opens up synthetic kick characters well beyond what classic drum machine emulations produce, including the harder-edged, pitched low-end that sits cleanly under a Reese bass in a DnB arrangement without smearing the sub. Combine it with a 909 transient on one of the sample layers and the full palette of DnB kick vocabulary is accessible inside one plugin.

Real-time pitch detection now displays the kick's fundamental directly in the interface, which makes tuning kicks to the root note of a bassline faster and more reliable. The Advanced Editor adds multi-stage envelopes with real-time waveform preview per generator, giving producers the precise pitch-drop control that a DnB kick at 174 bpm actually requires.

The factory library ships with 1,506 samples, 1,120 Master Presets, 243 Kick Presets and 66 wavetables, developed in collaboration with Sounds of Revolution and CFA-Sound. Five stereo outputs via multi-output routing mean individual generators can be sent to separate mixer channels for parallel processing. PunchBox 2 is available now at the d16 Group website and through partner outlets including Plugin Boutique at the intro price. Standard pricing of €99 / $109 takes effect on 27 July 2026.