VST drum machines

[The_G]

OK...

I've been using Logic's Ultrabeat for drums and percussion since I picked up production again a year or two ago, I've gotten used to it and I feel like in conjunction with Mattias' kicks, samples of various drum machines and other random stuff, I've gotten perfectly fine results.

For the last couple of days I've been playing around with Audiorealism's ABL3 (happy birthday to me)... seriously, the quality of the sound, the controls changing the tone in such a satisfying way and the clear interface makes me wince in disgust every time I go back to Ultrabeat's grainy awkwardness.

I want the same satisfaction from programming drums.

I can see there's a lot of stuff out there, Audiorealism's ADM, D16's 606, 808 and 909 emulations among a bunch of others. Which is the daddy?

Is it worth getting and learning a proper real-time software drum synth or would a better sampler type plugin be the way to go?

Cheers in advance,

H

(I had a little dig around the search engine for a recent and relevant topic, I found the odd mention of one thing or the other but not much aside from hardware talk. If I've missed something feel free to link me up).

Ultrabeat is just a sample player. It's only as good or not good as the samples you choose and the signal processing you apply to them. I use Drum Machine Designer because I prefer the interface, but that's the long and short of it. Since I primarily make synthwave it makes sense for me to use samples, and DMD does a good job of that. I picked up Wave Alchemy Evolution when it came out, as well as UVI's BeatBox Anthology and was disappointed in both. So it was back to DMD and analog processed samples for me...

For techno I think it does make a lot of sense to look into dedicated drum VSTs that offer more control. When I eventually pick up doing techno again, I'll probably go this route.

[buffered]

Ultrabeat is just a sample player. It's only as good or not good as the samples you choose and the signal processing you apply to them.

This is incorrect. Ultrabeat is a synthesizer. It is based around oscillators, noise source, fm, filter and step sequencer. You can also load samples.
It is a very powerful drum machine but the interface lets it down.

[The_G]

Ultrabeat is just a sample player. It's only as good or not good as the samples you choose and the signal processing you apply to them.

This is incorrect. Ultrabeat is a synthesizer. It is based around oscillators, noise source, fm, filter and step sequencer. You can also load samples.
It is a very powerful drum machine but the interface lets it down.

That's what I get for only using it to play samples

I hate the GUI, hence why I use DMD instead. Plus my synthwave stuff is just retro machine samples anyway.

[collide]

I'm pretty sure this old Logic stuff will get an update - someday

[The_G]

I'm pretty sure this old Logic stuff will get an update - someday

I really like the sound of the stock Juno poly, but the GUI is horrid.