VST drum machines

Hardware & Software Discussion // New Products & Advice
User avatar
HowieRis
quasi-public
Posts: 146
Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2016 3:41 am
VST drum machines

Post by HowieRis »

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).
Last edited by HowieRis on Fri Jul 21, 2017 7:24 am, edited 2 times in total.

User avatar
terryfalafel
Component
Posts: 876
Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2014 5:56 pm
Location: Amsterdam
Re: VST drum synths

Post by terryfalafel »

I always liked the D16 VSTs for emulating the classics.

Battery 4 is a great drum sampler.

User avatar
HowieRis
quasi-public
Posts: 146
Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2016 3:41 am
Re: VST drum synths

Post by HowieRis »

terryfalafel wrote:I always liked the D16 VSTs for emulating the classics.

Battery 4 is a great drum sampler.
Yeah, D16 are running a 30% discount at the moment which makes them a tempting option.

If it was your money... Nepheton or Drumazon?

User avatar
HowieRis
quasi-public
Posts: 146
Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2016 3:41 am
Re: VST drum synths

Post by HowieRis »

-

collide
Smore
Posts: 259
Joined: Fri Oct 28, 2016 1:22 am
Location: Germany
Re: VST drum machines

Post by collide »

As you are on Mac be shure to check out:

http://www.audiospillage.com/drumspillage.html

I use it a lot and think it sounds great.
There is a lot more than drums you can do with it.

User avatar
HowieRis
quasi-public
Posts: 146
Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2016 3:41 am
Re: VST drum machines

Post by HowieRis »

Of the 808 and the 909 plugins from D16, the 909 immediately felt like the one I'd rather get.
collide wrote:As you are on Mac be shure to check out:

http://www.audiospillage.com/drumspillage.html

I use it a lot and think it sounds great.
There is a lot more than drums you can do with it.
That looks super interesting.

Seems like it would lend itself to more weirdo sound design within the plugin itself with the FM elements etc. I'll demo it tonight, thanks!

User avatar
winston
unsure
Posts: 391
Joined: Tue Dec 16, 2014 6:10 am
Re: VST drum machines

Post by winston »

the d16 stuff is cool. but it is limited in scope of sounds, they sound like the old gear.

i'd say it might be an idea to get more samples and get into layering and effecting samples to make new drum sounds. for me, making new drum sounds is pretty interesting and probably what i enjoy most at the moment. but i would concede that it isn't instant like turning the knobs on the d16 plugins.

Huck Farper
Alf Garnett
Posts: 176
Joined: Mon Jan 12, 2015 6:35 am
Re: VST drum machines

Post by Huck Farper »

d16 Punchbox is the best kick vst I've ever used.

dubdub
Asphyxiwank
Posts: 2454
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2015 1:49 pm
Re: VST drum machines

Post by dubdub »

I have tried most of the drum machine VSTs. I'm not really fully satisfied with any of them. Most of the 808/909 modelled ones offer way to little parameters. Attack, Decay and Pitch is the least I expect from a VST drum machine, otherwise I might aswell use fucking samples. Also a lot of them have so much crap that nobody needs like 10 different FX and sequencers, I'm in a DAW, I have like 23 different ways to sequence drums, I don't need a big fucking sequencer in there.

Then there's stuff like Microtonic which is more minimalist but it has a pretty clean digital tone which isn't really what I'm after. I just want something like a Vermona or an Xbase ITB. I'm sticking to just processing the crap out of Roland samples right now, much faster for me.
Huck Farper wrote:d16 Punchbox is the best kick vst I've ever used.
I prefer Synapse Audio EKS, it has much more control over synthesis parameters than Punchbox. But if you have a ton of kick samples, Punchbox is probably better.

User avatar
Lost to the Void
subsekt
subsekt
Posts: 13518
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:31 pm
Re: VST drum machines

Post by Lost to the Void »

I still make the majority of my kicks with Sonic Charge Microtonic, and use it loads. It`s probably still, to me, the best vst drum machine as it can do so much.
I just want a hardware version.
It can sound really crisp, or really warm and loose like a really old analogue machine.
Mastering Engineer @ Black Monolith Studio
New Shit
Techno is dead. Long live Techno.

User avatar
rktic
Utter Cunt
Posts: 1200
Joined: Tue May 29, 2012 12:45 pm
Location: Hamburg
Contact:
Re: VST drum machines

Post by rktic »

Microtonic is the shit indeed. Recently fell in love with Elastic Drums for iOS. What a capable and fun thing!

http://mominstruments.com/elasticdrums/

User avatar
HowieRis
quasi-public
Posts: 146
Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2016 3:41 am
Re: VST drum machines

Post by HowieRis »

I demo'd the Audiospillage plugin briefly last night, really nice kicks but I felt otherwise it sounded a bit thin. Also, the demo is super irritating, it plays a loud 5s burst of pink noise every 3 seconds so I tapped out before I really got a feel for it. :lol:
Lost to the Void wrote:I still make the majority of my kicks with Sonic Charge Microtonic, and use it loads. It`s probably still, to me, the best vst drum machine as it can do so much.
I just want a hardware version.
It can sound really crisp, or really warm and loose like a really old analogue machine.
This looks good, I'll check it out tonight. Would you say it does more than just kicks really well? dubdub's comment about a clean digital tone kinda threw me off the scent with this one.
rktic wrote:Microtonic is the shit indeed. Recently fell in love with Elastic Drums for iOS. What a capable and fun thing!

http://mominstruments.com/elasticdrums/
This would be a perfect work lunch time-filler when nobody's around!!

Checked out Battery 4 yesterday too but I think I'm after more of a simple, intuitive drum maker that inspires creativity rather than a monster of a thing bursting with every conceivable feature... I get bogged down in detail waaay too easily and need to escape that rut with something that sounds good and grooves like hell. That's definitely what's attracting me to stuff like the D16 909.

ekwipt
Smore
Posts: 254
Joined: Tue May 07, 2013 1:18 pm
Re: VST drum machines

Post by ekwipt »

Wave Alchemy has some great drum samples their latest product is classic drum machines loaded up inside a Kontakt Instrument, you can also use it inside Albleton Drum machine:

http://www.wavealchemy.co.uk/

I recently bought the full Cable guys volume shaper, you can throw these in basically anything and it mangles the sound of the drums, you can also manually control parts or automate pretty much everything: http://www.cableguys.com/volumeshaper.html

Lastly Soniccoutre Konkrete http://www.soniccouture.com/en/products ... -konkrete/

I've got some awesome drum sounds out of it as well

All three a self contained machines, the two drum machines are built for Kontakt. It you don't have to own Kontakt pretty sure you can use the free version

gedda
Metric Martyr
Posts: 277
Joined: Wed Dec 26, 2012 12:41 pm
Re: VST drum machines

Post by gedda »

Maschine 2 allows you to synthesize drums and it has the feel of a drum machine with its hardware. Native Instruments has that rep of clunky interfaces though, but its still good.

User avatar
Críoch
subsekt
subsekt
Posts: 11025
Joined: Tue Jan 03, 2012 11:22 pm
Location: Lego City
Re: VST drum machines

Post by Críoch »

Been spending all my time recently prepare g live projects for transfer to a new computer. I've listened to hundreds of things I've made & every time I open up something with microtonic, it sounds fucking special.

Really cool plugin.

Great for oneshots & those little background loops that spice things up. It always adds a fresh vibe if you use use the hats & Porc. I really should use it more. It's a beast. Reminds me of the Korg Er1.. but better :)
KennethExack wrote:My kids and I are completely shocked by the specialized secrets that everyone has on this forum
>> Click here for NEW POSTS on subsekt <<

Dialog I The Hole I subsekt Blog I The Bench I IG I SC I Mixes I FB

Planar
subsekt
subsekt
Posts: 3883
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2013 12:05 pm
Location: Leeds
Re: VST drum machines

Post by Planar »

You can never have too many drum synths. Check out Drumatic 4 and Tremor, although the latter takes some getting used to.

User avatar
Lost to the Void
subsekt
subsekt
Posts: 13518
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:31 pm
Re: VST drum machines

Post by Lost to the Void »

HowieRis wrote:
This looks good, I'll check it out tonight. Would you say it does more than just kicks really well? dubdub's comment about a clean digital tone kinda threw me off the scent with this one.
If you surf the presets then it can make you think clean and digital because there is a lot of minimal techno presets.
But it gets real dirty if you want it to.
Like monstrous.
And you can make truly massive kicks with it, any of my tracks that have mahoosive kicks, mostly down to microtonic.

It's great for snares, nice white noise shakers, toms, rimshot, clava, and you can set it to midi pitch mode so you can make melodic parts.
It's great for sub bass lines too.

It also has some weird modulations so you can get FM type percussion.

Tuning the wet\dry between noise and osc, tweaking the noise and the noise filter and then being gentle with the drive gets wonderful results.

If there was a hardware version people would go nuts. It's both simple and deep at the same time.
Mastering Engineer @ Black Monolith Studio
New Shit
Techno is dead. Long live Techno.

dubdub
Asphyxiwank
Posts: 2454
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2015 1:49 pm
Re: VST drum machines

Post by dubdub »

I know it can get dirty but even when dirty it still has kind of a digital tone to me. Not that that's necessarily bad, it's just not what I'm looking for in drums. Or maybe analog-digital is the wrong ditochomy, I like organic sounding drums and Mictronic (from my admittedly rather short experience with it) sounds very synthetic, unless you do a shit ton of processing.

User avatar
HowieRis
quasi-public
Posts: 146
Joined: Sat Aug 27, 2016 3:41 am
Re: VST drum machines

Post by HowieRis »

I've spent the last hour dicking about with the Microtonic demo and yeeeaaah.... it's pretty roundly exceeded any expectations I had for a drum synth when I started looking.

So far this thing splats the D16. The loops I'm coming up with sound thick and vibey and it's definitely what I was craving - something really fun that sounds effortlessly good and doesn't have a bazillion different interfaces and modes.

User avatar
Críoch
subsekt
subsekt
Posts: 11025
Joined: Tue Jan 03, 2012 11:22 pm
Location: Lego City
Re: VST drum machines

Post by Críoch »

Excellent!
KennethExack wrote:My kids and I are completely shocked by the specialized secrets that everyone has on this forum
>> Click here for NEW POSTS on subsekt <<

Dialog I The Hole I subsekt Blog I The Bench I IG I SC I Mixes I FB


Post Reply