Re: Logic Pro X Drum Machine
Nichelle Gruger
Logic Pro X already had me intrigued with Drummer, but Drum Kit Designer is also something really special. There are a lot of drum kits out there. We have BFD2, Oceanway Drums, the Abbey Road kits... I have to admit though, I'm always looking for more drum kits. It's an obsession of mine. I love old kits, new kits, red kits, blue kits. If I was a drummer I would be hopelessly poor because of my drum kit hoarding tendencies.
Drum Kit Designer has some things going for it. It sounds really good. It's got a nice selection of the greats. From Ludwig to Yamaha, they have a nice range of kits to choose from. Editing the drum kits is very easy and choosing the pieces of a kit is also bonehead simple. The trick once we have our kit selected is to figure out how to properly prepare it for mixing.
When choosing Drum Kit Designer as an instrument for a channel strip, choose Multi Output. This will give us the ability to send all of the kit's pieces to individual auxiliary channel strips that are assigned to Drum Kit Designer.
In the mixer, we find a single channel strip with the familiar '+' and '-' button. Hit that '+' several times. The Multi Out Drum Kit can create up to 16 auxiliaries for use with the drum kit. Personally? I think if you use 16 auxiliaries you might need your head checked, but of course I have been guilty of far worse!
When the drums are broken out like this, we get choices we previously did not have. We can now process the room microphones, and pan our kit how we like it, audience perspective or drummer's perspective. We can also add all of these auxiliaries to the Main Window, select them all, and create a summing track stack for ease of organization and to help conserve precious real estate in the mixer GUI.
Drum Kit Designer loads presets ridiculously fast. Compared to BFD or Kontakt, it is really astounding. This speeds up workflow a lot. One thing that gets me about the drums in Drum Kit Designer is just how well these kits are sampled. The cymbals of any virtual drum kit are usually going to tell you a lot about the care taken in sampling the drums. Play the cymbals and listen to the variation. It's incredible. The optimization of the cymbal decay is also just wonderful. these cymbals can be placed in a mix without sounding like they are 'machine-gunning' (A term for drum kit samples that sound too similar every time they are hit).
Drum Kit designer also has many of the popular kicks and snares any producer would want. They may not be able to use the manufacturer's names in the kit pieces, but names like 'Black Beauty' and 'Noble and Cooley' will come to many producer's minds. As well as 'Zildjian' and 'Paiste' for cymbals. These are very nicely sampled drums.
David writes music for all media including advertising, branding, movies, television, and games. He works for such clients as Sega, LucasArts, Microsoft Game Studios, Landor and Associates, Beyond Pix, Rich Pageant, and Nextel.He also teaches at an Apple Certified training facility in San Francisco called Pyramind and has long bee... Read More
Grooves From Mars is the most comprehensive collection of drum machine MIDI groove templates in existence. Created from 27 classic and modern drum machines, these templates will enable you to bring the unique feel and groove of each sequencer to your DAW.
It's no secret that every drum machine has its own vibe - whether analog or digital, they rush, drag, swing, shuffle, and funk like no other. Some are extremely accurate, and others are completely off the grid. An MPC60 will sequence your sounds like a band is playing them, and the LM1 (responsible for the first sequencer shuffle of all time) will give you that incredible early 80s Prince feel. Whatever the machine, they all have a unique groove.
We began by syncing each drum machine to the ERM Multiclock, one of the most sample accurate MIDI, DIN, and Pulse clocks out there (yes, it beats the Innerclock). The ERM is extremely accurate because it's connected to your computer via *audio output from your computer, not USB, which is inherently jittery.
Once they were synced, we recorded the audio of each drum machine, programming 4 bars of rimshots, at as many quantization and shuffle settings possible for each drum machine. Finally, we analyzed the recorded audio to determine exactly where each 16th note fell relative to the grid, and converted them to 4 bar .AGR (Ableton) and MIDI groove files.
Ultimately we ended up with 478 MIDI groove templates from 27 legendary drum machines, that will enable you to groove between the lines of your DAW with the unique swing, shuffle and stutter of each machine. We captured the most basic and useable straight, swing and triplet settings, but also weird patterns, shuffling triplets, and more.
Cassette Drums is a freeware VST and AU plugin bundle consisting of three individual plugins: Cassette 606 VST, Cassette 808 VST, and Cassette 909 VST. The plugins were designed and developed by Crimson Merry, whose work can be followed on Instagram and Twitter. The included plugins are compatible with any PC and Mac-based digital audio workstation capable of hosting VST or AU plugins. Both 32-bit and 64-bit systems are supported.
The instruments are based on our free Cassette 606, Cassette 808, and Cassette 909 sample packs, featuring the sounds provided by Edgar Maguyon, Gregor Zemljic, and Reddit user Anderson303. Each plugin comes with a set of three drum kits: Clean, Warm, and Hot. The Clean kits are based on the raw, unprocessed recordings of these iconic analog drum machines, whereas the Warm and Hot kits feature the saturated drum hits that were re-sampled from an audio cassette deck.
Have fun using BPB Cassette Drums and let us know how you like them in the comments section below. You might also want to check out our free FilterCrusher plugin, made by Audio-Assault. Thanks for reading BPB!
Wow, this is a milestone for BPB! First you started by releasing samples and now with actual plugin instruments you took it even further! Hope you continue on this great journey and thank you so much for your service and your great work for the bedroomproducers community. Your blog really evolved since the early days. You should get some kind of award for your work!
Sweet little instruments! It would be great if you could expand to lesser-known machines in the future. Pretty much everyone has Roland DM emulations in their arsenal at this point. Thank you so much, this is a top-notch site!
On the case for the two guys who have crashes with Reaper. I have the 606 installed and have saved a project using it & reloaded it with no issues, so it looks like this is related to how the plug is being installed.
While each of the pads on this drum VST typically plays a single note, you can use the track stack function to select a subtract and play multiple signals or pitches of the same signal. This feature is great for creating bass lines or other melodic parts. Think of it a bit like a trigger.
Logic even integrated the Drum Synth and Quick Sampler tools into the plugin to help you quickly edit sounds. The Quick Sampler makes it really easy to work with single samples using its drag-and-drop editor and Flex Time functionality, while the Drum Synth gives you a collection of diverse synthesized drum sounds that you can manipulate with eight intuitive controls.
Native Instruments Battery is a powerful and versatile sample-based drum plugin. With a vast library of samples and flexible sound shaping options (plus tons of expansion packs), it offers a wide range of sounds for any genre of music. The user-friendly interface and built-in effects make it easy to create custom beats and add professional-level polish to your tracks. If I had to guess, Battery is drum machine behind a ton of hit songs.
The plugin can be a bit resource-intensive, but the high-quality sound and versatility more than make up for it. Overall, Battery is a great choice for producers and musicians who want a comprehensive drum plugin that can handle any style of music.
Arturia Spark 2 is a high-quality 16-track drum machine that uses a multi-synthesis engine, real-time performance tools, and an advanced built-in sequencer. The sound library is absolutely enormous, giving you access to more than 2,800 instruments, including drums, one-shots, and FX.
The plugin utilizes a combination of TAE virtual analog, physical modeling, pattern-based sequencing, and sampling to give users a well-rounded sound. The real-time performance loopers are great for coming up with ideas on the fly as well.
The updated Spark 2 comes with extended REX support, clean, crispy graphics, custom instrument macro control modules, a modular drum synth editor, a song mode, and much more. In Arturia fashion, you get an interface that is exciting to work with and fidelity that makes the plugin sound like the real thing.
The D16 Group Nepheton drum machine has a very pleasing and distinct sound. Plus, the sequencer modes provide a fair amount of flexibility and variety. We love that you can save sounds and drum patterns separately. It has certainly become one of my go-to plugins for electro and hip-hop production.
Drumazon is another vintage drum machine emulation from the D16 Group. However, this one is a bit different, as it gives you all of the sounds of the original Roland 909. All of the instruments found in this plugin were captured perfectly to sound just like the original unit, including that legendary snare drum that has powered legions of EDM classics. Of course, as a digital plugin, you get additional controls to open up the unit to an entirely new world of possibilities.
The internal sequencer comes with various operational modes to give you a wide range of patterns, each pattern of which consists of up to 16 steps. However, I often find myself using the Randomizer function when I want to make simple changes to a particular pattern without having to go in and manually create a whole new one.
Heartbeat by Softube was designed with 80s drum machines in mind, giving you all of the sounds of the era in flexible plugin form. It recreates sounds from all of your most iconic drum machines, including those from Roland and Korg. Plus, you get additional controls for volume, pan, and FX on each of the channels.
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