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Please recommend an AUV3 drum machine with excellent sounds out of the box
I really enjoy creating synth sounds, but when it comes to drums I'd rather stick to well-crafted presets.
Great drum machines and sequencer in Gadget, but you can't use external plugins in that environment.
Slate in NS2 has some excellent drum sounds, but there isn't a simple sequencer going with it ( you need to use the piano roll- which I don't find particularly enjoyable).
I have started using ZenBeats, and I find it very intuitive, but the quality of the drum sounds is imho not comparable to the ones in the app mentioned before.
So, what AUV3 drum machine would you recommend for good preset sounds and intuitive sequencer?
Thanks!
Comments
Fractal Bits doesn't have presets. Instead, it has a random button. Every time that you press this button, a whole new world of percussive sounds will be created.
The most clever, powerful and yet simple drum machine.
Combine this with an external sequencer like Playbeat 3 and every musician using a desktop will ask you where you purchased all these amazing sample packs.
And your answer will be, I'm sorry, I don't use samples. Only synthesized sounds.
Id recommend Fac drum. Although a synth. Its easy to program. Sequencer. Either Drambo or polybeat or playbeat.
Apps like beef.
Maybe additionally sitala ( the drum sample player ) Sequenced with Drambo or polybeat.
Probably good if you have loads of samples as you can scroll samples without loading from menus.
Hammerhead Rhythm Station
This is a rather vague question and undoubtly every plugin is going to be mentioned, but Digistix comes with decent sample based presets and a sequencer
Define 'Excellent'
I tend to sequence stuff in GarageBand and export as audio when I feel lazy...
Most sample-players will do as long as you've got a collection of 'Excellent' samples to play with
Obviously depends too on what kind of music you like!
From my own use - Id thoroughly recommend Hammerhead. The stock sounds are good enough to get you going. You can import your own samples and use the drumsynth included.
I'd also recommend
SDS-X
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/sds-x-simple-drum-sampler/id1468026221
Despite the admittedly vague question I am getting quite a few suggestions, and I really appreciate that you are all so responsive...this is my very first post on this forum!
I realize everybody will have a different definition of excellence for drum apps but you just keep them coming and I will take care of the rest :-D
Egoist makes a fun drum machine.
For some reason, I've often got more use out of sliced drum loops, no matter if they're acoustic, electronic, vintage breaks, whatever.
Maybe it's because the samples inside a loop have already been picked to work well together.
Hafta agree. Do like the DMs because of their easy-as-pie chaining/song mode, but DC is the simple beast...
Absolutely. It's very difficult to put a finger on the kind of music I am trying to compose, but I think vintage FM tones and D50/Wavestation pads. I can imagine realistic and dusty sounding drums in the background. The rhythm may be complex but never too aggressive. If that makes any sense :-D
KQ Dixie (DX7 FM), KQ Sampei (WIth your favorite SF2 file), Ruismaker, Ruismaker FM and Hammer Head for drum sound.
Sequence with you favorite sequencer, super light-weight so high track counts should not be any issue...
Digistix (and Digistix 2)by 4pockets.com has a pretty good selection of drum kits and sounds. I also agree that Hammerhead , Fractal Bits and Drum Computer are good choices.
FAC drum or hammerhead 💪🏻
I set up my basic rhythms using the available Drummers in GarageBand, then use the generated MIDI information and swap out GB's sounds with IK Multimedia's MODO Drum kits on desktop. Far more flexibility and I can then change out any part of the kit for another (and yes, I know one could also do this with a far greater degree of precision using Logic Pro, but LP isn't really a program I like using).
FAC Drumkit, Hammerhead, and Drum Computer are my top ! Also love Elastic Drums but it's not AU
FAC (Fred) announced Drumkit will be coming to desktop in a Twitter (?) post some time ago. I wonder how close that is to happening?
Yep, this is the one.
Imo, Hammerhead is the best on iOS for this. DrumComputer is also up there. It’s basically a Roland TR-8S for ~$30.
Egoists drum machine and bass synth are both very overlooked, imo. Amazing app.
No love for BeatHawk? I find that to offer the punchiest and best sounding drums of anything I own. As pointed out, it might matter a lot what kind of music you're trying to make, though. I like powerful sounding drums.
DrumComputer is one I use all the time but its real value for me is in secondary percussion bc the basic kick/snares seem weak.
Hammerhead and Digistix are both decent but need some additional enhancements to get the right amount of presence.
Fractal Bits is very cool if looking for unusual percussive noises.
FAC Drumkit is one I've yet to explore but I bet it's fantastic because Fred is brilliant, but seems like it might require some extra work and be better for people who want to tweak which you said wasn't your thing.
My other favorites are still IAA but certainly worthwhile (Lumbeat apps, Patterning 1/2, even iSpark).
All that is IMHO. Open to tips regarding overcoming any of my critiques.
@Robin84 Glad I saw this....We have something planned in the next 3-4 months with great sounds and patterns out of the box, for the same reason as you. We would rather focus on creating synth patches and sounds and leave the drums to the experts. So we have a huge library of Pre-made chops and Kits ready to go all fully processed.
What particular genre of drums are you looking for?
Ruismaker noir is an interesting one too
Good to know! There is definitely a niche to fill there. I tend to gravitate towards dub/reggae drum sounds, or funky/world/ polyrhythmic grooves as you may hear in a Talking Heads album.
I like Patterning 2, but since it’s not AUv3 , it’s hard to work with when saving in apps.
Hammerhead wins for me.
For ALL around music sounds, the best AUV3 I have come across is EG Pulse. You might need to consider the sequencer is only one pattern length (or like 4 bars only) but if you make your own in the piano roll or your daw or whatever, the best out of the box sounds are Pulse
The ones I like and use the most are Ruismaker, Ruismaker FM, Ruismaker Noire (there’s a theme there if you look hard enough) and fractalbits.
I’ve recently got BlipBox and that’s also really good and looking like a keeper.
I like the pattern sequencer in logic for actually programming the drums.
You can set them up in Drum Machine Designer to use all of them in one (Say Ruismaker Noire for big dirty kick, Ruismaker fm for hats, fractalbits for percussion) big kit if you want to just have the one pattern. I tend to have multiple patterns so keep many of the sounds separate. That way it’s also easy to loop different bar lengths and keep track of the arrangement with regions. I like to see what I’m doing and arrange with the timeline — I use the parameter panel to adjust regions where needed and have been so used to that workflow over literally decades that it’s second nature.
I have no idea whether anybody else would like the drum sounds I like but the Ruismakers have been my favourites from the start.
On the iPad I also really like iElectribe when I want to use my iPad just to jam with a drum machine but it’s not auv3 unfortunately. I tend to use it in isolation and make grooves that I later chop up as Audio in logic. I do like just jamming with drum machines. DM-2 is good for the that too. If by both again if they ever got auv3 updates.
BlipBox and FAC Drumkit have the increasingly useful benefit of also working on the Mac so I can see them getting more and more use as time goes on now that going from Logic on iPad to Mac is so easy. Fractalbits is available to download on Mac but I have never actually got it to work. I’ve sampled a ton of fractalbit sounds for use in Logic on the Mac — I use atlas to organise the trillions of drum samples I’ve collected over the years.
And logics drum synths are good too.
We’re definitely not lacking in drum synth options on iOS that’s for sure. It’s the one area that I have better options in the iPad than on the Mac.
I’m happy with all the apps I’ve mentioned. None of them are superfluous.
Seconded GarageBand...I use the touch instrument drums (either acoustic or electronic)...I do the kick and snare first, and after the metronome does the count-in I get right to it , then quantize 1/8 or 1/16 swing, then add the hats. There's a metric sh*t ton of kits in there
Definitely interested in trying out Hammerhead though
Fractal Bits is the best for realistic drum sounds.
If your home world is the planet Zorx.
I must have some Zorxian ancestry because that one makes me smile like no other drum app on this pitiful little planet.