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AUv3 Drum sound app recommendations...
I am going to give Drambo a try, but I need an AUv3 drum sound app (the only ones I have are IAA) - nothing too expensive as I get tired of spending $'s on experiments haha!
Must have acoustic as well as electronic kits/sounds
Comments
If you want acoustic and electronic sounds you might want to look at Digistix or Digistix 2.
Do you use samples?
The closest to desktop would be audiolayer and serious drum librairies (cult drum sounds, drumdrops )
That's what I do. Not as convenient as using apps but guaranteed to contain only the sounds I like, and navigating through thousands of drum sounds can be a great time waster.
I'll have a look at those...just trying Beathawk at the mo, seems ok...acoustic drum pack is just $8 so not too bad.
That's exactly what I liked about Sitala, its sample browser and the arrows to navigate through the folder from the same app interface it's a huge time saver.
My favorites are Hammerhead, Playbeat, and DrumComputer. Skiiid and Ruismaker Noir for experimental stuff. I’ve heard Digistix is great but I’ve yet to try it.
There’s lots of good options, With built in sounds? Synth drums? Or for samples…? Each way is great in its own right, but different apps are better at different things.
I’m not sure any Au drum app has truly amazing presets for both acoustic and electronic drum sounds, unfortunately… Honestly one thing I’ve always wanted was an Au drum app with some great natural acoustic multilayered drum kits. That hasn’t happened yet. However there’s tons of great free and paid multilayered drum samples available all over. Also you can easily find well sampled drum machines.
Some Quick Sample Info. Really so much stuff out there.
Reverb.com has had their entire Drum Machine Collection free for awhile now, along with some other good freebies.
DrumDrops great samples
Samples from Mars - great stuff, around Black Friday every year you can buy everything they’ve ever made for $39, which is a steal.
Now for the Au drum breakdown….
I use Digistix 2 the most. this is the best for samples. The built in presets are decent but, I like using samples to make my own kits. I use DS2 the most since I have lots of great samples to easily make my own kits, with up to 64 pads per kit and up to 5 velocity layers for each pad. Pretty good sequencer too. Can play loops, and really do a lot of things.
Fac drumkit is amazing. You can load samples, use drum synthesis, or use a simultaneous combination of the too. Randomize sounds to make kits, has multiple envelopes for each pad.
Hammerhead is amazing. Again load samples, or use the built in drum synth, great sequencer. Randomize drum synth sounds to make kits, even timestretch breaks/fills to fit your tempo.
There’s also the Bram Bos apps, all of which I really love. Ruismaker, great Simple electronic drum sounds, RuismakerFM design your own synth sounds, more percussion type stuff, but capable of bass and snare too. Ruismaker Noir, synth drum for kick, bass, 808, but some other things as well. All have random buttons for making unique sounds or kits. Ruismaker has less control over the sounds and can only randomize a kit based on the sounds preloaded, so you can only use the sounds that come with the app.
The klevgrand apps. I only have Ting which I really really like, but people speak very highly of Slammer (maybe one of your better options for good acoustic presets) Skaka for shakers , Borsta for brushed drums, another great realistic sound but no kicks.
Drum Computer is another great one with sample loading, drum synthesis, or using both simultaneously. The sequencer is phenomenal, I love this one but can be a lil cpu intensive.
Fractal Bits, Skiiid both really great but more experimental sounds.
SDS-X is pretty great too… presets are decent, can load samples, nice clean interface with basically everything on one screen.
EG Pulse is decent but I tend to lean towards the others I mentioned above.
Dam that was quite the ramble.
To wrap this up… lol. I’d recommend getting and or finding some good samples and going with DS2, Hammerhead, FAC Drumkit. All 3. Sorry but it’s really hard to pick one of these over another, at least for me.
Good luck!
Yea me too.
Forgot Audiolayer. Which loads sfz, EXS files.
Also GM SoundFonts in one of the Au SoundFont apps.
Koala is amazing but will need samples for this one.
You also got apps like sEGments and Reslice which can easily take any drum loop and slice it up into individual pads.
I think Digistix 2 actually has a slice to pads feature as well.
Sitala too but don’t have that one yet.
Yes perhaps using samples may be a better option with an SF2 player...it is tricky trying to find a "swiss army knife" type one.
Which drum apps do you already have? You might consider sampling them and loading the samples into something like Beathawk or AudioLayer or EG Pulse or HammerHead or EG Pulse or Koala or...
Koala Sampler with the AUv3 unlock. Here's how I use it.
I was researching this question a bit today and kept being reminded that Drambo can do this really well. Might be worth a serious look. With some time investment, you can set things up exactly as you wish.
FAC Drumkit always impresses me. When I use it, I often think that this is what a Machinedrum mk3 should be like.
Nice. Always looking for new drum samples. Hadn't heard of Cult.
👍
GR-16 and move your drum samples inside it’s folder
I like koala too but it hangs on me too often to recommend without a warning
Lots of great tips! thanks
That was a nice write up!
I am struggling to find a good drum app that randomly can pick samples from a folder. I have lots of drum samples and Sitala has been covering most of my needs since I can swipe through the folder. Low cpu so I use separate instances for each drumelement group.
I believe Playbeat is what I’m talking about in terms of randomly picking a sample per lane and its designated folder.
But it has been very unstable in Cubasis. It crashes and the multi out is hard to setup and is not reliable. Wondering if I should disable multicore or something else. I find it a great app honestly but I can not get it to work properly as it should. Maybe on desktop it works wonders?
Any other contenders?