For my kicks, I normally use Kick 2 and get pretty good results, tuning and so on so that it harmonically fits and can make it super punchy. However, I've never been able to achieve that true techno/tech house 909 kind of gritty kick sound.

I know Ableton has a 909 kit drum rack, and Battery 4 has a couple of 909 kits too, but I'm just wondering when looking to make techno, what are people go-to 909 solution?

I'm about to start toying with the Roland Cloud TR-909 plugin and the d16 909 clone to see what they're like too, in case anyone has experience of these. I also seem to recall a few years ago a lot of people were going for a tape 909 library (by Goldbaby maybe?!) as the default.

Love to hear people's suggestions!

 

on the tr-909, go into the options and hit Optimize for Lower CPU Usage if you notice it lagging your computer. There can quite a big difference with the Roland Cloud plugins. The CPU hit is the only reason not to use them.

 

you're right with the goldbaby suggestion, he released two 909 analog packs
haven't made use of those for a while though. they come with different formats for i.e. geist, battery, maschine and others

> https://www.goldbaby.co.nz/tape909.html
> https://www.goldbaby.co.nz/superanalog909.html

.

 

Wave Alchemy Revolution is pretty decent for 909 stuff

https://www.wavealchemy.co.uk/product/revolution/

 

Samples: Samples From Mars
VST: D16 Drumazon

Edit: While Samples From Mars or Goldbaby are quite good, nothing beats playing with the Drumazon parameters, imagine playing it like Jeff Mills.

 

Goldbaby packs are a standard. The sounds are pretty "neutral" though, so need to be tweaked for being used in specific genres, they are just great sounding samples for 909 or 808. TO use 909 hihats with "techno flavour" need to tweak a bit them, it's up to you if you wanna deep control on the sound or wanna some specific techno library ready-to-go

 

I find most algo generated sounds are improved with some Nebula processing.