I get that. I mean, inside Ableton you have a very good simple to use drum machine and an almost unlimited amount of drum kits to select. What's more it pairs up wonderfully with a Launchpad. The thing is, I ALWAYS struggle to find the right sample ready to go. (That's why I like Atlas because it's so easy to manipulate samples in that. The sequencer is pretty good fun too, with up to 64 drum slots, which can be populated at random in just 2 seconds) But in terms of an out an out drum VST I think Nerve is my favourite. ( I still have Fx Geist and fx Guru too, but Nerve still beats them)

 

I'd honestly go with Redux.

 

At some point, I just sort of decided these random sample based "drum machine" style plugins were a waste of time, because none of them do everything. So it's a workflow where I am combining a bunch of things I am going to separate at the end of the day. I'm still going to route every drum sample to an individual audio track. Even if you bring a breakbeat into Logic, chop it into slices which are triggered by a midi file to playback the original, or edit and mangle it to your hearts content; the second you bring those slices into the DMD; it routes every slice to it's own newly created audio channel all within their own group. Each one of those channels is loaded into it's own new Quick Sampler instance.

So here I am in Battery, or whatever; trying to make some "perfect kit" from samples. Of course, there is no such thing because I have no idea what the context I'm going to use it in. The differences in my snare, open hat, closed hat, samples are not going to change how I program the beats. 808,909, DMX, MPC, no matter where it comes from; the midi pattern is going end up being the same. Nothing about the samples is going to influence your drum hits' programming. What's going to happen, is you are going to add your sub bass, your piano, vocals, whatever; and then you are going to replace your drum samples. Until that point, you are playing with audible placeholders you can program each part with.

Instead of changing the workflow, people just download every new plugin the devs can sell people.

 

Polyrhythmic (individual track lengths), event probability, transMod modulation system, built in sequencer, resizable & configurable interface, vintage sampler emulation, loop point modulation, streamlined slicing and resampling, sample layering, stand alone version.

Personally I feel confortable in having all my drum section "wrapped" in a single VST and only triggered by a single midi note in Ableton. It's very usefull to create your own "bank" of "patterns/grooves" and recycle them easily in various projects.
Using a single track for each drum part in Ableton is the easy way, but you need more work in your workflow for grouping, arranging ...
BTW the most important thing is to be effective with the way you deal with your drums.

 

Last edited: Sep 18, 2024

I dont agree, it depends on different parameters. Just a simple exemple is sample layering, based on note velocity, you can trigger different snares at different velocity on the same pad -> samples are now going to influence your programming using velocity ...

 

Too bad it doesnt feature a sequencer ...

Another nice and original recent drum machine is Unfiltered Audio Battalion, it gives a lot of synthesis options as well as loading samples.
Arturia's Spark 2 is nice too with the "modular" options it gives.

 

Yep, Arturia Spark 2 (they could really have made it a premium drum machine, if they took it seriously) or Elektron with Overbridge.

 

Spark 2 is premium as far as it comes with a dedicaced controller. But most of the kits are just Ok tier.
With a bit of work and some external fx you can get good results.
It's like Drumbrute in a VST : basic floppy sounds, but unlike Drumbrute you can tweak them ...

 

You have infinite control over audio, and any top shelf effects plugin you may prefer. Any drum hit can be Midi and triggering Kontakt , in a much more full featured sampler. Same outcome, but your work is not nested inside some "kit" that is locked to some specific drum machine plugin. Which is the one of the OP's reasons for asking what drum machine to spend a few hundred bucks on. Only to redo all that work when he migrates to his next downloaded plugin.

 

In my fuzzy little head I was hoping to find something that when you save a kit say "My Kit.drumvst" that within the saved *.drumvst file as well as containing all the kit data it also contained the samples the kits used, almost like a package that contains everything the kits needs, but I did say I am not sure such a thing exists. I would certainly seem logical but the argument would be to me stop upgrading stuff or make sure I copy everything over and that is certainly a me issue.

Many years ago I used to have a piece of software call FXpansion DR-008 and if memory serves this used to do it where it saved the samples within the *.dr8 kit which is what prompted me to ask the question.

 

I do have the full MPC software I will have a look at that tonight, not something I have spent much time with thanks for the suggestion.

 

Just looked up Spark 2 can you use the VST without needing the Arturia Spark hardware controller?

 

You certainly can with the released witches' version from 2018.

 

Thank you

 

Yes, even with the legit version, the software check for controller at startup, but works without too.

 

Kontakt is a specific "locked" plugin as well.

Using a drum machine plugin inside a DAW is for me the same idea as using a hardware drum machine in a studio setup instead of a simple "sampler".
For some people having all drums sequences "nested" into a drum plugin is more efficient because everything related to drum is in a same place, with drum-related features not available in a DAW.
Then if you want to process drums instruments separately in different DAW channels, most of drum machines VST offers multiple audio out as well ...

It's just a matter of personal taste.

 

Algonaut Atlas 2
Fxpansion Geist 2
Ni Maschine
Xfer Nerve