Hi! Are there any good reasons to use Battery (or LM4 etc) in Fruity Loops (Orion etc)?? I have been playing with the demo, and I can't find much in it that FL can't do already! (i.e FL plays drum samples already!). Also, which program of this type is best (Battery, LM4, or DR-008?). Thanks!

Try DR-008 - demo @ www.fxpansion.com

- it supports multiple velocity layers (and LM4 kits), which Fruity does not. That means, in the simplest case, that it can play a different sample for a "soft" snare hit and a "loud" snare hit, for example. That means more realistic "real" drum sounds.

- it doesn't just play samples, it can do realtime drum synthesis as well. so if you're in to electronic 808/909/etc type of sounds, you can use it to create your own...

Battery also supports multiple velocity layers and LM4 kits (and Akai format), has very nice bit reduction and waveshaping FX, and can do some very interesting, quirky things with looped and pitched samples.

Grab the demo from N.I., and see if you like it.

Battery or DR-008 will give you better sounds, more variety, and ways to manipulate the sounds in ways Fruty cannot. I have Battery and just last night I upgraded DR-008 from the version that comes with Sonar II XL to the full version which gave me access to 180+ megs of downloadable kits. Fruity is great but you will eventually desire ways to make your songs sound different from songs made by thousands of other users. That is where any expansion of sound comes in.

Robert

Just tried the DR-808 demo and love it (are there many more of the plugin modules for it?). Is there a need for both DR-808 and Battery? If I bought the new Synthetic Drum pack for Battery, would this work fine in DR-808?

Angus_FX wrote:

Try DR-008 - demo @ www.fxpansion.com - it supports multiple velocity layers (and LM4 kits), which Fruity does not. That means, in the simplest case, that it can play a different sample for a "soft" snare hit and a "loud" snare hit, for example. That means more realistic "real" drum sounds.

Fruity supports mutliple velocity layers- the functionality was introduced in version 3.4 in December of 2001.

Quote:

- it doesn't just play samples, it can do realtime drum synthesis as well. so if you're in to electronic 808/909/etc type of sounds, you can use it to create your own...

The Fruity DrumSynth Live generator allows for realtime drum synthesis.

I like and use DR-008, but both the functionalities you described are available- one is "built-in" (Layer channels) and the other is a $29 generator (DrumSynth Live).

Rabid wrote:

Battery or DR-008 will give you better sounds, more variety, and ways to manipulate the sounds in ways Fruty cannot. I have Battery and just last night I upgraded DR-008 from the version that comes with Sonar II XL to the full version which gave me access to 180+ megs of downloadable kits. Fruity is great but you will eventually desire ways to make your songs sound different from songs made by thousands of other users. That is where any expansion of sound comes in. Robert

Maybe they (DR-008, Battery) give you more ways of mangling the sounds, but not better sounds. Just use good samples - and there are loads of them free for you to download.

If you need velocity layers you need to get one of the above (or any other with the same capabilities). But if you don't program acoustic drums think twice

DR-008 does not just let you mangle sounds, it has extensive onboard realtime drum SYNTHESIS abilities... so you can create your own sounds also.

So here's an interesting related question. Why not just use a sampler? I figure you can pick up VSampler for under $100, and it claims that it can import LM-4 kits. Is there an advantage to using a dedicated drum synth over a general-purpose sampler?

bburtin wrote:

So here's an interesting related question. Why not just use a sampler? I figure you can pick up VSampler for under $100, and it claims that it can import LM-4 kits. Is there an advantage to using a dedicated drum synth over a general-purpose sampler?

Convenience, work flow. Just easier to set up stuff. I know people who use Halion for all their drum work, but IMO using a dedicated drum sampler makes life much easier.

prog

I bought Dr008 as well as Fruity's DrumsynthlLive. They do complement each other very well. DrumsynthLive is great for automated synthetic grooves. Combine DrumsynthLive with Dr008 and PHATmaticPro and you can go nuts with the possibilities.

Buy Dr008. You will not regret it. It's one those virtual instruments that find I can never get enough time with. It's brilliant!

Cheers,
Gordon

[It's one those virtual instruments that find I can never get enough time with]

Just look what happened to my syntax. I was up too late last night.

Gordon[/quote]

It is soooo easy to create kits in Battery and DR008. Not just realistic drum kits with multiple velocities. Pull a loop into PhatmaticPro, let it chop and mangle the loop, then drag slices you want to the pads in your drum synth. This is so quick and easy that I cannot imagine using another sampler for percussive or single hit sampling. I could acomplish the same thing with Reaktor, GigaSampler or even multiple instances of PhatmaticPro, but in the long run using Battery is just too simple. These programs do much more than make realistic drum parts. Battery or DR008 is a tool you will use for a long time if you want to do more than simple triggering of sounds.

Robert

bburtin wrote:

Is there an advantage to using a dedicated drum synth over a general-purpose sampler?

I use Battery (a drum sampler) as a general purpose sampler!

Of course, I can only do this because I don't need to be using huge GigaSampler pianos or whatever – but for drums, loops, vocals, basses and many synth and FX sounds, Battery works just fine.

Just bought DR-808! So is there any need for Battery too....

Not really. I bought Battery first, then got DR008 with Sonar II XL. Battery can be a bit easier to use and has some nice wave editing features. DR008 has synth drum modules. You are better off spending the money that would go to purchasing Battery for something else. Unless like me you are a drum freak and want every possible way to create your rhythem tracks. If you are into the type of music that uses a lot of chopped loops, PhatmaticPro would be a much better addition for working with DR008.

Robert

Talking of PhatMatiK Pro and Battery.... How do you get PhatMatik files into DR-808, and where has the Battery import feature from the demo gone....

Rendez wrote:

Talking of PhatMatiK Pro and Battery.... How do you get PhatMatik files into DR-808, and where has the Battery import feature from the demo gone....

You can just drag and drop a PhatPro slice onto a Dr008 (and not 808) pad.


prog

Hmmmm.... Its having non of this drag-and-drop thing in Fruity Loops

Rendez wrote:

Hmmmm.... Its having non of this drag-and-drop thing in Fruity Loops

I think your host has to support drag n Drop. For example SX doesn't and it doesn't work there, but works just fine in VST. Don't know about fruity.

battery is my favourite vsti by a long shot - for a look at some of the things it can do there is a tutorial on battery on kvr (by me ) which will start to show you some of the options it gives you.

Still using Loopazoid here ... just LOVE that pricetag

Rendez - mail me for the battery importer for DR-008. angus@fxpansion.com.

prog - you saying you can't drag and drop slices between PPro and DR-008 (and between Explorer and DR-008) under SX? Very strange, should work... the only host it is known not to work in is SONAR. I'll take a look at SX and Fruity today, see if they have that problem but it's rather unlikely.