I was just reading warbug's review of Battery and it got me thinking about whether or not I would benefit from using Battery if I already own Kontakt.

I think Kontakt works great for drumkits. Does anyone know what advantage Battery could possibly have over Kontakt? In terms of filters and effects Battery would seem a bit limited.

I have both, but I prefer Battery for my drum-sequencing. Probably because I don't do any filtering and such (I use it with the Studio-drums package for my rock projects). For me the main thing is that it does exactly what it's meant for

no_barcode wrote:

Does anyone know what advantage Battery could possibly have over Kontakt?

I have them both. I like the GUI of Battery for laying out a drum kit, and I absolutely love how you can drag and drop samples from Phatmatik Pro to Battery. I also like how easy it is to change the pitch envelope and parameters of each cell without losing track of what is what. If I need filters on something, I tend to save the kit and pull it up in Konkakt and do everything from Kontakt from then on, although it would be easy to assign outputs in Battery and send just the snares, for example, through a filter plug-in.

So for me, I'm glad I have both. I suppose it would depend on how you would use it, what kind of price you could get and what else you're considering.

To be fair, there are some shortcomings to Battery beyond the lack of filters--the thing that sometimes bugs me is that it's kind of convoluted to try to create a kit using cells from other kits. Seems like there should be a much easier way . . .

What about Battery vs. DR-008? Though I suppose that's a whole different thread (prolly had one already too) .

SkyFireRed wrote:

If I need filters on something, I tend to save the kit and pull it up in Konkakt and do everything from Kontakt from then on, although it would be easy to assign outputs in Battery and send just the snares, for example, through a filter plug-in.

Interesting. It sounds like for my purposes, there probably wouldn't be much of an advantage.

I've had Battery for a long time,but I can't use it in SONAR with drum maps without crashing ,and the support from Native's been basically zero.The last update was December of 2001.That being said,I DO use it...to create kits to import into DR-008 Haven't tried it in 2.2 yet,though.
ew

Funkybot wrote:

What about Battery vs. DR-008? Though I suppose that's a whole different thread (prolly had one already too) .

If you don't need the AKAI import options of Battery (which are super-clumsy anyways as you can't merge programs into each other in Battery, most AKAI drum CDs require such a thing due to different programs for kicks, snares etc.) and if you are on Windows, there's only ONE reason to prefer Battery over the DR-008 and that's the option of editing multiple cells simultaneously (which admittedly is nice when dealing with loops dragged from PPro).
In all other aspects the DR-008 wins hands down. It's WAY easier to handle, it's WAY more flexible (due to the number of different modules, allowing for synthetic sounds as well) and it's up to date.

In general, re: "drum machine vs. sampler" I can only say that it's good to have both. Battery/DR-008 offer easy functions to prelisten samples in context and once you're used to that alone you won't want to miss it ever again. Also, the interface is just made to suit your drum/perc needs. Overview is simply better, no need to fiddle around with additional parameters that you won't need for drums.
In addition, the DR-008 has some wonderful "helping" modules, such as a mini stepsequencer, allowing you to create small patterns and loops triggering other modules. Endless fun.

I can only say give the DR-008 demo a try (if you are on PC that is, let's hope there's gonna be a Mac version one day) - but be prepared to have the bucks handy because I am almost sure you will want it after that.

Plus, using SlicyDrummer and FillInDrummer inside of DR-008 is just the *ultimate* in cool! You *must* give that a try!!!



Jim

no_barcode...I got Battery first and loved it. But after I got Kontakt, I now tend to use Kontakt solely for drums.

Battery's "realtime" waveform display makes it easier to tweak the reverse/stretch/shrinking/vol. envelope functions, because the waveform changes as you change those parameters. You can "see" what you're doing to the waveform.

While Kontakt does not have that great display, I can't live without filtering my drums. So, while Battery is definitely easier for throwing a kit/track together, it can't sculpt drumhits the way Kontakt can. Not even close. So even though Kontakt is kind of a pain when you forget to unclick the "edit all" button or having to set each drum hit to a different group, etc.etc. ITS WORTH IT.

That's what I think.

dezai wrote:

...or having to set each drum hit to a different group...

Did you know Kontakt has a option that creates automatically a group for each sample. This is a great option for creating drum kits. Just throw in a bunch of samples, use this option (I'm at work right now, but I think this option is somewhere in a option menu in the key mapping window and is called something like '1 sample -> 1 group') and you can fine tune and edit each sample of you kit seperately.

cheers,
vincent

Simplicity. Ease of use with PhatmaticPro, the included kits. And, to me Battery just feels more like a drum module than Kontakt. It is very easy to build the kit I want in Battery. I do hate the Akai import of Battery. Totally useless for me. It does nothing but crash any system I try it on. I really should spend some time learning DR008. I bought the upgrade from Sonar's version, downloaded the kits, and set it aside.

Robert

Rabid wrote:

I really should spend some time learning DR008. I bought the upgrade from Sonar's version, downloaded the kits, and set it aside.

Woah!!! You NEED to check the DR008 out if you own it allready!
It's SO much easier to handle, even if it offers a way higher flexibility than Battery.
Will take you no more than 2 hours to work as fast as with Battery, maybe even less.

Regards,
Sascha