KVR Audio

budweiser · Post by **budweiser** » Mon Feb 18, 2013 10:20 am

Microtonic !

core · Post by **core** » Mon Feb 18, 2013 11:07 am

Both are great. Check Patchpool's sounds for Tremor http://patchpool.de/tremor.html
If I could only have one I'd go for MicroTonic though, quick, easy, high quality sounds

sqigls · Post by **sqigls** » Mon Feb 18, 2013 11:34 am

I used Microtonic since day one pretty much till last year, and it's very efficent and easy to program, a lovely synth. Tremor yields a more diverse palate but yes, heavy on the CPU. I don't really gel with Tremor personally.
Now I use Punch, the interface is a bit uneasy, but it's easy to get a useable sound very quickly. Punch is solid, and loads samples also.
So get Microtonic

johnnyvn · Post by **johnnyvn** » Mon Feb 18, 2013 11:41 am

Thank you all for the great comments so far. And thanks for the link to the earlier thread about this very same topic; there's a lot of great info to digest.

I can see that there are some other products I should check out; Punch, DrumSpillage, Drumaxx...(I'm on a Mac, so no Windows-only products for me...).

As far as demo-ing the various products; I have a slight aversion to downloading a bunch of things that I'm not eventually going to buy. I try to keep my computer pretty lean and mean, and one of my pet peeves is having files in my System that came along with a demo that I downloaded but never ultimately bought. Secondarily, there have been many instances in which I downloaded a demo, got terribly busy and then never had the time to fully learn a product during its demo period. Lastly, I'm not sure that I can learn all I'd like to within a timed-demo period...hence, I like to get opinions up here from users who have lived with products long term. KVR is a great resource for that!

Most of the posts have so far confirmed what I was kinda thinking...Tremor having a great sequencer and also a very extensive sound engine. However, presets seems to be uninspired and if you watch some of the FXpan videos online, you can see some considerable tweaking needed to get to a solid kick drum sound. Hmmm. Even the "default" sound is much like a clang-y bell...not exactly where I'd like to start crafting a drum sound.

Microtonic seems quite cool and easy to operate. But I sure don't like the 16-step sequencer...why not 32? Also, the "probability" factor in Tremor's sequencer is a cool thing and seems to share that parent/child thing that Sonic Charge puts into its Patternarium...so, it kinda makes me wonder why they don't put a randomization feature in MicroT (perhaps they do, but I've overlooked it?).

Anyway, thanks for the many thoughts and suggestions...keep them coming!

samsam · Post by **samsam** » Mon Feb 18, 2013 12:29 pm

If I were to buy a drum synth, I'd get Xfer's Nerve

VariKusBrainZ · Post by **VariKusBrainZ** » Mon Feb 18, 2013 12:40 pm

I got Tremor but wish Id gotten Microtonic

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Mon Feb 18, 2013 12:43 pm

I'm using Drumaxx and Tattoo these days, as well as Drum Racks in Live.

Bathrobe · Post by **Bathrobe** » Mon Feb 18, 2013 12:43 pm

samsam wrote:If I were to buy a drum synth, I'd get Xfer's Nerve

Nerve is a sampler, not a synth.

Tremor used too much cpu on my notebook, Microtonic is not 64bit yet,
so i settled with Waldorf Attack and could not be happier now.

samsam · Post by **samsam** » Mon Feb 18, 2013 1:10 pm

Bathrobe wrote:
samsam wrote:If I were to buy a drum synth, I'd get Xfer's Nerve
Nerve is a sampler, not a synth.

You're right that its not a synth, I shold have said drum machine plugin

TwoToneshuzz · Post by **TwoToneshuzz** » Mon Feb 18, 2013 1:24 pm

I've looked at all the usual suspects, and to my ears physically modelled drums just aren't really there yet, plus they consume to much CPU power.

So I went for Maschine, it is now possible to find some pretty good deals on clearance Mk1's and the sounds available are huge. Also you get Massive now which is pretty sweet.

I'm going to wait on physical modelled drums until computers get more powerful and the physical programs get more capable..

I have Chromaphone which does a lot of great drum sounds. But for kit's it's not very flexible.

Microtonic uses simple waveforms as sound generators so it is not physical modelling but it does sound good for what it does..

I was not a fan of the interface design though..

AKJ · Post by **AKJ** » Mon Feb 18, 2013 2:44 pm

you might also conssider DKS Pro:

http://www.araldfx.com/dks/

(however, do not expect any updates, develpment seems to be dead. however, a really cool drum synth)

then, if you also consider a sample based solution, there is also konkrete 3 from soniccouture:

http://www.soniccouture.com/en/products ... onkrete-3/

cheers, akj

edit: just saw that dks pro is no more available.

jeshi · Post by **jeshi** » Mon Feb 18, 2013 3:43 pm

I have both Nerve and Tremor and I am very happy with both. They really complement each other. Nerve has such an amazing collection of samples and grooves. And the step-sequencers in Nerve and Tremor are both excellent (polyrhythmic, stutter-steps, graph based levels....) I use Nerve when I want to focus more on the rhythms/grooves, Tremor when I want to focus on creating a unique drum synth sound. But with the amazing sample collection in Nerve and its built in effects (and essentially no-cpu load), Nerve is still my favorite for laying down drum layers.

But the sounds that Tremor can create are truly inspiring. I love the way that Tremor sounds. It can even do amazing bass and lead-synth sounds since Tremor is basically 8 DCAM oscilators, DCAM effects with a geist step-sequencer. I find sometimes Tremor is OK with the CPU and other times it gets crazy. I think it has to do with long echo-delay effects on several channels and/or the main bus of Tremor. With minimal Tremor effects, it is not so heavy on the CPU.

I strongly considered microtonic for a long time, but after getting Nerve and Tremor I am happy and have little desire for microtonic or any other drum machine. I think microtonic is a bit more easy to get going with at first, but the extra effort learning nerve/tremor was worth it for me.

gabebrunogarza1021 · Post by **gabebrunogarza1021** » Mon Feb 18, 2013 4:10 pm

johnnyvn wrote: But I sure don't like the 16-step sequencer...why not 32?

Why not?
Within MicroTonic you can go as high as a 196-step sequencer but it's not just a nnn-step sequencer since you can drag from MicroTonic and drop that pattern as a MIDI file into your DAW.
From there it's a drum machine where it's not bound to a limited step sequencer.

Sendy · Post by **Sendy** » Mon Feb 18, 2013 4:29 pm

Attack is still a force to be reckoned with. Apart from those damn fiddly knobs!

Sure, it has no sequencer, but then, I'm going to be loading it IN a sequencer, so that solves that problem.

And what is up with that stupid default sound in Tremor? Something inbetween a kick and snare would have been helpful, sometimes that clang almost makes me feel like giving up right from the get-go

Crackbaby · Post by **Crackbaby** » Mon Feb 18, 2013 4:37 pm

I learned how to initialize Extreme Drumsynth - rightclick the sound and "cut"

Tremor or Microtonic? That is the question!