Best drum synth?

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TBH, i like creating drum sounds with "general purpose" synths much more than with dedicated drum synths, because i feel like the synthesis is more flexible, and it sounds better to me as well. Dune CM is capable of some great drum sounds, for example.

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I think Microtonic is the best what was made out among software drum machines, by different criteria, beginning with sounds variety (despite such a simple configuration), ending with a lack of bugs, convenient and no cpu consumption. Some astonishing coding. But I agree with the above think about the fact that it would be great to make this device more complex.

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Yeah, I prefer general synths, especially if they have MSEGs and FM. Zebra makes some awesome stomps, Serum EDM kicks thud your heart, then there's stuff like Chromaphone 2, which is great for uncanny valley sounds. Battery is fast and smooth for layering sounds. Nothing like stealing a transient from an acoustic bass drum and marrying it with an electronic body.

However, creativity can be sprung from limits, and things like Microtonic are a joy to use, especially with the Patternarium, and if you have a PO-32 to take it on the go. But there is no "best". For fast workflow, there's stuff like Sonic Academy Kick 2. But honestly, I got tired of it during the demo, since it prescribes how to make a kick a little too strictly and I saw its limits. I much prefer my preset templates in Serum, Avenger, Zebra, etc., because I can break out of them if I want to.

Last year I spent a day making kicks, claps, and snares and I'm set for a while. A lot of them pitch tuned as well. So which would you rather have, an explicit drum synth you'll use rarely or a general synth you'll not only use all the time but master in the process? You have Synthmaster, have you tried making drums in it? It's not the best workflow but it's gonna feel weird constricting yourself in anything less.

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Tremor. If you have the CPU.

Drumatic. Very under-rated. Very good. Fantastic in fact.

Image-Line DrumSynth. Free in FLStudio, extra as a VST. Great softs.

Drumaxx. Also by Image-Line. Works very well with Drumatic.



Drumatic really can cover all those 909 and 808 and 606 sounds though. Not too expensive either.

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RP Punch

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Sytrus, for full screen graphic envelopes and FM.
Nova II, FL20+Fire, Sytrus, Transistor Bass, DUNE 3, Thorn, Viper, ANA 2 SynthMaster, Discovery Pro, Reason, SugarBytes, SoundToys, LION, TRIAD, Plugin-Alliance, T-Racks, AmpliTube, MODO Drum/Bass, iZotope MPS 2.
One Day: FLEXXX, Alpha Forever, Diversion 2

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FXpansion Tremor and Rob Papen Punch are the best drum synth plugins I own, but the workflow of both products could use some improvement. Punch can also load audio files.

With that said, I rarely use either plugin at this time.

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I know you're looking for something specialized, but the old hideous freebie Voyager I find unbeatable for synthesizing hihats until you get into semi/modulars, or xoxos' drum synths.

Old school analog synth hats are 4+ pulsewaves through two parallel bandpass filters, Voyager's 4 oscillators and parallel filters can whip them up in a hurry.

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D16 Punchbox and Tremor are pretty god. Tremor is a CPU beast though.

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In the last days I did some heavy testing on Drum Synths. I was looking for a drumsynth which could do x0x-like stuff and beyond. Here is my overview:
+ Tremor: Quite good. But will no longer be developed. The price is too high for a plugin which will see no update in the future. I hope the feature of drum synthesis will find it's way into Geist 3.
+ Stix: Good Sequencer and versatile Synth. But the handling of the Synth is quite complicated and not intuitive. And the sound did not appeal to me.
+ Punch: Not bad. But the general concept of the sequencer seems to fit most to EDM stuff, which is not my case of application.
+ Drummax: Intuitive tweeking of the synth, pleasing sound. But did x0x-Stuff not well enough.
+ Heartbeat: Great sound! Lacks stepsequencer.
+ Drumsynth 500: Well designed, but also lack of sequencer. Sound did not thrill me.
I endet up with buying Attack from Waldorf. Affordable, great sound, lacks Sequencer too, but I can use the sequencer of Geist 2 to trigger Attack. In the end I'm wondering that the field of drum synthesis is so badly treated by the plugin developers. If you are looking for an ordninary synth there are hundrets of well designed plugins. Especially the combination of synthesis and sampling in combination with a big real drummer kit like BFD3 or superior Drummer is my dream for the future.

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I still think Kick 2 is the best dedicated drum synth plug-in as long as you don’t need all the built in sequencers, loops, multitimbral, etc. Gives you perfect control over pitch and amplitude with msegs, the sub oscillator can be additively changed. Almost all the modules have presets - so load a pitch envelope preset with a sub osc preset and so on. Drag and drop sample stacker with their own controls and amplitude msegs. And they just added a new tape saturation which sounds great

Aside from that punchbox is really good, and if you want to go nuts with a “regular” synth avenger has pretty much anything you could ask for, plus a great workflow

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Hm, Kick 2 is on sale, so is PunchBox. Something with D16 doesn't click with me tho.

Thinking of picking up Drummax, but its not on sale and i'm so vain i want a HiDPI GUI...

I do my synths with AudioSpillage DrumSpillage2 but i want another drum synth so bad :)
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So just list out all drum synths? Is that how it works? :hihi:

OK. My drum synth of choice is Punch 2.
I wonder what happens if I press this button...

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Tremor: For those sounds that none of the other synths have. Expect to spend a long time though if you want to get a typical 909 or 808 sound.

Drumaxx: For sounds that don't really exist. But then again is just out of this world good for hi-hats and pretty good for snares too. Surprisingly flexible.

Punchbox: A very fun and useful system that can be used for snares as much as for kicks. You can load samples so it shouldn't be surprising.

Drumatic: Still a great synth machine for those 909/808 like sounds.

Waldorf Attack: Never been bettered and still sounds great.

AudioThing SR88: A lot of fun and sounds very good too. It always finds a place in a track.

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Drumaxx looks so cool. wonder if they'll do a sale might pick it up
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