Exactly....Tremor-Geist Integration will make everything way much easier....at least they should have an option on tremor to sample all the sounds and save it as a Geist Kit.....will save a lot of hassle.....

B Roy

For simplistic no fuss beats, probably µTonic. But as someone else mentioned earlier it feels a bit inflexible. No-ones mentioned Imagelines' Drumaxx yet, its also pretty good but may need a bit more tweaking than the others mentioned.

But IMHO the No. 1 place has to go to Tremor. It can be a total CPU hog & might also have the potential to make you go all out Industrial 4 to the floor madness. But it can be/is the most organic & as close to real player as you can get (for a drum synth plugin) thanks to its amazingly easy to use modulation system. just adding the right amount of modulation to pitch, velocity, filter, noise etc. can turn a potentially static synth snare into one that's very responsive & realistic (if that's what you going for). Sorry if I'm going a bit overboard with the praise here but IMO Tremor & Fxpansion deserve it.

Sampleconstructs' presets are proof that Tremor is capable of a hell of a lot more than Industrial/DnB type beats:

http://soundcloud.com/sampleconstruct/sets/testing-fxpansion s-tremor/

^ yes, i think Drumaxx is worth a mention... and a big hell yes to Chromaphone, that synth is stunning. It's like the controls are perfect, no useless parameters and such a dream to tweak.

One more word to original poster, I own almost every drum synth out there, and they all have their merits, it's obviously really gonna be up to your ears cos we're all after different tones. Start with what you can afford and buy everything else when they're on sale :p
...personally I love them all, I don't think I've used a drum sample in years... drum synths are the coolest.

Or RMV .....
It's the "oldest" so others can't beat it (years of development).

Microtonic is my favourite but Tattoo is nice for a different flavour.

A lot of people keep mentioning Chromaphone. In a drum machine thread. Hm.

I have Collision, which I gather is Chromaphone with a plain GUI. The thing is great for ending up with cool sounds that you wouldn't otherwise, but I wouldn't want to build a drum kit with it. Actually, I tried making a kick and snare with it last night, and it worked out for the most part, except it took half an hour and now my right ear is ringing.

So Collision / Chromaphone remains a "screw around until something appears" synth, and "audio engineer" is probably no longer a career path.

µTonic: beautifully simple, deceptively deep.

I might like to demo Tremor again at some point, but I found the sound rather unappealing first time round. Sampleconstruct shows some lovely creative/alternative uses in those samples ^^. Nicely done.

The difference between Collision and Chromaphone is that the 2 resonators can interact (or run in parallel like in Collision) producing totally new timbres not possible with Collision. AAS announces it as percussion synthesizer which is probably the reason why it appears in this thread - but it's much more than that...

Here is some Chromaphone stuff:
http://soundcloud.com/sampleconstruct/sets/sounds-of-chromap hone/
Last edited by Sampleconstruct on Wed Mar 14, 2012 2:02 pm; edited 2 times in total

Thank's Polyslax, I had a great time producing the presets and demos for my Tremor Bank, I think Tremor is the most innovative drum synth I've ever come across (no, I don't work for or am endorsed by FXpansion whatsoever).
EDIT:
Drum synth doesn't really stand up to what Tremor is, it's more a standalone beat and ambience production studio actually...

OP replies

Thanks for all your help with this thread, lots of great advice here at KVR - took me in a slightly different direction to what I expected

All demo-ing now done, the answer to my question 'Microtonic or Tremor?' ended up as....

Rob Papen Punch!

For reasons I cannot recall it was not even on my list to start with, I guess I thought it was way more expensive than the others and over my budget. Found it at Florida Music Co for $139 http://www.floridamusicco.com/proddetail~prod~punch_virtual_ synth.htm
with a further 5% off with the code 'cdc120'

Special thanks to Igro, Taoyoyo, BRoySound, sqigls, b7uzer for convincing me to try it, cheers to everyone else for some really solid useful advice

Jon

Congrats Jon! When you will make some kicks with it, try the attack knob on the right of almost every Kick's models. It will smother attack clicks, it's something other synth lack.

well done
Punch is an excellent choice sir.

If you find the UI of Tremor a bit daunting (although IMO its very well laid out) check out the Drum synthesis 101 tutorials by Fxpansion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td7oQEXhJ_M
They're nicely done & very easy to follow.

+1. Tremor is a matter of taste. I absolutely dislike it ! Utonic is fantastic.

Im interested in knowing how both of these compare to drumspillage. Thanks.