Hmmm.

I'm interested in picking up a beat-making plug. For this post, I'm mainly interested in a sound-creating plug, rather than a sample plug ala Geist. So, I think the front runners for me are Tremor and Microtonic.

I very much like the sequencing approach on Tremor, and I'm very much in favor of any 32-step sequencer (as opposed to the 16 step seq on Microtonic. But I do like the look of MT's general interface; I really love that frequencies also read out as note values...nice for tuning anything to your track.

Anyway, I can see a lot to love about either of these and thought I'd put it up here for discussion, thoughts, suggestions, etc.

Anyone have thoughts about the differences / similarities between these two? All info will be greatly appreciated!

tremor kills micro-tonic in features.

You first off also get the incredible DCAM modeled FX which is a big plus! Next off you get the Transmod system which is a very very flexible semi-modular system that lets you modulate as many parameters as you want. This leads to incredible sound design!

From what I've heard Tremor is pretty rough on the CPU, I've heard a lot of complaints about this.

I only have microtonic. It's relatively CPU friendly.

One thing that seems kind of different is Tremor has a lot of modulation options and sound design in the box. With microtonic, the sound design takes a minimalist approach (comparable to the iphone/android nanoloop if you've used that). On one hand, the palette is narrower. On the other hand, it's less distracting. Parameter modulation is also going to happen outside the vst in the host with microtonic, instead of within the plugin.

BTW, you may also want to consider tattoo:
http://www.audiodamage.com/instruments/product.php?pid=AD024

Don't own Tremor (yet - probably will at some point, 'cause of the GAS), but have demoed it.

It's far more extensive than microTonic, which has, for lack of a better word, a "sound" (since its synthesis engine is of course much more limited). It's fantastic for minimal, glitch, blip, tech, etc.

But, depending on what you are looking for, that's also a plus for microTonic (and something I'm coming to appreciate more) - there are still enormous possibilities within those limits, but virtually every "kit" you create will sound coherent. Throw a buss compressor like The Glue on it, and maybe layer the kick (with Synapse EKS Pro, which, considering the time spent on kicks, has to be the most underrated plug on the planet), and you're done.

I'd listen to the sounds on the Patternarium on the Sonic Charge site (another +1 for microTonic) - if you like what you hear, you'll be up and running in no time.

If you really want to spend the time with sound design and almost endless possibilities (and can put up with the CPU hit), Tremor seems fantastic for that.

Microtonic is more the "drum machine" (albeit with lots of tweak-able parameters), whereas Tremor is more like a drum workstation.

Of course, if you're me, the answer inevitably is... both.

I find Tremor far more sonically interesting

Demo all listed virtual drum machines listed in this thread so far, and add RP Punch to that list. Then figure out which works best for you.

You may find this useful

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=344168

I was in the same position as you, demo'd everything...and ended up buying Rob Papen Punch

Jon

Why not just demo it yourself?
http://soniccharge.com/microtonic

Then check out this link for more random MicroTonic presets.
http://soniccharge.com/patternarium

I love MicroTonic.

I have both, but use Microtonic a lot more, because I find it more easy to use, is very low on cpu (the opposite is true for Tremor) and still has a very pleasant sound to it that fits (most of) my style of music.

I believe the devs are releasing a 64-bit version soon too

Tremor has a far better featured sequencer though!

Get Tretonic

Got my interest back for Tremor .. demo expired .... and i only played with it for like 10 min (as i wasn't 100% in to that kind of plugin back then..)

gah

Numanoid, do you know where i can find it the cheapest now?

If you're on Windows, check out Extreme Drumsynth from Sonic Sidekick. Its by far the most powerful drum synth on the market.

I also really like Drummax from Image Line.

But in truth, I'm a bit of a drum machine whore. I have just about every one on the market, including both Tremor and Microtonic. The D16 plugins are also great if you're interested in specific emulations of the classic Roland boxes. Aside from Extreme Drumsynth, I'd be really hard pressed to choose one as my favorite. I like to mix it up, and combine different drum synths and drum samplers on each song. Also keep in mind that you can easily synthesize your own drum sounds with just about any synth... just add a bit of compression, eq, and distortion according to taste.

Just tried Extreme Drumsynth and im very impressed! Big shame there's no init patch
It's a third of the price of Tremor

I've both, Tremor and uTonic.
Tremor is CPU intensive, one outstanding strength is the sequencer (probability of steps -> leads to variation). Once you want to sell it, you have a transfer fee of 50 USD, I think.
uTonic has a huge preset database, easy to use, great for first drum background. I use it a lot.
But I think you cannot sell it, it's NFR.

You could also have a closer look at Mux (€49, Mulab), it's a modular environment, where the drum part is one of many features (synths, fx ...). You can build your own drum kits with synthesized and sampled instruments.
Very fast development and good involvement of user needs is really impressing me. Once, you buy it, you have to keep it, it's NFR.

I've got Tremor. Very deep in terms of synthesis capabilities (more so than most "full" synthesizers). Presets are kind of meh and you need to spend some time before you're able to make good sounds of your own. But as I said, extremely flexible. The sequencer is very nice - you can easily make it sound like you spent hours creating intricate patterns when in reality you were only playing around with the pattern lengths

CPU usage is a bit of a problem. You'll want at least a quad-core CPU to give the plug-in some breathing room.