KVR Audio

tattiemannie · Post by **tattiemannie** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 1:53 am

Aaah I see where you're at D.Wako, chainer is a means by which I can play a Vst drum machine, and add any effects I like in the chain. Its not really what I'm after though... It seems to me that it's way beyond the task I'm on at the mo. The bottom line really is, if I'm having a prob getting any joy out of it, what chance do I have of tutoring my nyoob mate to have it up an at 'em for his gig in 6 weeks??
I just want to present my chum with an easy to understand drum machine, which can do 'song' mode as well as patterns. One standalone prog! just to get going, and if the drum samples can be changed, super! and if vst effects can be employed, even superer!
I dont want to even think about midi.
So far, Beatcraft is the bizz in terms of all the criteria I have mentioned, as well as the reasonable price .. for a few quid more, theres iDrum ... brilliant, but a few quid more for no gain as far as the criteria dictate. A few freebies stand out, namely leafdrums, hydrogen, moonfish, hotstepper.... but all are in some small way short of what Beatcraft has to offer.

It would be wonderful if there was a freebie out there which can challenge these ... consistent with the criteria I have stated ( I hasten to add!! ),
and I will try out anything while I still have the time to ponder!

Thanks heaps and heaps again to everyone for their suggestions and info, every piece of post here is helpful regardless of how near to or far from the perfect solution it might lead.

zerocrossing · Post by **zerocrossing** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 3:29 pm

tattiemannie wrote:lucknow13 .... yeah, Hotstepper looks good, I've not spent an awful lot of time with it as yet, but did find it a bit limited, particularly the inability to write patterns of 1, 3 and 6 beats long. Its still in the frame as a punk drummer though!

I've been following this thread a little and it sounds to me like every time someone suggests something you yell, "No simple" and then that's followed by "But it doesn't do x, y and z!"

With all the time you've spent posting, you could have figured out any one of the suggestions. It's not that hard. Also, it's so easy that you could have spent the remaining time working a part time job to fund a decent commercial software drum machine like microtonic.

So I'm going to put my 2 cents in and tell you or your friend, that you should buy Ableton Live Lite or a Korg Electribe drum machine on ebay and just watch tutorials and learn it. You can have free, easy and quality: pick two. You want all three?

...

pinkjimiphoton · Post by **pinkjimiphoton** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 5:51 pm

just found this thing, dunno if it's useful but it is cheap:

http://www.henrykellner.com/PercussionS ... /vsti.html

tattiemannie · Post by **tattiemannie** » Tue Feb 17, 2009 11:51 pm

Zerocrossing, I have indeed put a lot of time in and figured out many of the machines and taken the time to comment on them with regard to the task I have described.
I have taken every single suggestion on board and acted upon them as far as time would allow.

I am doing this as a favour for a friend, for free .. and have attempted to guage things from the perspective of his abilities and needs ... I dont think I have been dismissive of anyones contribution at all, and in fact I have continually offered my thanks and appreciation for these. As I have stated, I have some good options which I would not have had if not for the support I have had on this thread.

However, if i am coming across as dismissive, then I apologise .. it is not my intention at all.

If it was my own need I was attempting to satisfy, then yes, I would take a lot more time to suss things out, but I have everything I need to make music, and the knowledge re how to use it.

If I thought my friend would be able to pick up a DAW in the time he has to get his drum tracks done, I would not have needed to put the time and effort into auditioning all these machines. My friend may well decide to move onto Microtonic, Korg or Live, .. thats for him to ponder. But for now, we just need an 'entry level' device, simple to use, but able to do songs.

The time I have put into this thread has been very productive, and it is my hope that as well as benefitting myself and said friend, it serves as a resource for others with similar needs.

Also, I think it is at least courteous to spend time responding to peoples posts. Believe me, it would be a lot easier to do as many others do and get the info I need and not bother to even say that I got it!

.... And your input is also very valuable! ... and you may well be right

.... and as I have done so far, despite the fact I reckon I have what I need, I will definitely at least familiarise myself with the Korg and Microtonic. ( Ableton is a jump too far ahead I reckon )

Lucknow13 and pinkjimiphoton, I will check out those those suggestions ... cheers!

nix808 · Post by **nix808** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 4:37 am

Are me and SM+folks still in the running? I can cut it down if you like tattiemannie.
Wishing contents

lucknow13 · Post by **lucknow13** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 5:17 am

Hey nix808 are you the person who made the Drumroll? I had an earlier? version but it took a while to load (on my unpowerful machine) and once it did it ate the cpu,however I did like what I saw and If the Cpu usage has inmproved would like very much to try it again. Do you have a link for it as I couldn't find it on rekkerd.Thanks. By the way everyone there is an interesting drum sequencer for HG Fortune Yahoo user group users. If you register there you can check it out. Its called?hmm.... well one name is LPM.anyway its listed as the goodie for group members and if you do go there you can find some presets in the temp folder also.Zits very cool. Thanks for the neat thread guys and or girls.lk

nix808 · Post by **nix808** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 6:21 am

Hey lucknow,
Yeah I put the DrumRoll together. I'll try get the CPU down for you and tattiemannie and link here if I'm successful. In the meantime here is the link to the original->
http://www.sendspace.com/file/iua4kj
I'll update Rekkerd soon.
Wishing contents

tattiemannie · Post by **tattiemannie** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 10:54 am

As I said nix808, other than the CPU load, Drumroll is brilliant! I would be over the moon if it could be cut down to between 4 and 6 channels, and the samples which come preloaded could be cut in size ... maybe shorter, or perhaps just preload a bassdrum, a snare and a hat, just so we can hear it working, ... and either leave the other sample select boxes blank, or load tiny samples into them.

I dont know what it is in your machine that is eating up CPU, so its hard to comment, but it does have an abundance of features which could be cut back.

If only two channels had all the features, then that would be fine! .... cos then it would be poss to create sounds, export as wavs, and reload into a more basic channel .... with perhaps Vol, EQ, and maybe a pitch control, or accent, but without effects.

If between two and four of these 'basic' channels were 'very' stripped down, then it would still be useful in that loops could be rendered in the fully featured channels, and loaded.... In which case, perhaps Two fully featured channels, 4 basic channels and two loop players would be ideal!

Back to the purpose of this thread though, your machine will be useful to myself and my mate, but unless it does 'song mode' ... it wont be the one for the live stuff. But on its own merit, it is well up there among the best stuff I've tried so far .... and its potential is very exciting!

nix808 · Post by **nix808** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 11:11 am

OK man, I'll see what I can do. I'll test on my older machine, it's using 7-10% on my quad3. I'm not sure that I can make it export to wav? Would you like that function? It's kinda redundant for most of us with hosts though.
Cheers

lucknow13 · Post by **lucknow13** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 11:45 am

Regarding Drumroll. Even when its being scanned(dll) or loading(exe) it takes some time and my machine says that its running low on virtual memory and has to increase it. Had an exe. file of it first and then a.dll so maybe its ram usage too? I dono? Will stay tuned however thanks.lk

MRT · Post by **MRT** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 11:55 am

Maybe I'm late to the show here but I used this years ago and really like it. May be worth a look.

MASTERBEAT 2.0™ offers you multiple interfaces to the outside world and can be integrated easily into the setup of your existing equipment.

through MIDI:

MIDI Sync as Slave; receive MIDI Start / Stop / Continue / Clock

MIDI Sync as Master; transmit MIDI Start/Stop/Continue/Clock

MIDI File Export: all controllers can be exported

All important controllers as BPM, Master Volume, selected Channel, Volume, Pan, Pitch, Distortion, Threshold, Delay Lvl, Delay Fbk, Delay Pan can be received and adjusted via MIDI :

through WAV:

individual Drum-Patterns exported as WAV-File (16bit /44,1 KHz)

stream / record complete songs as WAV-File (16bit / 44,1 KHz)

load / save individual sounds (incl. your own WAV-Files, mono or stereo)

load / save complete Drum-Kits

Other:

"Bundle" - simultaneous Loading/Saving of Song- and Sound data

"Song Load/Save" for space concious saving of true song data

http://www.masterbits.de/masterbeat_e.htm

HTH

nix808 · Post by **nix808** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 12:19 pm

lucknow13 wrote:Regarding Drumroll. Even when its being scanned(dll) or loading(exe) it takes some time and my machine says that its running low on virtual memory and has to increase it. Had an exe. file of it first and then a.dll so maybe its ram usage too? I dono? Will stay tuned however thanks.lk

I guess maybe it ups the samples to ram? I have 3 gig. I've started chopping it down.

Sorry, watch this space.

Wishing contents

pinkjimiphoton · Post by **pinkjimiphoton** » Wed Feb 18, 2009 3:15 pm

tat,
this also is cheap and may be promising

http://www.polyrythmic.org/en/userssaid.php

http://www.polyrythmic.org/en/archibald.php

tattiemannie · Post by **tattiemannie** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 12:27 pm

Hey PJP, that looks promising indeed! DL'ing now!

Your last recommendation was not bad at all, just aimt punk though!

Sorry, but the other devices suggested since my last post dont work out, either because they are vsts, or I was required to pay to download.

Got a meeting with my friend on Wednesday. We'll decide then which prog(s) to go with. Beatcraft is still looking like the hot candidate, but time yet if anyone has any recommendations.

Just a reminder, we're looking for standalone, not necessarily free, or cheap. No vsts ... got plenty of those already, and they are not suitable for the task at hand.
Loopers are of interest, but song mode is what we are really looking for ... it has to replace a drummer in an established punk band!

OK, gonna go play with Archibald!

tattiemannie · Post by **tattiemannie** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 12:53 pm

.... Excellent machine! .... Open it up, and it makes sense almost at a glance!
Ten minutes later, with no manual, I have sussed the velocity, attack, randomisation/probability features, the mixer, the pattern ed, and the sequencer. I've sussed out how to add/replace samples for the instruments, and load vst effects ..... it ticks all the boxes, it sounds great, and its not too hard on the CPU! Superb! .... Definitely joins the 'cool club!'

Cheers pinkjimiphoton! .... good find!

Free standalone drum machine??