Heartbeat by Softube Released

[pheeleep]

I will definitely have to set some time aside to eventually try the demo. Not in a rush.

To me, the most important thing in a drum synth is the control I have, the number of parameters that are available/tweak able to shape each sound (kick, snare, etc..). Having a built in sequencer is secondary to me, as well as built in effects. As long as the plugin is multi out I have my needs covered using separate effects...

I am sucker for drums, whether synthesized or sampled. I own a lot of drum synths and samplers (Eg: Attack, Drumaxx, Drumazon, Geist...)

To me, the drum synth to beat is Rob Papen Punch. I LOVE Punch. It offers drum synthesis as well as sample loading and tweakability.

Punch seems to offer more tweakability. Some of the modules have a lot of parameters to shape the sound. Heartbeat seems limited in that respect (just going off the screenshots, videos and info provided on their website). Heartbeat has 5 effects, Punch has 20+.

In the case of Punch, I care about the built in effects because they are modulatable! Very handy for additional sound sculpting/shaping needs that become an integral part of the sound. You can set effects parameters as destinations and modulate them. And they are high quality as well.

I want to try Heartbeat because in the end, it's all about the sound and it might blow Punch out of the water but I have a feeling it's going to be a hard sell. Comparing feature to feature, Punch wins. Sonically, the synthesized Punch "sound" sounds really good. Not to mention that in Punch you can load your own samples (even layer them) and tweak to your hearts content.

The prices are comparable (punch $179 when not on sale, so about $40 cheaper than Heartbeat), and Punch also comes with Punch BD, a separate drum synth dedicated to shaping and layering kick drums.

Punch also comes with a gazillion high quality presets. Not sure how many Heartbeat comes with.

Oh, and I like the GUI of Heartbeat. I am digging the Frankenstein method to represent each section, as described in one of the posts above

[Frantz]

I am recording drums tonight so I figured I'd give this a quick try. I only spent a few minutes with it but my initial impression was that it will slow down my workflow since it duplicates a lot of functionality (mixer, EQ, compressor, delay, reverb) I already have in an unfamiliar configuration within the plugin. I would have preferred a simpler instrument with just the drum sounds themselves. I ended up switching to Drumatic4 just to get the recording done. I will come back to Heartbeat when I am ready to dedicate more time to fiddling around with it.

[zerocrossing]

No, that does not seem like a bad price at all, but I can't just willy nilly buy everything that's a fair price. I still have to demo it to make sure it's a unique enough, or has breakthrough levels of quality that's worth spending money on. I've cut off my allowance for such things to force me to clean out gear that's collecting dust and taking up space in my world and give myself more reason to dig into what I have on a deeper level. If I dig it enough, it'll force me to finally put my 3 MOTU 828s up on eBay... though, I have to say that Obscurium is first on the list of things to get. That's another story...

Of course one should not just buy every plugin just because it's there. That's up to you to judge. But you get a fully functional demo so no harm done in investigating it except that it needs physical I-lok to demo also.

But thanks for letting me give you that hint anyway .

Oh, I will demo it. I used to have all the Softube amp plug ins. I thought they were really good but I replaced them with a Kemper Amp Profiler. I bet this plug in sounds great. They really know gain distortion effects.

[Frantz]

I spent some more time with Heartbeat. I found the drum synthesis underwhelming. The actual snare synth engines have just 3 knobs which does not give you a lot of tweakability. I think the effects rack is there partly to compensate for how limited the drum synthesis is. The kick gets pretty puny once you turn off the Saturation and Low Gain boost applied in the presets.

[deastman]

I spent some more time with Heartbeat. I found the drum synthesis underwhelming. The actual snare synth engines have just 3 knobs which does not give you a lot of tweakability. I think the effects rack is there partly to compensate for how limited the drum synthesis is. The kick gets pretty puny once you turn off the Saturation and Low Gain boost applied in the presets.

The synthesis is styled after the classic machines of the 80's. How many controls does an 808 or 909 snare have? Bottom line, I think these sounds damn good!

[Frantz]

How many controls does an 808 or 909 snare have? Bottom line, I think these sounds damn good!

This ain't hardware. I would have preferred if they went deeper with the synth part and skipped all the other add ons.

I think it sounds fine but it doesn't bring anything new to the table.

[deastman]

I think the actual sound is better then anything similar out there. That's what they brought to the table. But if your main focus is on controllable parameters, I'd recommend Extreme Drumsynth from Sonic Sidekick over just about anything else.

[Frantz]

I'd recommend Extreme Drumsynth from Sonic Sidekick over just about anything else.

32 bit only. Meh.

[deastman]

I'd recommend Extreme Drumsynth from Sonic Sidekick over just about anything else.

32 bit only. Meh.

Well, I use Sonar, so 32 bit plugins bridge perfectly. Or in Ableton I use jbridge. Not exactly a deal breaker for such an otherwise awesome plugin. But yeah, I'd prefer 64...

[zerocrossing]

Had a few minutes while on hold with eBay customer support (who eventually hung up on me!) to check it out. It sounds really good. My recommendation is to buy Bong especially if you already have a good reverb, echo and compressor plug in and save yourself a lot of money.

[Hans25]

Had a few minutes while on hold with eBay customer support (who eventually hung up on me!) to check it out. It sounds really good. My recommendation is to buy Bong especially if you already have a good reverb, echo and compressor plug in and save yourself a lot of money.

"It sounds really good"? Are you talking about Heartbeat? And then you recommend a 32-bit plugin instead? The websites looks like a leisure project. That doesn't mean that the plugin isn't good but support and regular updates also means something when chosing plugins. Of course I could be wrong about support etc. $25 isn't much. But a 32-bit plugin is just out of question for me at least.

[zerocrossing]

Had a few minutes while on hold with eBay customer support (who eventually hung up on me!) to check it out. It sounds really good. My recommendation is to buy Bong especially if you already have a good reverb, echo and compressor plug in and save yourself a lot of money.

"It sounds really good"? Are you talking about Heartbeat?

Yes.

And then you recommend a 32-bit plugin instead?

Yes. Bitdepth in this context has nothing to do with audio quality.

The websites looks like a leisure project. That doesn't mean that the plugin isn't good

No, it does not.

...but support and regular updates also means something when chosing plugins. Of course I could be wrong about support etc. $25 isn't much.

xoxos is... well let's just say "unconventional" but he seems to attend his forum here a lot. He doesn't constantly update and add features to his plug ins, but there have been v2s. Mostly he offers high quality and interesting plug ins for very little cash.

But a 32-bit plugin is just out of question for me at least.

Well, that's that then. I've got a number of plug ins that I rely on that are 32 bit, so I still run a 32 bit DAW. (Live) In my experience I've yet to have any issue running a 32 bit app and plug ins on a 64 bit OS (Windows But if you won't use a bridge and use a 64 bit DAW, then Bong is not for you, but I brought it up anyway because I feel it offers similar sonic quality and flexibility at a very good price. It's missing effects, but with multiple outputs you can actually achieve quite a bit more than you could with just using Heartbeat. Basically, what I'm saying is that I feel that Heartbeat is very overpriced and really does not bring much that's sonically better or new to the table. If you need a good 64 bit drum synth, I'd recommend Tremor instead.

[Hans25]

Well, that's that then. I've got a number of plug ins that I rely on that are 32 bit, so I still run a 32 bit DAW. (Live) In my experience I've yet to have any issue running a 32 bit app and plug ins on a 64 bit OS (Windows But if you won't use a bridge and use a 64 bit DAW, then Bong is not for you, but I brought it up anyway because I feel it offers similar sonic quality and flexibility at a very good price. It's missing effects, but with multiple outputs you can actually achieve quite a bit more than you could with just using Heartbeat. Basically, what I'm saying is that I feel that Heartbeat is very overpriced and really does not bring much that's sonically better or new to the table. If you need a good 64 bit drum synth, I'd recommend Tremor instead.

Ok so you think Heartbeat at €125 is still not worth the price. That's fair enough.

I understand your point of view. I just want to add that I have definitely run into problems with 32-bit bridged plugins in jbridge (that utility is very good but of course it's impossible to avoid all conflicts between 32 and 64-bit systems). For example Sonic projects OPX Pro II is 32 bit and the bridged version hangs all the time with the GUI not responding. That makes this plugin almost impossible to rely on (luckily they are working on a 64-bit version now).

Thanks for your tip about Tremor. I have Tremor and I have mixed feelings about it. I like the sound but the plugin is buggy (I have reported bugs) and they haven't updated it for ages anyway. Furthermore there are all kinds of modulation visual effects going on that are not reliable in any way. You would think that if someone added visual modulation effects (and idea and feature I find really useful) then they would actually show what was going on. But they don't - they button-wheels just go crazy up and down and are of no use - and worse it uses CPU with all those GUI updates all the time.

I asked FXpansion about the GUI-modulation "effects" and told them that the GUI-animations of the modulation didn't reflect the true modulation. Then I just got a nonchalant respond a la "Yes we know but this was just added to make some visuals" and bl.a. bl.a bl.a.

[zerocrossing]

Well, that's that then. I've got a number of plug ins that I rely on that are 32 bit, so I still run a 32 bit DAW. (Live) In my experience I've yet to have any issue running a 32 bit app and plug ins on a 64 bit OS (Windows But if you won't use a bridge and use a 64 bit DAW, then Bong is not for you, but I brought it up anyway because I feel it offers similar sonic quality and flexibility at a very good price. It's missing effects, but with multiple outputs you can actually achieve quite a bit more than you could with just using Heartbeat. Basically, what I'm saying is that I feel that Heartbeat is very overpriced and really does not bring much that's sonically better or new to the table. If you need a good 64 bit drum synth, I'd recommend Tremor instead.

Ok so you think Heartbeat at €125 is still not worth the price. That's fair enough.

I understand your point of view. I just want to add that I have definitely run into problems with 32-bit bridged plugins in jbridge (that utility is very good but of course it's impossible to avoid all conflicts between 32 and 64-bit systems). For example Sonic projects OPX Pro II is 32 bit and the bridged version hangs all the time with the GUI not responding. That makes this plugin almost impossible to rely on (luckily they are working on a 64-bit version now).

Thanks for your tip about Tremor. I have Tremor and I have mixed feelings about it. I like the sound but the plugin is buggy (I have reported bugs) and they haven't updated it for ages anyway. Furthermore there are all kinds of modulation visual effects going on that are not reliable in any way. You would think that if someone added visual modulation effects (and idea and feature I find really useful) then they would actually show what was going on. But they don't - they button-wheels just go crazy up and down and are of no use - and worse it uses CPU with all those GUI updates all the time.

I asked FXpansion about the GUI-modulation "effects" and told them that the GUI-animations of the modulation didn't reflect the true modulation. Then I just got a nonchalant respond a la "Yes we know but this was just added to make some visuals" and bl.a. bl.a bl.a.

Yeah, FXpansion and UI design aren't what I'd call good "friends." It's funny though, I never noticed what you're talking about because I just think of it as "oh it's telling me something is being modulated." I don't think a true visual representation would really help anything and frankly, after I've set up my sounds and kit, I close the UI and play anyway.

Anyway, I just brought it up because I think of it when I think of a drum plug in that sonically offers something significantly new in both sound and sequence style and is 64 bit. Of course, there's µtonic as well, which I love as it gives an x0x-ish kind of sound but with a different character and fun morphing abilities. I could go on, but there are a lot of great drum synth plug ins now. If you're going to get me to pay for your plug in you're going to have to offer something special. I just don't think anything about Heartbeat is special enough to warrant a €125 price. I'd pick this up if it were cheap... say $75. I guess if I didn't have any drum synths at all I'd consider it. But I've got a bunch and a Nord Drum 2 as well.

[elxsound]

Does anyone know if Softube does 50% off deals? I just recently stumbled on Heartbeat. I actually like this quite a bit, but not enough even at its discounted price of 125 EUR. I'm sure they justify some of that cost with all the included effects, but I like my effects better. I would definitely pick this up sub-$100. I have plenty of other drum tools and this is a bit of a niche plugin.

If I can workout the best method of integrating it in Live/Push along with utilization of the 8 outputs I could definitely extend the use of it, but I guess I need more time with it (and a lower price would seal the deal).