Which electronic drums VST?

[JerGoertz]

For analog electronic drums, try the ReCreate RC-808. It's free and sounds great.

[pierb]

I've tried most options listed here and these are the ones that I keep going back to:

- D16 emulations of 808 and 909
- Kick 2
- Ableton Live Designer Drums (free and compatible with Live 9 and 10) or just operator/analog in Drum Rack. See this tutorial by Robert Henke himself.

For kicks nothing really beats Kick 2 IMO. Punchbox and BigKick don't come close as you don't have as much control of the envelope and wave harmonics. Punchbox has more options in terms of eq/compression/etc and it also does the classic kick sounds well, but other than that Kick 2 is so much better.

Microtonic is great if you're not using Ableton Live, but if you are using Live just load a Drum Rack and start adding sounds with operator/analog or from Designer Drums. You'll have much more flexibility.

[PTV]

One option for you is a dedicated drum synth, like Microtonic, Drumatic, Stix etc.
Another option is using samples inside your favorite sampler. Poise is free and excellent. Goldbaby, Wave Alchemy, Samples From Mars and WaveShaper provide high quality drum samples and also have freebies, so you should check them out.
You can also check Soniccouture's Konkrete and Electro-Acoustic, both are Kontakt instruments that also work in the free Kontakt Player, Konkrete in particular is great.

[DMG68]

I like Drumatic and Tremor (discontinued but still available for sale), Reaktor has some cool stuff. For the price of Drumatic, it’s well worth picking it up. I also bought an Elektron Rytm mkii and I’m loving it.

[Nightpolymath]

Can't go wrong with Kick 2. Though these days I prefer to go the samples route, and there are a bazillion out there that are really, really good.

[leeleema]

I've tried most options listed here and these are the ones that I keep going back to:

- D16 emulations of 808 and 909
- Kick 2
- Ableton Live Designer Drums (free and compatible with Live 9 and 10) or just operator/analog in Drum Rack. See this tutorial by Robert Henke himself.

For kicks nothing really beats Kick 2 IMO. Punchbox and BigKick don't come close as you don't have as much control of the envelope and wave harmonics. Punchbox has more options in terms of eq/compression/etc and it also does the classic kick sounds well, but other than that Kick 2 is so much better.

Microtonic is great if you're not using Ableton Live, but if you are using Live just load a Drum Rack and start adding sounds with operator/analog or from Designer Drums. You'll have much more flexibility.

Great rec, pierb. essentially FM generated percussion sounds. I wouldn't have even thought of that before you mentioned it. Because the sounds are synthesised, the pack doesn't even take up much space. Great stuff

[Effectsworks]

When I'm not using Ableton's drumrack I use Geist 2. Because of it amazing workflow. Of course it doesn't do synthesis, but I'm happy using good samples and layering, etc.

As OP said the D16 stuff is great (Drumazon was on sale recently for 29 bucks!). Microtonic is cool too if you want stuff that's pretty original.

[simmo75]

Geist 2 is 50% off right now, it’s an actual sampler too. It’s sequencer is incredible.

[leeleema]

Geist 2 is 50% off right now, it’s an actual sampler too. It’s sequencer is incredible.

I've heard a few times how good Geist is for drums. But what can it do that can't be done in say, Ableton? Genuinely interested. I remember rave reviews for DR008 back in the day and bought it. I was very disappointed but maybe I missed the point of that one. Also, the whole $50 FXPansion license transfer fee puts me right off

[simmo75]

Geist 2 is 50% off right now, it’s an actual sampler too. It’s sequencer is incredible.

I've heard a few times how good Geist is for drums. But what can it do that can't be done in say, Ableton? Genuinely interested. I remember rave reviews for DR008 back in the day and bought it. I was very disappointed but maybe I missed the point of that one. Also, the whole $50 FXPansion license transfer fee puts me right off

You can argue that about soft synth or sampler as there’s a ton of them.
Geist 2 is awesome, you can sample! Amazes me how many Software samplers do not sample. It’s sequencing is incredible, pisses all over Lives piano grid. It’s great for generative sequences too.

I’d definitely give it a demo if I was looking for electronic drums like the OP is.

Maybe demo Geist and be sure you want to buy it before deciding you want to sell it?

[yellowmix]

I've heard a few times how good Geist is for drums. But what can it do that can't be done in say, Ableton? Genuinely interested. I remember rave reviews for DR008 back in the day and bought it. I was very disappointed but maybe I missed the point of that one. Also, the whole $50 FXPansion license transfer fee puts me right off

You can create entire songs in Geist2 as it is almost practically a DAW. It can sample audio, sequence it, and arrange patterns. So it can't do much beyond what a DAW can. The question is about the workflow, as Geist 2 is specifically geared toward beat-style creation: recording sound, slicing, assigning to pads, sequencing, and arranging. You could use it live if you wish, not unlike an MPC (though MPC's concept of building a song is idiosyncratic with computer DAWs).

You can go as deep as you want depending on how much time and energy you have. You have 8 engines with 64 pads each, each pad can have 8 sample layers with round-robin and velocity split, each layer, pad, and engine each have 6 effects and 4 aux. There are 47 effects of DCAM pedigree so you can sculpt each sample and pad to your liking. I particularly like the 90s sampler emulations to get crunchy drums.

The sequencing is powerful, you can set each lane to its own length for polyrhythms, you can do aleatoric sequencing, you can modulate sequencing parameters.

That's why I also like Battery. The workflow is fast. I can find samples fast in XO, drag them into Battery, layer and sculpt them to my liking, then sequence in MIDI. I find Battery faster than Geist 2 so I will use that unless I want to sequence. Geist 2's sequencer can output MIDI and drive Battery. Its aleotoric sequencing and modulation is really good for varying shakers (Battery has modulation for variation too but no sequencing).

You've got the Ableton drum rack but I'm not sure if it's as powerful as either. But it may be plenty good and simple/fast enough for whatever purpose. It's nice to have options.

[leeleema]

Cool. Thanks chaps

[risome]

Kick 2, Operator resample layer process rinse and repeat.

[FapFilter]

Geist 2 is 50% off right now, it’s an actual sampler too. It’s sequencer is incredible.

Interesting, makes me wonder if a Geist 3 could indeed be around the corner

[gondii]

The combination of XO and Geist2 is also my go to drum set up. I love Geist2, would buy it again without hesitation. It has a much better workflow than just the Ableton Rack. Especially easily setting up round robin, polyrhythms and fx on individual notes in a sequence are great to me, as well as the modulation options. You can introduce so much motion into the sequence with just a few clicks.

I might have a look at Kick2 again. An alternative that I have is BazzISM. Also Punch Box by d16, which is not the best at synthesizing drums, but pretty cool for layering and processing the kick. I really like the UI, too.

I picked up the accusonous beat maker bundle for very cheap some time ago and that has some cool options as well. I was a bit surprised by Beatformer and use it all the time. The other two can also be cool to add some variations to the beat.