Jamstix kits, opinions?

[luxth]

Hi,

i'm interested to the Jamstix deal. How do the included sounds compare to the other specialized libs out there like, as example, Colossus, Ez Drummer and such? Any opinion and experience is appreciated.

Thanks
Luca

[Stupid American Pig]

jamstix == awesome

[papatomany]

I think all of the kits are excellent. All else I have to compare it to is Battery 1, and to my ear the Jamstix kits sound more natural. I only use Battery for oddball stuff.

[koolkeys]

I love the kits. And with the XL pack, you get PLENTY of drums. The great thing is that you can use Jamstix with ANY other sampler, even free ones. And there are good free kits available as well for other samplers. Add to that the fact that you can mix and match pieces from Jamstix and another plugin, and you can have the perfect kit.

That being said, my new favorite Jamstix kit is the MetalPak. I recommend it. The new styles and such are great as well.

Brent

[p356]

That being said, my new favorite Jamstix kit is the MetalPak. I recommend it. The new styles and such are great as well.

Kind of a clarification, is the MetalPak OK for non-metal stuff, or is that what you (Brent or anybody) mostly do?

[koolkeys]

I don't even like metal music. I do rock/pop type stuff and they seem to be fine for that. I find it to be a tighter kit, and I like that.

Brent

[luxth]

Thanks a lot for the feedbacks guys.

I have to admit i'm not much impressed by the standard kit provided with the demo. Probably i'll need to look for a different product because i'm more interested to the kits than the pretty cool jamming features.

Luca

[Chester Desmond]

I think the kits are quite good, although not as detailed (vel level wise) as some of the sample libraries you mention. The Jamstix samples are not processed much at all, so while they may not sound as sweet out of the box as EzDrummer, they will probably be more flexible when fitting into a mix. Overall I like them a lot, and the multiple outs and mix and match abilities make it a very flexible piece of software. Having the drummers is of course extremely cool too.

[rockstar_not]

All I know is that I fooled Kingston with a Jamstix song - not sure which kit it was. I'll see if I can find the thread over in the Music Cafe and post it here.

-Scott

Here it is:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=173074

Kingston can be rather opinionated in his responses (sometimes I agree with him and sometimes not) and the fact that he was fooled into thinking I had a real drummer play and wanted to know the details of how I mic'ed the kit in this song was quite joyful to me.

I did this song in one night, with no processing on the drum track other than the built in compressor that's in Tracktion.

-Scott

[Martin E]

The Jamstix kits never fully convinced me. I use Addictive drums for all my songs, which I think has more powerful samples for the rock/pop stuff I write.
Especially the snares from jamstix seem to lack that bottom end and sound kind of jumpy. I do like to use the toms from jamstix however. In more softer songs I even prefer them over Addictive drums.

So maybe one can never fully rely on one drum vst.

[AllenPOPO]

So maybe one can never fully rely on one drum vst.

while i agree with this, I dont think anyone should purchase jamstix on the premise of drum "sounds" i think its much more feasible if your looking for a way to spice up your drum parts, create songs which need real drummers feel, learn more abot real drum parts etc....IF jamstix was sounds only, it wouldnt host external drum vsts...


if your not interested in the drummers then jamstix is not for you imho. i bought js2 w/o the xl kits (when it wasnt on sale..still worth every cent) ..mainly because i already have ezdrummer and vintage drums addons, AND addictive drums vst....i bought jamstix PURELY to be my studio drummer...after that your just deciding if your drummer brings a light kit or a few kits

but ymmv i just think the drummers is what makes jamstix worthwhile, and the ability to host other drum sounds is the proof in the pudding for me

[Compyfox]

I'm using Jamstix since Version 1. I have to admit though that I barely used it at that time, but really started through with v2. The concept at that time was revolutionary and it is even now.

Jamstix is more than a bread'n butter drumkit, it's a drummer brain/beatmachine and it comes with tons of samples as bonus to get you started. For this price, it's a steal and would be a crime not to get it. Okay, you won't have like 10DVDs for 2-3 kits, but more like 2GB for around 8-10, but still you can do a lot with it - for Pop, Funk, Jazz, Rock, Metal... well... everything - fully customizable (a thing where other sets lack in some sections - i.e. EQ, or tuning, etc). It even has an ePak which features some electric kits if you want to do more experimental stuff or RnB.

The best on Jamstix, is the fact that you can either route the output to an external drum module/sampler, or load one as internal host. This way it's more than just your average beatmachine - it integrates "your sound", while you have all benefits of a lively sounding drumbeat (which is where it's unbeatable at the moment) that's also realistic and not overproduced which no drummer could play in reality.


Overall I'm impressed. Not by all sounds (metal pak for example), but this is where I access it's subhost/MIDI send feature. For example: I reacently created a preset set for using Jamstix2 with Natural Studio's ns_kit7 (you can find that over at the Rayzoon boards). This way I can use the best of both worlds, and I don't have to handprogram everything anymore - saves me a lot of time and sounds way more realistic.

At first I also thought that I threw out money, but trust me... if you're producing more acoustic oriented Rock/Pop/RnB, or Rock in general, but can't play drums or don't have access to a drummer/studio, this thing is the leading light on the market and the "drummer brain" alone is totally worth it. Not to mention that you get one of the best customer support in the VST/VSTi market bundled, too.

[Martin E]

Of course I have to agree the drumbrain of Jamstix is totally unique and I couldn't do without it. For creating fills and more variation in your drumtracks it can't be beat.

[pethu]

I think the thing is that the drums in Jamstix are, by necessity

a) very middle-of-the-road, to fit as many drumming styles as possible,

and

b) very "live-sounding", to impart the impression that you actually have a drummer buddy sitting in with you in the studio/rehearsal room.

As such, I find them very, very good.

As soon as you start looking to shape the drum sound for specific production/mixing needs with other criteria than a) and b) above, it's probably often much faster and more convenient to turn to specialised drum libraries rather than trying to FX the heck out of the JS internal sounds...

[Compyfox]

This is actually not true... Okay, if you're looking for a quick dialed sound, or the usual "Nightwish" typish one, okay this might not be for you, but no matter which kit I used so far (from the ones before MetalPak), I could go whichever way I wanted soundwise, EQ wise and compression wise.

It's not perfect, but flexible. Only thing that I didn't like though was the fact that I couldn't change the ammount of kick inside/outside and snare top/bottom sound. Else? For this price you won't get anything better, maybe except the now sold out ns_kit7 in terms of articulations and quantity.