software drum machines

[Idylle Moon Dancer]

I've been using Acoustica Beatcraft. Not bad for $40. My chief complaints are the inability to import/export patterns between projects and the lack of cut&paste functionality, and a few of the drum samples are poorly edited.

A big plus is the ease with which it allows you to use your own sounds.

Anyone else have experience with software drum machines?

[paulk]

1. my fave is "redrum" , which is in Reason

which I run using rewire. You can import your own samples quite easily, and add fx both in the drum machine itself and in the Reason mixer.

What I've been using lately for beats is Spectrasonics RMX, which is more of a loop machine than a straight ahead drum machine. It's a pretty cool program, even if my libraries DO keep disappearing periodically...

[greyl]

2. FL Studio, definitely.

The demo is free, and you can export .wavs from the demo version to use in other apps.
It's a full fledged sequencer, audio recording studio, and vst/dx host. The full bundle is 361.00, the entry level version is 49.00.
I've posted a few songs in this group that used FL Studio exclusively, but really, it can be used for any genre of music.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FL_Studio
http://www.flstudio.com/
http://www.flstudio.com/demo/

[petgoat]

3. Hydrogen is free and smarter than I am. I wish I had time for it. nt