# Suggest a drum sampling software



## mazafaka (Jan 23, 2006)

I have tried Battery 2, and liked it, but I have also heard a lot of good things about BFD. What program are you guys using to program drums? I am using Ableton Live 5, with a Trigger Finger, and have mostly used the built-in drum sampler within Live. I play a lot of industrial rock and heavy stuff, but the realism that BFD advertises sounds appealing.

So, BFD, or Battery 2? Or something else? Whaddya think?


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## Elysian (Jan 23, 2006)

drumkit from hell superior.


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## Dormant (Jan 23, 2006)

I'm currently running DrumKit From Hell 2 but if your computer is sharp enough to deal with DFHSuperior like Elysian mentioned above it's definitely a good way to go. 

When it comes to programming the drums I tend to write them in GP4 and transfer the file in MIDI to Pro Tools, and re-assign my preferred DFH kits.


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## Chris (Jan 23, 2006)

+1 for DKFH2.


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## LordOVchaoS (Jan 23, 2006)

Right now I'm using Reason/ReDrum. Best setup I've found so far. I have DKFH2 and while it does sound better than anything else I've tried, it's just a bitch and uses far too much RAM!


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## DSS3 (Jan 23, 2006)

Please stay away from BFD for metal.

DFH2 wasn't that great to me... harder to work with than Battery2, and didn't sound as good as DFHS.

Just save up and grab DFHS, it's the best.


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## Ryou4Eighty6 (Jan 24, 2006)

Yo, I use fruity loops on my shit, with the FPC drum set, Its not necessarily the best for death metal , but for a decent range of styles i'd suggest it. You can fiddle with just about everything with it.


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## Elysian (Jan 24, 2006)

i run drumkit from hell 2, love it, but when i get the money i'm buying DKFHS... i hate programming drums in guitar pro, i like cubase's drum editor much better, it helps me visualize what i'm doing, i just run dkfh2 as a vst instrument....


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## eleven59 (Jan 24, 2006)

My drummer says "Go die in a fire"

I say, try nskit


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## Chris (Jan 24, 2006)

Fruity Loops with some real samples (eg the DKFH1 pack) is damned decent.


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## Vince (Jan 24, 2006)

LordOVchaoS said:


> Right now I'm using Reason/ReDrum. Best setup I've found so far. I have DKFH2 and while it does sound better than anything else I've tried, it's just a bitch and uses far too much RAM!



+1  

The drums on my solo album were programmed in a Boss DR770 and played back with samples in Reason via MIDI.


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## theunforgiven246 (Jan 24, 2006)

i use the nskit free samples and i like them....  but i use cakewalk audio pro 9 and put it in hit by hit and it takes forever but sounds damn good.... to me at least...


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## Christopher (Jan 24, 2006)

I'm using the Reason 3.0 with the drum refill kit all triggered by midi. It does the job all right.


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## Nik (Jan 24, 2006)

Christopher said:


> I'm using the Reason 3.0 with the drum refill kit all triggered by midi. It does the job all right.



Any tips? I program Drums with GP 5 and export the MIDI, but for some reason when I assign a Reason reDrum machine to the percussion MIDI track, only some drums make sounds...


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## Christopher (Jan 24, 2006)

Yeah, don't use the Redrum. It rocks for making the patterns but doesn't seem to like to read midi files. Set the midi to trigger one of the samplers. Then Load up a drum set for the sampler and you're gold! That's how I do it. My drummer friend programs the patterns on an older Korg keyborad that then sends me the midi file. I import the midi file and send it to the samplers.


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## mazafaka (Jan 24, 2006)

The built-in sampler in Ableton Live (Impulse) works pretty well and is easy enough to use, but perhaps I just need better samples.

The thing that appealed to me about BFD is that the virtual mics allow sound to bleed in from other pieces of the kit, so the sound seems more organic and real. But Battery also works well. It's odd that in all the reviews I had read, I had never heard of Drumkit From Hell. I guess I was living under a rock, considering how many of you really dig it. I will have to see if there is a demo, that way I'm not dropping $$$ without being sure it works in a logical way for me.


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## Dormant (Jan 26, 2006)

Elysian said:


> i run drumkit from hell 2, love it, but when i get the money i'm buying DKFHS... i hate programming drums in guitar pro, i like cubase's drum editor much better, it helps me visualize what i'm doing, i just run dkfh2 as a vst instrument....



I hate Cubase. I prefer Pro Tools but in reality god knows why, as they are all fairly similar. I have been writing drums in GP4 for ages now so I find it quite easy to do and it helps as I fully tab out my songs anyway so I know what to expect (if that makes sense!) 

After reading your Cubase 'how to' I did pull it out again to piss around with and it did make me think 'wow this program is better than I gave it credit for' but I am so used to GP4 programming that I have just gone back to it. 

Evidently there is no right or wrong way (as your recent vid track has proved you can program some fucking kick ass drums in Cubase) but I just can't use Cubase. I truly hate it. And that is with real passion and conviction.

Horses for courses ...

btw... mazafaka if you want to hear the production value of DKFH have a listen to Catch 33 by Meshuggah which was completely done with DKFH Superior - Like Elysian said this truly is the best choice if your computer can handle it...


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## Nik (Jan 26, 2006)

Christopher said:


> Yeah, don't use the Redrum. It rocks for making the patterns but doesn't seem to like to read midi files. Set the midi to trigger one of the samplers. Then Load up a drum set for the sampler and you're gold! That's how I do it. My drummer friend programs the patterns on an older Korg keyborad that then sends me the midi file. I import the midi file and send it to the samplers.



Thanks a lot


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## Elysian (Jan 26, 2006)

Dormant said:


> I hate Cubase. I prefer Pro Tools but in reality god knows why, as they are all fairly similar. I have been writing drums in GP4 for ages now so I find it quite easy to do and it helps as I fully tab out my songs anyway so I know what to expect (if that makes sense!)
> 
> After reading your Cubase 'how to' I did pull it out again to piss around with and it did make me think 'wow this program is better than I gave it credit for' but I am so used to GP4 programming that I have just gone back to it.
> 
> ...


i've never used pro tools... something about having to buy a proprietary interface just turns me off, although now they have it for m-audio sound cards so i could use it, but i don't feel like paying for something like that when i'm already quite familiar with cubase... i used to have cubase, back when it was just cubase vst... but starting with SX, i've really enjoyed it, and grown quite fond of it...


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## Nik (Jan 26, 2006)

Christopher said:


> Yeah, don't use the Redrum. It rocks for making the patterns but doesn't seem to like to read midi files. Set the midi to trigger one of the samplers. Then Load up a drum set for the sampler and you're gold! That's how I do it. My drummer friend programs the patterns on an older Korg keyborad that then sends me the midi file. I import the midi file and send it to the samplers.



Yeah, but the samplers only recognize patches that are in their own directories. For example, you can only load patches from the NN-19 sampler folder to use in the NN-19 sampler. You can't load ReDrum patches in the NN-19...


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## mazafaka (Jan 26, 2006)

Regarding DFH Superior - I have programmed drums with Battery and some similar "easy" packages, but it appears that DFHS is relatively complicated. What is the learning curve like?

I understand some of the general ideas behind recording drums, but hey - I'm a guitarist, and guitars are what I know best. I am more than willing to learn, but how hard is it to get some basic, but professional-sounding drum tracks in DFHS?


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## mazafaka (Feb 3, 2006)

DSS3 said:


> Please stay away from BFD for metal.
> 
> DFH2 wasn't that great to me... harder to work with than Battery2, and didn't sound as good as DFHS.
> 
> Just save up and grab DFHS, it's the best.



A little bump here, as I need to buy a package ASAP.

Why doesn't BFD work well for metal? Seems pretty similar in theory to DFHS, but I like the idea of the graphical interface that BFD has. Also BFD may work out to be cheaper as I am a student and can get an academic version, whereas I can find no academic version of DFHS.

Lastly, I like programming drums in Ableton Live as you can add and subtract hits in realtime. Does the DFHS process allow you to do this? I heard the whole bounce process is hellacious.


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## gojira (Feb 3, 2006)

mazafaka said:


> The built-in sampler in Ableton Live (Impulse) works pretty well and is easy enough to use, but perhaps I just need better samples.
> 
> The thing that appealed to me about BFD is that the virtual mics allow sound to bleed in from other pieces of the kit, so the sound seems more organic and real. But Battery also works well. It's odd that in all the reviews I had read, I had never heard of Drumkit From Hell. I guess I was living under a rock, considering how many of you really dig it. I will have to see if there is a demo, that way I'm not dropping $$$ without being sure it works in a logical way for me.



fuck the bigger drum sample librarys - seriously they suck, they chew up huge amounts of ram, and all seem to sound like shit for some reason - they are extremley bloated. People are willing to sacrafice hundreds of megs of ram on mic bleed - when they can get a better more tweakable sound out of a reverb plugin....

get yourself a copy of drumkit from hell origional - not 2 - and put that through battery - then through ableton - it works, ands sounds better than ANYTHING i have heard.


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