Rock Drum Machine

First off, I love all of this devs percussion apps. That said, each one needs a little something to truly kick it into the next level. In the case of this app, what is needed is a humanization perimeter that varies the velocity and timing (from slight to more drastic) of each hit. It may do a little of this already, I am not sure, but when the app gets to longer, very high speed drum parts (such as double bass drums, or drum rolls) there is a clear “machine gun” sound going on. This is a common artifact in a lot of drum machines and apps that don’t do much humanizing. What seems to cause the sound is the rapid triggering of the same sample, at the same velocity, with near perfect timing. The sound produced can very from just barely noticeable, to downright annoying. With a humanizing control, or a more deep amount of humanizing control, this could be mitigated to a large amount (or at least far better than it is currently). I implore the developer to implement this feature, it would elevate this drum app (and the dev’s others) into serious contention for the best automated drumming on iOS (or cement their lead as insurmountable). If the dev would like audio examples of this “machine gun” effect, I would gladly email sound samples. I do not wish to sound unduly critical, but the sound of this dev’s drum apps is in other ways so good, that it makes this issue stand out more. Please, look into this! It could honestly be the cherry on top of a great series of apps.

It's very close to having a real drummer! The feel of the groove is like having John Bonham over for a session. Easy to jam along with. The iPad interface is a nice break from using my computer. Many of the samples offer round robin playback. And this brings up my only complaint: I do wish all the samples were round robin. On my computer drum machines they are all round robin, perhaps it was done this way since iPads have less storage. I feel guilty complaining at all given the ridiculously low price and I really can't overstate how great the drum beats feel when I play guitar along with it. The randomized fills and variations in the beats (which is adjustable) are a huge timesaver. I have a ton of other drum programs, however they have all required extra programming to make them feel more human. The sound quality is exactly how I would have recorded it my self and sits well in the mix. The room sound is great, still sometimes I just want it to be a bit drier. So I apply a transient designer to reduce the room sound and it sounds perfect. Love standing and using my fingers instead of my mouse or trackpad. I also purchased soft drummer and funk drummer (they are both amazing!!!). They are all so good that part me wants to skip the review:)

I've been using this and a couple other Luis Martinez apps for a couple years now. My most recent buy was MidEast Drummer and I've already used it in a song. It's so easy to get a beat going that inspires you to play. I pick up my guitar or my bass and just start jamming along. Sometimes I have a specific riff and I have to alter the beat to what I need and that's easy enough. In fact setting up an entire song is a breeze. With all the apps Ableton Link enabled I can even have them all playing different parts in perfect time together. One problem I have with many drum machines is that tapping in fills can be a real pain. Adding ghost notes and minor changes so that the beat sounds natural are also usually advanced stuff in other drum machines. All that is easy stuff with a simple slider. Tell it how complex you want it and it comes up with stuff on its own. It's amazing. If you need a drummer and you don't have a real one available, these are easy to use, great sounding, and natural sounding apps. Only drummers will be able to tell it's not a real drummer... and even then, maybe not.