Drum machine options - starting out with Maschine Mikro MK3

ewal · June 2023

Over the last few years, I've mainly used EZ Drummer 2 and gone for a live drum sound on my demos. It's been really good for this, however, as the prospect of having a live drummer fades away, I'm thinking I might switch to writing with a more electronic drum machine sound. Less effort trying to make the drums sound real - go for a sequenced pattern sound - something like The Raveonettes, The Radio Dept or The Cocteau Twins.

I'm not going full on EDM, just electronic drum backing to shoegazey type guitars

I know I could do this with a few samples and Reaper midi pattern arranger, but quite like the idea of a dedicated drum machine, either hardware or software. Who knows I might even play these songs live one day!

Any options, suggestions or people gone in a similar direction?

monquixote · June 2023

The best drum machine VST is Sonic Charge Microtonic.

Another option is Sugar Bytes Drum Computer.

If you want hardware then Roland TR-8S is the king or if it has to be analogue Arturia Drum Brute Impact is good value.

PolarityMan · June 2023

I often use battery for this kinda thing.

monquixote · June 2023

PolarityMan said:

I often use battery for this kinda thing.

That's a sampler though isn't it?

joeyowen · June 2023

I love the tr8s. the fact you can load your own samples is great!

there isn't a song mode though... so live use might be an issue

monquixote · June 2023

https://sugar-bytes.de/drumcomputer

On sale

swiller · June 2023

have a tr8 (not S) expanded (808/909/707/727/606) up for grabs if interested its on here for TFB friendly price 170 posted. Non expanded (808/909) sell for 200 on e bay. So 230+ all day long on the bay and are rare.
Otherwise, id say roland cloud is v v good for its drums and loads more in the box, 20 per month.

joeW · June 2023

Tempest - but give it 12 months to figure out how to use it…

sxard · June 2023

Elektron Analog Rytm 2 is pretty hard to beat but isn't cheap and does have a bit of a learning curve.

Grunfeld · June 2023

monquixote said:

PolarityMan said:

I often use battery for this kinda thing.

That's a sampler though isn't it?

Super easy to use though and you can load in all the Linn samples a la Cocteaus.

ewal · June 2023

I guess that's part of learning curve - getting to know and recognise the classic drum machine sounds and having a sample library to use. I don't think I'm interested in getting in to the synthesis side of things.

My thinking today - I still like EZ Drummer 2 in a lot of ways, and I guess I could look at some of the electronic sample packs. But would like a better interface to program patterns. I can remember when I had a basic drum machine in the 80s and liked the simplicity of having a 16 (12 etc) sequence to drop beats on to. Research continues...

ewal · June 2023

On the drum samples... I now know it's the sound of an E-mu Drumulator that I'm hearing on Cocteau Twins albums I'm most familiar with. Wonder what drum machine Big Black used hehe...

monquixote · June 2023

ewal said:

On the drum samples... I now know it's the sound of an E-mu Drumulator that I'm hearing on Cocteau Twins albums I'm most familiar with. Wonder what drum machine Big Black used hehe...

If it's samples you are after grab Samples from Mars when it's on offer as it has all the classic machine samples in various forms.

Atlas and Playbeat are nice plugins for helping you create interesting patterns.

ewal · June 2023

Cheers. Samples from Mars appears to be on offer now, so might just go for it. And the Atlas plugin looks interesting.

Musicwolf · June 2023

Have you considered upgrading from EZ Drummer to Superior Drummer 3.0? It's going in the opposite direction to the drum machine route but it's a huge difference in realism.

ewal · June 2023

I think I'm after the efficient workflow and limitations of a drum machine like set-up (be it an actual drum machine or samples and drum machine like plug-in) - bash in some patterns and get on with playing other instruments, instead of crafting a realistic drum sound.

Jalapeno · June 2023

Boss DR models ? Or Alesis SR ?

ewal · June 2023

ewal said:

On the drum samples... I now know it's the sound of an E-mu Drumulator that I'm hearing on Cocteau Twins albums I'm most familiar with. Wonder what drum machine Big Black used hehe...

As an aside, Big Black apparently used an E-mu Drumulator too... Interesting...

ewal · June 2023

Currently thinking something like NI Maschine Mikro might be a good fit for me. I could use it to programme drum patterns, but I also do quite a lot with looped guitar drones within Reaper, so might be interesting to see if could make creative use of Maschine sampling capabilities - not just for drums.

monquixote · June 2023

ewal said:

Currently thinking something like NI Maschine Mikro might be a good fit for me. I could use it to programme drum patterns, but I also do quite a lot with looped guitar drones within Reaper, so might be interesting to see if could make creative use of Maschine sampling capabilities - not just for drums.

The other option is an MPC, or a Launchpad.

octatonic · July 2023

sxard said:

Elektron Analog Rytm 2 is pretty hard to beat but isn't cheap and does have a bit of a learning curve.

Very steep learning curve.
Digitakt is much more immediate (I have both).

@ewal ;
The best, most flexible and creative drum machine is the Synthstrom Deluge (IMHO).
It isn't *just* a drum machine, it is also a synth, sampler and a sequencer.

The creator is, frankly, a genius called Rohan Hill, who took all of the positive elements of AKAI, Roland and Elektron and made an absolutely killer device.

It has a brilliant sequencer which supports conditional sequencing/trigs, parameter locking Euclidean sequencing.
You have onboard sampling, support for MPE and internal battery and speaker.

You can use it anywhere and it is very intuitive if you spend a bit of time using it and watching a few videos.
The new version has an OLED screen which can be upgraded in the old ones too (I did mine recently).

There is one up on Reverb now in the UK- they hardly ever come up because people rarely sell them.
https://reverb.com/item/70390247-synthstrom-deluge-oled?bk=
(Nothing to do with me. I'm keeping mine, but I saw it was there.)

I love the Elektron gear but it is not for beginners.
The UI/UX is fairly complex.
Deluge is much more immediately, esp the OLED models.
The previous version was a bit trickier as you needed to remember what the 4 character display abbreviations meant.

Oh and they just made the code open source, so they are good people.

ewal · July 2023

Got myself a Maschine Mikro as a dip my toe in the water of drum sample focused hardware controllers. Will see how far I get with that before considering some of the more advanced recommendations above.

Initial impressions are good - lots to learn about sampling generally and the NI ecosystem.

AntonHunter · July 2023

Do you need a laptop for that? Or is it possible to use it standalone?

ewal · July 2023

@AntonHunter ;You need a laptop. It's a controller for the Maschine and other software.

monquixote · July 2023

AntonHunter said:

Do you need a laptop for that? Or is it possible to use it standalone?

The standalone version is the Maschine+ which is much more expensive.

AntonHunter · July 2023

Thanks both.

ewal · July 2023

I've changed the thread title to reflect the current stage of process.

I'm attempting to take a systematic process to learning Maschine Mikro, although very easy to get lost down rabbit holes... I'm working through various tutorials on YT and all makes sense. I want to be competent with the hardware so resist the temptation to interact with the software interface wherever possible. So far, so good, although weirdly, I haven't yet worked out to change the time signature of a pattern.

I'm also starting to think of sounds and how I'm going to avoid hours and weeks trawling through zillions of samples and instruments I'm never going to use. I would like to get a focused set of sounds, albeit with flexibility at the edges which I'll use to compliment what I already do with other tools.

Another potential rabbit hole... NI Expansion Packs - a couple have taken my eye, and appear to sit roughly in right place genre wise. Anyone here an NI Universe specialist? Do expansion packs represent good value?

octatonic · July 2023

ewal said:

NI Expansion Packs - a couple have taken my eye, and appear to sit roughly in right place genre wise. Anyone here an NI Universe specialist? Do expansion packs represent good value?

IMHO, not really. But I come from the mindset that it is better to make your own sounds than rely on the work of others.

Bod · July 2023

The Mikro is good fun. You've just missed the Summer of Sound promotion that gave 50% off the various Komplete package upgrades, but an upgrade to Komplete Standard gives you lots of extra toys to play with and includes 39 expansions.

ewal · July 2023

octatonic said:

ewal said:

NI Expansion Packs - a couple have taken my eye, and appear to sit roughly in right place genre wise. Anyone here an NI Universe specialist? Do expansion packs represent good value?

IMHO, not really. But I come from the mindset that it is better to make your own sounds than rely on the work of others.

If I was making my own sounds, I would never get anything finished. However, I appreciate that is a way more creative way of going about things.

octatonic · July 2023

ewal said:

octatonic said:

ewal said:

NI Expansion Packs - a couple have taken my eye, and appear to sit roughly in right place genre wise. Anyone here an NI Universe specialist? Do expansion packs represent good value?

IMHO, not really. But I come from the mindset that it is better to make your own sounds than rely on the work of others.

If I was making my own sounds, I would never get anything finished. However, I appreciate that is a way more creative way of going about things.

I've heard this before but I find that searching through presets takes a hell of a lot of time if you have something specific in mind. I can pull a sound together in the modular, or on one of the hardware synths or even in a plugin like Serum faster than I can search through a 500GB sample library.

If you are searching for something vaguely in the ballpark or just looking for something you like then maybe it is quicker but otherwise that isn't my experience.

YMMV of course.

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Drum machine options - starting out with Maschine Mikro MK3

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