What do You recommend?

jeremykeys · Post by **jeremykeys** » Tue Feb 03, 2015 12:25 am

I'm thinking about adding a drum plug-in to my Cubase 7.5 system. Steinberg, the makers of Cubase have one called Groove Agent 4. It looks pretty good but I'm all about things being quick and easy. I don't have a pad of any kind to finger play drums.
I'm also looking at Toontrak EZ Drummer 2.
Both are $179. I'm quite sure they'lkl both work in my studio.
I'm mainly doing Rock music so unless something strange happens, I probably won't be using much in the way of, say, Hip Hop style drums but then again, you should never say never.
I think both programs sound good. For me it's becoming an issue about how easily and quickly I can put together a convincing drum track for a rock song. Groose, fills, etc.

Anybody have any info?
Thanks.
Jermykeys

voip · Post by **voip** » Sat Nov 21, 2015 7:47 pm

Stylus RMX has some impressive features, and can sound quite organic.

Derek Cook · Post by **Derek Cook** » Sat Nov 21, 2015 8:19 pm

Hi,

I would check out FX Expansion BFD

I was a big Groove Agent 2/3 user, but over the years have slowly migrated over to BFD2 (just upgraded to 3), especially as Steinberg stopped development of VTSs like Groove Agent, Virtual Bass and Virtual Guitarm, and groove Agent 3 was pretty bug ridden. Groove Agent 4 looks OK, but is more aimed at MPC users (in my view), and it is a complete paradigm shift away from previous Groove Agents. I upgraded to it, and have only run it once quickly (I am in the middle of rebuilding my music computer), and I felt overwhelmed by the interface, whereas previous Groove Agents were simple and intuitive.

The good thing about the old Groove Agents (not sure about 4) is that you could direct their output to MIDI and record the drum hits as a MIDI track. So I could take my existing drum tracks and transfer them to a MIDI track for input into BFD2. To follow that, for new songs, I have purchased the Groove Monkey Progressive packs that work with BFD, which gives me plenty of choice for drum patterns.

The difference in quality of samples with BFD was a quantum leap compared to Groove Agent, and BFD has loads of options for where you hit a piece of the kit as well to vary the sound, coupled with random sample variations to avoid the "machine gun" effect, then you have so many options for tweaking your drum sound. And, importantly for me, I managed to find a ROTOTOM kit for it, which I needed for a few songs.