Drum machine to complement the OASYS

[elvisjohndowson]

Hi,
I was wondering if someone has a suggestion on which drum machine (hardware or software) will complement the OASYS.

I want to keep any additional stuff to a minimum, as far as possible, so at the moment, I use just the OASYS, Karma Oasys and a Mac Book Pro 17".

Now I want to complement this setup with a drum machine, since I find the OASYS drum samples somewhat not so unique and groundbreaking, in terms of sound, compared to it's synth engines.

Any recommendations?

Best regards,

Elvis Dowson

[curvebender]

1. FXpansion GURU.

2. FXpansion BFD 2.

Preferably both!!

Great products, easy to work with, fantastic support and commitment from the FXpansion team.

[RobertPlatinum]

You might as well have the best of both the synth and percussion sampler worlds. I'd vote for you to get a mpc 5000!

[elvisjohndowson]

Any idea what Timbaland used to build the drum tracks for his album "Shock Value" or One Republic's "Dreaming out loud"?

Some of the kick drums have such really low range content (e.g the kick drum on the acoustic version of Apologize track 4 from the One Republic Album). I'll post the OASYS seq file later, but for the moment, suffice to say, I burned the OASYS seq to CD and listened to it over my Mackie HR824s.

I couldn't hear much low end bass freq content using the Mackies (I didn't get the Mackie subwoofer), but when I played it using the audio system in my car, the kick drum on the original soundtrack was much deeper and had more dynamic low end content. The kick drums on the OASYS sounded band filtered in comparision.

When I first got the OASYS, I wasn't too happy with it's drum sounds. If you audition the ROM samples, you can make out that a lot of effort has gone into the drum sample set, however, it just doesn't stand out and isn't unique. I also discovered that if you take a drum sample and set the +12db option while sampling, the +12db value is ignored when using the sample as part of a drum kit! This wasn't the case on the older Tritons.

So, in short, I think that the drum capability on the OASYS doesnt quite live up to the high standards of it's synth engines.

I'm gonna try to tweak the drum samples and try some IFX routings, etc or even possibly use the raw drum samples as an oscillator for one of the synth engines or something, just to see where that takes me, but I think it's time I started to look at complementing the OASYS with a dedicated drum machine.

I read about BFD2 and it looks interesting. The MPC5000 is nearly USD$2500 from sweetwater, so I'm not so sure I'd get the value for money, going in for BFD2 at USD$399.

Best regards,

Elvis

[RobertPlatinum]

Cool, go for the BFD2! I said the MPC because you can load it up and take drum sounds from any other source and take all of the sounds out of your computer. Another great thing about taking the sounds out of the computer and putting them on the mpc is the fact that you can enhance them w/ Waves plugs, for example, and set the mpc to play back at 96k/24 bits. Trust me the sound is outstanding. The mpc 4000 or 5000 are the only things that I would use w/ the O. If you have the best Keyboard w/ excellent expandability then why not have a drum machine w/ virtually unlimited expandability of percussion sounds. The BFD2 is cool too!

[baboon]

Roland MV8000-8800?

[Sina172]

...

[JoshRDA]

...since I find the OASYS drum samples somewhat not so unique and groundbreaking, in terms of sound, compared to it's synth engines.

Layer, effect, and resample? Synthesize? Unless you're looking for very specific acoustic drums, I don't think you need another machine.

[AnthonyB]

I can't WAIT till I get mine! A FANTOM-G8 in 3 WEEKS BABY!

I CAN NOT WAIT!

Sina

Have you tried this Roland extensively then?, What about the sounds as a "whole"?.

As for Drum machine(s), what about "SPECTRASONICS":STYLUS RMX™ - REALTIME GROOVE MODULE



AnthonyB

[Sina172]

...

[elvisjohndowson]

I just downloaded the demo version of FXpansion Guru for the Mac, and it has some interesting features, but I'm not so convinced or floored to the extent that I'm going to buy it. I think there are merits to it, and possibly, used to create a drum groove and then later import it into Karma Oasys, and create user GEs out of it.

I guess the reason I wasnt' floored, was cos the drum samples were'nt all that great in the demo version. I like the Guru concept and the user interface, I'll need to work with it a little more.

However, I do like the BFD2 sounds. Ultimately, what I plan to do anyway, is to select BFD2 drum samples, export it to WAVE format and import it into the OASYS and use Karma Oasys to create user GEs and combis.

So, after a bit of drum sound selection, I just have to use the OASYS and it's synth engines.

[Charlie]

I'm with Sina and his Stylus RMX suggestion (preferably the extended package): great sound, easy to handle, smooth integration in Logic/Mac. It's sound and grooves were actually the reason for me getting a Mac and giving up on my "Oasys-only" workstyle.

[elvisjohndowson]

1. FXpansion GURU.

2. FXpansion BFD 2.

Preferably both!!

Great products, easy to work with, fantastic support and commitment from the FXpansion team.

I am not so happy with the stability of the BFD2 software. The drum samples are really good, however, the BFD2 v2.0.3.15 application software is not very stable. One big disappointment is the fact that they don't allow export of selected drum samples to WAVE, from the kit. You have to create a single event groove and then record the output to WAVE and then truncate the end portion of the sample.

It's like the sounds are good, but the platform that hosts the sounds is not so stable. I've had it crash out on me 5 times in 1 hour alone. I traced it to some sort of MIDI buffer overflow happening, when the OASYS switches from Global Mode to Program Mode. The M-Audio driver is probably the culprit. However, that is not to say that the BFD2 software is free of bugs, if you read the posts on the forum, many other people also have issues about stability.

Not too happy with the purchase.

[medusaland]

Hi all,

for Drum sounds please wait of the KARO dance composer!
We have a lot of typical dance drums also we have a lot of Kraftwerk robot voices (the singing typewriter)

Take care,

medusaland

[RobertPlatinum]

That sounds cool! Can't wait. Are you guys going to have contemporary urban/ hip-hop sounds.