Drum Machine Designer : a bit disappointed

Hi.

 

I was soooo happy drum racks were finally coming to Logic Pro... Only to realize :

 

- Only 64 pads available. Why oh why ? 127 keys is small enough already...

 

- Veeeery slow audio files import. Ableton is near instant.

 

- Library dependent. The library opens when you turn on the plugin, there seems to be no option to turn this off. Presets can only be loaded / saved through it. I never use the library personally, and much prefer the drop down menu that EVERY other plugin has. This feels like garageband...

 

- Multitrack only. What if i only wants it on a single track ?

 

It's a great start, but i really think there's room for improvement.... Ableton Drum Racks feel snappy and easy, this feels slow and limited. Very happy with quick sampler / multi sampler though.

- Library dependent. The library opens when you turn on the plugin, there seems to be no option to turn this off. Presets can only be loaded / saved through it. I never use the library personally, and much prefer the drop down menu that EVERY other plugin has. This feels like garageband...

 

Drum Machine Designer isn't actually a virtual instrument, it's a custom track stack where you can load multiple QSamplers, or other instruments. That's why it doesn't have a plugin settings menu - it's not a plugin.

 

- Multitrack only. What if i only wants it on a single track ?

 

Just collapse (or don't open) the track stack, and you have one stereo track.

Also DMD only has 48 pads, even less. And not enough. Make sure to submit feature request to Apple.

 

Regarding your comment about multitrack I think you might be misunderstanding how it works. As des said, DMD is not really an instrument even though it shows up on the channel strip as a blue plugin button. It’s just a special kind of track stack with a special editor. Inside the track stack is where the actual instruments are. You only really need to use it as if it’s a single track, you don’t really need to even look at the subtracks, but you might very well look at them in the mixer view. That is where you can assign different eq and fx per hit, since they each have their own channel strip within the track stack. The whole track stack is still functioning as a single instrument track with all of those channels bused to the track stack header( its a summing stack too)

 

It should be noted though that you have the option to open the track stack and add regions to specific pieces within the kit if you desire, but you don’t have to.

Right, it's true it's more of a utility than a plugin. Ableton's Drum rack is the same too. I still think it could be better on too many points.

 

Today i ended up making drum kits with Sampler... Less individual control but the workflow suits me better.

Ableton Drum Rack is also a bunch of simplers unless you load different plugins. It also expands to bunch of simpler tracks on the mixer just like Logic. But I agree it behaves more like a single instrument. Can easily be dragged to browser to save etc. Overall have better and faster workflow. I did not get the 127 keys thing. What is that?

Logic's DMD is limited to 64 pads. Ableton's Drum Racks have 127 pads, which is the maximum midi can handles (127 notes).

 

I wish we could choose to go beyond 127, even though you can't play it on your keyboard, but that's another debate.

48 pads in logic

Also DMD only has 48 pads, even less. And not enough. Make sure to submit feature request to Apple.

 

Regarding your comment about multitrack I think you might be misunderstanding how it works. As des said, DMD is not really an instrument even though it shows up on the channel strip as a blue plugin button. It’s just a special kind of track stack with a special editor. Inside the track stack is where the actual instruments are. You only really need to use it as if it’s a single track, you don’t really need to even look at the subtracks, but you might very well look at them in the mixer view. That is where you can assign different eq and fx per hit, since they each have their own channel strip within the track stack. The whole track stack is still functioning as a single instrument track with all of those channels bused to the track stack header( its a summing stack too)

 

It should be noted though that you have the option to open the track stack and add regions to specific pieces within the kit if you desire, but you don’t have to.

 

 

Dewdman would you be willing to perform a test with DMD? Ive been trying to see if it has a bug but I can't confirm for sure.

sure. what do you have in mind?

Ok so here's my problem...I load DMD with the empty kit and close the browser to the left that opens automatically. I hit keyboard shortcut "F" to open the browser on the right hand side and load a one shot sample onto the first pad and all is well. When I click back onto the browser to load my next sound the DMD windows disappears behind logic. Could you see if you get the same behavior?

That isn't happening to me. Thanks for pointing that out, I didn't even know we could drag and drop samples onto DMD to build up drum kits. Could come in handy.

 

I did notice when I clicked on my OSX desktop once, the DMD window got hidden behind the other window.

Thanks for taking the time to test it. This is super weird for me especially since I'm typing on a brand new MacBook just delivered an hour ago so no settings have been messed with.