Creating and storing percussion loops

[Chris Spyratos]

I am looking for a clever way to utilize my small collection of percussion samples and I was wondering if there is a VSTi that does that in the manner of the old hardware drum machines, with banks and patterns. It just makes more sense to me, having a sampler with such architecture when dealing with percussion, at least for folk/cinematic parts. I did some research but every VSTi I found was either outdated or beyond my simplistic(?) needs.

Anyone know of any such VSTi? What do you think of this way of using percussion?

[Mattias Westlund]

(05-08-2020, 12:26 AM)Chris Spyratos Wrote: What do you think of this way of using percussion?

I tend to just plop the loops on the timeline in Reaper, which has more advanced tools for the job than any separate plugin But I see your point. I'm afraid I have no suggestions; banks and patterns seems like kind of an old-fashioned way of working and I don't recall seeing any VSTi's like that.

[Samulis]

I know Ableton Live has a built-in sampler called 'Simpler' I think; it has pads and banks as far as I recall. Maybe there's something out there for free? I often just go search on KVR for a bit whenever I am looking for something esoteric like that.

[Chris Spyratos]

(05-08-2020, 05:48 AM)Mattias Westlund Wrote: I tend to just plop the loops on the timeline in Reaper, which has more advanced tools for the job than any separate plugin

Reaper's sequencer is a workhorse but I guess I need a one trick pony... Old-fashioned as it may be, I think it will save me a lot of time organizing and auditing percussion stuff.

(05-10-2020, 02:56 AM)Samulis Wrote: Maybe there's something out there for free? I often just go search on KVR for a bit whenever I am looking for something esoteric like that.

I did search there but with no luck unfortunately. Mostly old and abandoned stuff and the closest thing I found has a broken download link.

[PPH]

You could try Redux. Maybe it's not exactly what you're looking for, but I think it can do the trick. I haven't used it, but I use Renoise, which is its "older brother". Redux is a VSTi. Renoise is a DAW. Both work in the style of old trackers.

Trackers are pattern-based. Each pattern is a sort of "page" with several lines and channels that are presented vertically. If you never saw one, imagine a pattern as an Excel spreadsheet, only that it has a fixed number of rows and columns. Each cell has a place for a note, a volume value, and an effect command. Renoise works like that, too, which I think is great for programming percussion, but it has something that old trackers didn't have, which is a feature called "phrases". These are little patterns like the one described above, associated with an instrument. So you can load a percussion VSTi, and make several phrases for it. You can assign a key/note to each phrase. This causes the phrase to be triggered when the corresponding note is played in the main pattern. The phrase loops until another note is played in the same channel, or until it's turned off with a special command.

Also, as Renoise is a tracker, it has a sampler built-in. So you can import samples, and organize them into instruments, which can have their own phrases, so you are not limited to how the samplers are organized as instruments in your VSTi. Redux is a VSTi based on Renoise, so it offers a sampler with the phrases feature for use in your DAW. Here's a short description from the developer's site:

"Redux is a sample-based instrument, combined with a powerful phrase sequencer. Enjoy the full-featured MIDI implementation and performance-friendly features, for the first time available outside of Renoise".

There's a trial version. I have never tried, but I do know Renoise. The Renoise trial has only one limitation, which is that you can't render the result of your work to wav. I suspect the Redux trial works the same way, so you can try it and get a good feel of whether it works for you.


Here's the link:

https://www.renoise.com/products/redux

[Chris Spyratos]

(05-30-2020, 01:54 PM)PPH Wrote: You could try Redux. Maybe it's not exactly what you're looking for, but I think it can do the trick. I haven't used it, but I use Renoise, which is its "older brother". Redux is a VSTi. Renoise is a DAW. Both work in the style of old trackers.

Thanks! This looks promising even though I never got the hang of trackers.

[sallyjzacharias]

(05-30-2020, 01:54 PM)PPH Wrote: You could try Redux. Maybe it's not exactly what you're looking for, but I think it can do the trick. I haven't used it, but I use Renoise, which is its "older brother". Redux is a VSTi. Renoise is a DAW. Both work in the style of old trackers.

I think Redux can work, it's worth trying.