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Best Rock Drum App?

I'm looking at Rock Drum Machine 5 or X Drummer as a possible app for rock drums. Which of these is more versatile, easy to use and sounds great? Any others I should be looking at? Thanks!

Comments

  • I like "Drum Session", but I don't have either of the two you mentioned. I don't know if I'd classify it as "easy to use", it can take some time to get the hang of it, but I've gotten good results with it - enough so that I keep coming back to it when I want the sound of "real drums".

  • My top favs in no particular order:

    Rock Drum Machine
    Drum Perfect Pro
    Drum Session

    The best IMHO.

  • Thanks for the feedback so far. I'm a guitarist and definitely not a drummer so programming individual drums, kits will be difficult for me.

  • If that's the case, i think Garageband Drummer will deliver for you in spades. Have you checked it out?

  • wimwim
    edited February 2018

    If programming drums is difficult for you, then I would suggest Rock Drummer. It has lots of patterns, and you can dial in how much "jamming" (semi-randomness) you want to keep things from being completely repetitive. You can also set it up to do fills at regular intervals. The fills aren't always to my taste, but they have a lot of variation in them, so again, don't sound repetitive. It has midi-out, so if the sounds aren't to your taste, you can send notes over to a different app as long as it supports midi in. Lastly, the song mode is good, and simple to use.

    Drum Session sounds great and has a lot of different kits. It has a lot of patterns too, but you have to find and drag each one of them onto a timeline, and are stuck with a fixed set of fills, which you also have to find and put on the timeline where you want them. There's no randomizer to add variety automatically.

    Drum Perfect Pro can be the most realistic and powerful of the bunch, but also the most challenging from a programming perspective. It does come with patterns and a good song mode though.

    But for just dialing up a groove and going for it, I'd say Rock Drummer.

  • RDM and Drum session are my favs. Easy easy easy to use too.

  • @wim said:
    If programming drums is difficult for you, then I would suggest Rock Drummer. It has lots of patterns, and you can dial in how much "jamming" (semi-randomness) you want to keep things from being completely repetitive. You can also set it up to do fills at regular intervals. The fills aren't always to my taste, but they have a lot of variation in them, so again, don't sound repetitive. It has midi-out, so if the sounds aren't to your taste, you can send notes over to a different app as long as it supports midi in. Lastly, the song mode is good, and simple to use.

    Drum Session sounds great and has a lot of different kits. It has a lot of patterns too, but you have to find and drag each one of them onto a timeline, and are stuck with a fixed set of fills, which you also have to find and put on the timeline where you want them. There's no randomizer to add variety automatically.

    Drum Perfect Pro can be the most realistic and powerful of the bunch, but also the most challenging from a programming perspective. It does come with patterns and a good song mode though.

    But for just dialing up a groove and going for it, I'd say Rock Drummer.

    I have yet to buy any of the * Drummer apps, but seriously want them all. It will happen eventually, no doubt. B)

  • X Drummer is more easy use than others.

  • edited February 2018

    And I will add that I would avoid x drummer completely, I wish I had. It's great as long as you don't want your drums to have any feel or sound remotely realistic.

    The garageband drummers are great, have infinite variations, can follow your parts, and you can change the feel with different swing settings. Garageband is my favorite app for songwriting, and the drummers are one reason why. I loved it before the drummers showed up, but it's even better now.

  • Duplicate, sorry!

  • Rock drum Machine!

  • @mrufino1 said:
    And I will add that I would avoid x drummer completely, I wish I had. It's great as long as you don't want your drums to have any feel or sound remotely realistic.

    The garageband drummers are great, have infinite variations, can follow your parts, and you can change the feel with different swing settings. Garageband is my favorite app for songwriting, and the drummers are one reason why. I loved it before the drummers showed up, but it's even better now.

    My only complaint with GB drummer is the fills are always the same. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

    I actually did use GB drummer for the drum track in the last song I did - after first sketching one out in GrooveRider, replicating it in Rock Drummer, and finally flipping through beats in GB until I found one the most like what I sketched out. GB won the day after all that.

  • @wim said:

    @mrufino1 said:
    And I will add that I would avoid x drummer completely, I wish I had. It's great as long as you don't want your drums to have any feel or sound remotely realistic.

    The garageband drummers are great, have infinite variations, can follow your parts, and you can change the feel with different swing settings. Garageband is my favorite app for songwriting, and the drummers are one reason why. I loved it before the drummers showed up, but it's even better now.

    My only complaint with GB drummer is the fills are always the same. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

    I actually did use GB drummer for the drum track in the last song I did - after first sketching one out in GrooveRider, replicating it in Rock Drummer, and finally flipping through beats in GB until I found one the most like what I sketched out. GB won the day after all that.

    If you copy the section or use it again, move the dot around the box just a little, it will change it up.

  • @mrufino1 said:

    @wim said:

    @mrufino1 said:
    And I will add that I would avoid x drummer completely, I wish I had. It's great as long as you don't want your drums to have any feel or sound remotely realistic.

    The garageband drummers are great, have infinite variations, can follow your parts, and you can change the feel with different swing settings. Garageband is my favorite app for songwriting, and the drummers are one reason why. I loved it before the drummers showed up, but it's even better now.

    My only complaint with GB drummer is the fills are always the same. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

    I actually did use GB drummer for the drum track in the last song I did - after first sketching one out in GrooveRider, replicating it in Rock Drummer, and finally flipping through beats in GB until I found one the most like what I sketched out. GB won the day after all that.

    If you copy the section or use it again, move the dot around the box just a little, it will change it up.

    Thanks, yeh, that's what I ended up doing. Unfortunately, that changes the pattern too, so not ideal. But, like you say, piece of cake to get a really good drum backing.

    I guess you could put in a section only one or two measures long and crank up all the dials to get fills.

    My other problem is I like to have the option to edit the MIDI lightly when something doesn't feel right. I don't think you can do that with drummer parts, can you?

  • @wim said:

    @mrufino1 said:

    @wim said:

    @mrufino1 said:
    And I will add that I would avoid x drummer completely, I wish I had. It's great as long as you don't want your drums to have any feel or sound remotely realistic.

    The garageband drummers are great, have infinite variations, can follow your parts, and you can change the feel with different swing settings. Garageband is my favorite app for songwriting, and the drummers are one reason why. I loved it before the drummers showed up, but it's even better now.

    My only complaint with GB drummer is the fills are always the same. Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

    I actually did use GB drummer for the drum track in the last song I did - after first sketching one out in GrooveRider, replicating it in Rock Drummer, and finally flipping through beats in GB until I found one the most like what I sketched out. GB won the day after all that.

    If you copy the section or use it again, move the dot around the box just a little, it will change it up.

    Thanks, yeh, that's what I ended up doing. Unfortunately, that changes the pattern too, so not ideal. But, like you say, piece of cake to get a really good drum backing.

    I guess you could put in a section only one or two measures long and crank up all the dials to get fills.

    My other problem is I like to have the option to edit the MIDI lightly when something doesn't feel right. I don't think you can do that with drummer parts, can you?

    I believe you are correct on all points, although if you move the dot just slightly, it would be typical of a drummer changing a pattern just slightly to build each song section

  • Drumjam. Best drum app around for those of us who are too impatient to program beats in a grid. Has great samples and a pad to add in your own fills etc. Wonderful app that seems to get overlooked in these kinds of threads often. And it’s by @sonosaurus so...no way you’ll regret the purchase.

  • wimwim
    edited February 2018

    @boone51 said:
    Drumjam. Best drum app around for those of us who are too impatient to program beats in a grid. Has great samples and a pad to add in your own fills etc. Wonderful app that seems to get overlooked in these kinds of threads often. And it’s by @sonosaurus so...no way you’ll regret the purchase.

    Interesting. Probably gonna have to try it.
    What are the IAP's? Features or packs? Prices? Damn I wish the app store let you see the details on IAPs.

  • I hope devs give us a drummer that can compare with addictive drums or EZdrummer soundwise. That would make me happy.

  • @boone51 said:
    Drumjam. Best drum app around for those of us who are too impatient to program beats in a grid. Has great samples and a pad to add in your own fills etc. Wonderful app that seems to get overlooked in these kinds of threads often. And it’s by @sonosaurus so...no way you’ll regret the purchase.

    Drumjam is a good app for Latin, Ethnic, etc., but I really find it lacking for rock. YMMV

  • You should be able to see info on IAPs in the App Store on any device. There should be a drop down lower on the app description that shows at least the five top iaps

  • I loooove drum jam, but I find it difficult to use for Rock or metal. And, I don't think it's as easy as Rock DM or Drum session.

  • @boone51 said:
    You should be able to see info on IAPs in the App Store on any device. There should be a drop down lower on the app description that shows at least the five top iaps

    Ahhh ... thanks. I never located that since the last app store changes.
    Bought.

  • edited February 2018

    @Rebus_Knebus said:

    @boone51 said:
    Drumjam. Best drum app around for those of us who are too impatient to program beats in a grid. Has great samples and a pad to add in your own fills etc. Wonderful app that seems to get overlooked in these kinds of threads often. And it’s by @sonosaurus so...no way you’ll regret the purchase.

    Drumjam is a good app for Latin, Ethnic, etc., but I really find it lacking for rock. YMMV

    I agree that the default presets and the actual recordings lend themselves to more of an ethnic vibe, but there is a lot of variation you can achieve by mixing and matching loops. I finally realized that I can actually accomplish mimicking even the most intricate beat by layering some of those samples. Admittedly that is more fiddling than the op sounded like he wanted to mess with, but I will stand behind this recommendation all day. If you really want to get precise, you can record your own quantized drum patterns (I use loopy for this, but there are a lot of options...actually auria makes a great destination because you can further tweak the sounds to your liking). Just my own humble opinion. When I do this I get results I’m much happier with than when I use something like Drum Perfect. It just feels more natural to me.

  • DrumJam is also a very powerful midi controller for your other drum apps. It works great with Luis Martinez apps if you use them as a soundmodule only.

    This guy made a beautiful song only using Magellan and DrumJam together.

  • Hi! I've made a drum app for my rock jams. It's called Drumss. You can build a song from drum loops there. And it supports the AUv3, so you can use it with AUM or Loopy Pro for advanced jamming.

    https://apps.apple.com/us/app/drumss/id1620193006

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