Best portable battery powered drum machine for finger drumming?

yes, ipad air1 no need till today to buy something newer (better support as android)
every inst. app run fine, also beatmaker 3, but almost do not use it
favs are pattering2, nanostudio 2 and auria for record

the missing usb port and the file-sharing system does not bother me much.
there are alternatives (dropbox, audioshare, bluetooth-drive)

negative
apple - china - foxconn
apps only over cloud
non-removable battery

apple is evil and expensive,
but smart developers are programming great things for ipads, apps are cheap

sounds good but i worry if i get an ipad second hand, they will soon spam me out with update requests and eventually give me no choice but to update in which case you cant guarantee that all your apps will still workā€¦maybe this will happen, maybe not. this is what happened on ipad 2 before i sold it. the update slowed down the things i was using (sunvox mostly, some other things).
I jailbreaked it at one pointā€¦you get normal file system but everything labelled like a random string of numbers and lettersā€¦still easier to get samples organised in foldersā€¦cant update though. Ipad is o.k, does have a lot of unnecessary problemsā€¦needs wifi for all kinds of normal functions, needs peripherals for no good reason, forces update, file sytem is locked down sandboxed. $100 dollars plus $24 dollars for beatmaker 3 (+ in app purchases in beatmaker 3) is still quite a good deal though.

its true apple is manufactured in china in factories where people are commiting suicide from overwork. Its not good at all. unlike samsung from korea. i havent heard anything bad about their factories yet although a lot of things are assembled in chinaā€¦you never know which seemingly wholesome company is number 1 customer of slavery factoriesā€¦

I like the idea, im tempted by that price but ive had bad experience with ipad 2ā€¦i wish there were more ā€˜multitouchā€™ controlled ā€˜appsā€™ for windows 10 touch tabletsā€¦these tablets are more powerful and better than ipad anywayā€¦

i dont know. i think i will wait. ipad air 1 with beeatmaker 3 is best deal uncovered so far.
ipad does have alot of good appsā€¦cubasis, beatmaker3, sunvox and a few others
also enjoyed kicking peoples ass in NOVA3 multiplayer online

https://www.akaipro.com/mpx16

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MPX16--akai-professional-mpx16-sample-recorder-and-player

I have this in one of my Sweetwater wishlists. I think SonicState has a review video on it on YouTube.

Seems pretty sweet. Builtin mic, which from what I have seen in reviews is actually decent. Can import samples directly from SD card. Velocity sensitive pads. Latch/Loop and Momentary capability. Doubles as a MIDI pad controller.

The built-in kits sound pretty good, but I was thinking of getting one to build tuned percussion instruments with.

At $199.99USD, Iā€™m not sure if this is in the budget range that you are looking for, but might be worth a look.

my newer mac book air is also outdated
bitwig 3 can not be installed, I stay at 2.5 until it falls apart
it runs well with sound and midi Hardware, my windows pc makes there sadly more trouble

ipads phones are now supported for a long time, I read the ipone 6 is still the best-selling apple phone
In addition, apple generally does not sell so well anymore.
maybe thatā€™s why they are currently acting as customer friendly

at the newer microsoft windows surface tablets you can only register via face recognition.
unusable for me, built-in cameras are taped

that mpx16 looks awesome.
It will eeasily go into a backpack or laptop bag.
You wont need to take your computer with you to just practise finger drumming on a park bench somewhere. One SD card should be enough for 1 thousand drumkits.

I like the layout because you can drum ā€˜one finger on each handā€™ - like a drummer using sticks (maybe using two fingers on one hand every now and then to replace the bounce, double stroke roll you can do with sticks)ā€¦but you can also play ā€˜four fingers on each handā€™ - like a pianist or a ā€˜launchpad/ableton push2 playerā€™ā€¦I like both styles.

It all depends n how sensitve the pads areā€¦I will have to look it up online ā€˜mpx16ā€™ finger drumming performanceā€™ and take a careful look at how hard they are having to hit to trigger.

I wonder if there is a companion software to go with it in which you can just quickly as possible drag and drop the drumkits samples made in renoise onto the pads.

I have 400 breakbeat single hit drumkits and 150 vintage drum machine kits finished in renoise now finallyā€¦it was painfully hard work to get it all doneā€¦I wonder how long it will take to fill up some portable drumpad like thatā€¦

I dont think any of these will be able to do effects and modulation per pad like renoise can, but maybe I am wrongā€¦Beatmaker3 may be able toā€¦I dont know about mpx16 yet.

I like the tuned percussion as wellā€¦starting setting up kits with nanoloop on gameboy advance micro, PSPSEQ on PSP and adlibtracker2 on PCā€¦for the first two I can do preparation for songs I will finish later out in the park sitting in the shade in natural surroundings, so nice to get outside away from computer desk, can travel with these things too.

This will be my next mission, trying to create many custom ā€˜tuned percussion kitsā€™, then combining those kits with the vintage drum machine kits ive done and the breakbeat single hits kitsā€¦hopefully i can create some crazy ā€˜hybridā€™ style kits, with sounds from all over the place mushed and melded togetherā€¦which will sound crazy cheap (cheap like vintage, dusty shit) but weird and original.

PSPSEQ can do crazy tuned percussion with karplus strong, FM and a specialized kick drum synth. Nanoloop has that kind of cheap analogue sounding FM which can be nice for tuned percussion and adlibtracker2 can make the craziest cheap sounding, weird FM hihatsā€¦(cut them all up into single hits in renoise later). combine these things with fat tuned 808 (and other vintage drum machine) kicks, crispy and beautiful breakbeat snares (maybe with a lot of effects to make the ā€˜accousticā€™ sounds fit well with the synthesized sounds). Many possibilities.

I think maybe this is the choice MPX16 or beatmaker3 for the portable finger drumming practiseā€¦depends on how long the setup will take, and the features availableā€¦will have to watch a bunch of videos about the features of both.

It will be so nice to get things finished up, including something live. Some live performance aspect that makes things less of a headfuck, more funā€¦maybe more entertaining to watch once im confident enough with it to rock it on a small stage or something.

I guess renoise is a kindof masterful software for composition, sequencing and arranging, sound designā€¦mixdown, masteringā€¦the best way to add a live element to renoise for performance will be pad drumming, play with xy pads, dj filters and stuff that people here on the forums created like thatā€¦complex doofer and macro i dont really understand yetā€¦

another way could be sample out some of your renoise patterns into SP404A, triggers patterns live, mess with those nice effectsā€¦get some live drumming going alongside this with renoise laptop and pad controllerā€¦possibilities are endlessā€¦ do a little keyboard solo, play guitar along to something in which that kind of rock sound or ā€˜real instrumentā€™ sound fits nicely (probably something less saw and square and more sine and triangle based)ā€¦

Its going to be intenseā€¦just a matter of actually doing itā€¦a lot of work.
need to level up and start really understanding things more like EQing, compression, saturation, limiters, mix levelsā€¦perpad effects chains, layering soundsā€¦all this for the ultimate modern drumkits to be played live like the ā€˜spacedrummerā€™ and try to be portable so I can travel with it all, not to mention silent as possible to practise with headphones to maximize practise time.

After this back to working on harmony, melody, compositionā€¦armed with the best possible drum soundā€¦first step after crafting best possible drum soundā€¦making best possible bass soundā€¦

so much to do its driving me crazy

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i ask myself similar question most of time, just take a rest for a while, and start doing whatever you have at your disposal. i used to jam with my pc keyboard in ableton a lot, before i even got my mpcā€¦ Sometimes overthinking kills inspiration and whole creative process, it turn people into zombies with logic/rational things which are to my humble opinion just not relative in this subject.
(iā€™m not spared neither lol)

Cheers!

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Its the same with any sampler sequencerā€¦there is so much preparation to do before you have a large pile of drumkits, bass instruments, lead instruments, pad instruments, sound fx to draw from.

However, once you have manyā€¦youve practised alot of sound design, instrument design already and you can just go straight to the creative work. The preparation can be a painfully long processā€¦like cutting up breaks for years

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ya i have used it. I will suggest you that because it is really working good.

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Iā€™ve spent more time using my Roli Lightblock pad with Renoise. Since it has MPE capabilities I was having issues getting the sensitivity right for each drum hit velocity. It turns out you can adjust the sensitivity in itā€™s companion app. You really canā€™t beat the portability, and it can also double as a MIDI mixer interface.

How DID it go with the AKAI MPX16? It looks like it could be useful with a Note 9/10 Samsung phone ( I dont do Apple!) but anyone know how long it would last if it was taking its power from such a device that was also running eg Fruityloops or something similar?