Can anyone suggest a good vst drum synth for sculpting nice tonal percussive sounds. Ive been looking at sonic charge microtonic, seems quite nice but I wonder if there is something better/cheaper/free?
I really like Drumatic 4. Similar to microtonic, but easier to use imo, and more flexible. It just doesn’t have a step sequence but lol @ step sequencers when you have Renoise.
Waldorf attack is amazing, and is getting a revamp soon. Not free, but very cheap
nice, ill go check out the demo. exactly, dont want to be paying extra for a sequencer included when i have renoise
I´ve tried almost any drum synth so… and i wont talk about drum machine emulations (tr808 etc)
My tips:
Commercial:
Waldorf attack - swiss army knife. Waldorf will release reworked version in week i think. I love it and i prefer its workflow to Drumatic.
Drumatic 4 - swiss army knife too. Try the demo, it isnt limited too much.
Microtonic - it has its sound, sequencer and it is more funky than drumatic 4 but not so universal imho.
Tattoo - very simple, nice sounding drum synth. But if you dont like its sound you wont get any different ;].
Tremor - cpu hungry and expensive. But amazin, something like Tempest in the software world.
Freeware:
Drumatic 3
Exd - 80 (maybe the first thing you should try, underrated but amazing drum synth with randomization possibilities]
Korzenie Kick (great synth just for kicks)
Dreamdrums (great for lofi drums)
Sonic Academy’s “KICK” is by far the best one I’ve come across yet. It’s easy to use and sounds better than most other drum synths I’ve tried. It’s commercial but still not that expensive IMO.
ty guys i learned of a lot of vsts just now
Sonic Academy’s “KICK” is by far the best one I’ve come across yet. It’s easy to use and sounds better than most other drum synths I’ve tried. It’s commercial but still not that expensive IMO.
Hm I don’t agree with that. It’s only a kick drum generator that uses a klick sample overlayer. It’s kind of only capable to produce dance kicks. Also IMO you can generate a kick with almost every synth + eq. If you sample the result, it will be a 100% stable kick.
Hm I don’t agree with that. It’s only a kick drum generator that uses a klick sample overlayer. It’s kind of only capable to produce dance kicks. Also IMO you can generate a kick with almost every synth + eq. If you sample the result, it will be a 100% stable kick.
Sure, it’s best suited for EDM. That works for me but it might not be for everyone of course - it depends on what type of drums you’re looking for. And while it’s mainly used for making kicks, it’s also good for claps and snares (with some minor tweaking). I guess you could generate kicks in most synths but that would take some time and effort. This plugin does exactly what it’s supposed to do with great results. I’ve only had good experiences with it. Your milage may vary.
my weapon is maschine drumsynths, fast and easy layering. but its is not cheap if you need buy whole controller
Hey thankyou for all the great suggestions. I found a pretty good free one if anyones interested its called drumboxxsynth vst by sonic xtc.
heres a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apuVjfX8zGU.
checked out microtonic and battery 4, very interesting but expensive though.
now im going to go check tremor and waldorf
waldorf attack uysed to be a favourite of mine , but now …hm the filter sounds really …bad .
If you have reaktor , you can check out an ensemble I created , It’s a microtonic clone + some extra’s ( 10 partial oscillator , sine/tanh shaper…partial pow.function .
It’s really good and popular amongst the reaktor community 
https://www.native-instruments.com/en/community/reaktor-user-library/entry/show/8341/
https://forum.renoise.com/t/reaktor-clone-tonic-microtonic-clone/43357
DrumSpillage if you’re on a mac. Pretty dang powerful…
You mentioned Microtonic, which I haven’t used… but everyone who talks about it always points out the patternarium which you may have missed. It looks cool!
And yes, get a drum synth for the sounds it makes, not for the sequencer 