XLN Addictive Drums Review

What’s up Maschine Masters Fam! Welcome to an in-depth analysis of the amazingly intuitive XLN Addictive Drums. If you’ve ever wanted a Drum VSTi that offers simplicity as well as the ability to incorporate fills, beats and fine tuning on a deep sonic level, then you’re in the right place. This software is very robust. When I first dove into this VSTi, I was immediately amazed at the attention to detail, being able to tune every drum sound without all the hassle or lack of user friendly faders, sliders and knobs that are found in most software drum sequencers these days.

I’ve come to learn that there is amazing value in the complexity of simplicity. Sometimes you just want to crank out an idea on the fly without mimicking the same sound or vibe you may have used in a previous session or track. I find that to be the most comprehensive thing about this software, making it a very intuitive Drum VST.

XLN literally has all the angles covered here. If you want Rock, no sweat! If you want house drums, just load em up. The software includes 7 templates. You’ve got 7 user presets live stage, machine, vintage, start up, vintage years, 70’s kits, and chemical house. Out of all the templates, chemical house is my favorite. But it doesn’t stop there. If you click in the browser window, select AD in the drop down, you will find another whopping 100+ presets under sub categories such as clean, distorted, electronica, lofi, pop rock, rock, soft, vintage and xperimental. These drums sound amazing and require minimal tweaks to accomplish what I am looking for when composing music.

I like to think of this software as an all-in-one solution for live drums. Literally any one could pick this up and go right in on a track, recording awesome drum parts using pre-arranged patterns that are sonically sound without even turning a knob. That actually brings me to my next point, which is how easy you can drag and drop the midi data that is included in these patterns directly into a DAW of any choice. That is where the real creative concepts can take off, because you can import your own sounds to use with AD’s midi data an bam, you’ve got a whole new sound that was rooted in Addictive Drums.

A more intricate look reveals AD to be well endowed with an 8 Fader mixer so you can control volume and pan of each drum individually. There are also Overhead, Room, and Bus faders for routing FX as well as a master fader. On the Edit Page, you have the ability to simulate different mic positions, which is essential if you want to add that humanized element you’d get from a drum stick hitting the drum in a specific area. It also has some really nice FX, which include filter, compression, distortion, equalization and saturation. Not to mention two reverb sends for total control over ambience. You can set the room size with 4 presets each on a single send. There is even pan, eq, and volume adjustments for the FX aspects as well. The Beats Page is where all your tweaking pays off. You can search for the drum patterns via category, or time signature., with the ability to adjust with even more filtering, speed, length or obviously the tried and true session sync tempo match. Everything about AD is built to fit novice and pros alike.

If you are one who likes to record drum grooves via midi, you’re in luck. AD also allows you to easily map any drum sound to an individual pad, key, or drum controller by using its midi learn function. Take a look at the video below to see just how easy it really is.

The premium for this is moderately placed at $149.00. The best part is that you get a choice of 1 additional addictive drum pack just for purchasing the software (offer ends Oct 31,2013). So there are perks on top of getting this awesome software. I am not sure how long this will be in effect, but, as it stands this is the best time to jump on board with the addictive sound.

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– S@ND3M0N1UM