Speedrum

For several years I've been looking for a straightforward, yet powerful MPC-style drum sampler to replace AudioSpillage Ekektroid (abandoned), One Small Cue Poise (never developed for Mac OS X), Native Instruments Battery and Kontakt (many reasons), Geist, etc. I found all of these sampler-based options either missing essential features, way too bloated and complex, or ridiculously expensive. I yearned to have my sampled drum kits in one sweet place that was easy to use, with a smooth workflow that didn't get in the way of my creative process. I don't know about you, but once the momentum has stopped, it's difficult to get it going again. I avoid software that tangles me in a web of menus and madness. Yet, when I need to go deeper into some advanced features for editing, I need to know those tools are somewhere under the hood.

I am happy with my synth-based options like SonicCharge MicroTonic, D-16 emulations, etc., but I have a huge drum sample library and need a way to access, play, and tweak my kits. Note: Serato Sampler and Serato Studio show lots of promise. Still, it's nice to have a dedicated sample-based drum machine to drop into random DAWs. This is especially important for those of us who change DAWs like underpants. .. or perhaps even more often.;-)

Enter Apisonic Labs Speedrum, the pro version of Speedrum Lite. It's currently going for €49.00, which I feel is a bargain. .. way less than upgrading Battery. I just downloaded the very latest version (v1.20), and I'm loving it! Anyone else digging this little beast? Note: The free version is super cool and provides a nice gateway into the full version. I'll be leaning on the full version of Speedrum for my drum/percussion sampler needs.

Some of my favorite features:

• Easy to install, authorize, and get started.

• MPC Layout in 16 or 32 pads.

• Lovely clean interface.

• Resizable from 60% to 200%.

• Excellent pad control.

• Fast as lightning. .. appropriately named "Speedrum."

• Lots of sample layers, chokes, editing features, etc.

• Built-in transient shaper.

• Nice browser for sample selection with drag-n-drop.

• Small footprint and light on CPU.

• Sounds fantastic.

• Fun to use. Musical.

• Excellent developer responsiveness and support. I've sent several emails and all of them were answered quickly.

Things I'd like to see added

• Stand-alone version for DAW-less work.

• Include both round-robin and multi-layers with velocity mapping.

A couple of useful links:

https://www.apisoniclabs.com/speedrum.html.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYE13pBRksc&t=1s.

Note: One thing that blows my mind about this software is how amazing it is for version one.