Product Reviews by KVR Members

Ill keep this short and simple - for Rock and hard rock and even a little touch of heavy metal - this kit is perfect.

very versatile for all kinds of rock.

There are a lot of metal packs from many great companies - Toontrack and FXpansion having the most impressive libraries at 250+GB per....

Now, that really is impressive, and extremely complex - but you know what not only do I not have that much space on my HDD just for drums, I don't need or want anything that close to that amount of space and tweak ability as a guitarist who uses drums because I can't play and don't know anything about them.

To me, these presets ($90) rival SD3's Death and Darkness ($150) kits, and I like them More myself honestly. They are definitely just as good, and when on sale, they are like $40-50, so 1/4-1/3 less than SD3.

Most of all you can get XLN addictive drums 2 with this and 2 other packs ($90 each, so $180 In value alone) for $170. so thats $220 in libraries and the program itself, which should cost like $100 stand alone, comp. in value to SD3 easily, but at a fraction of the cost....

if your into a metal drum VST, and you want the best for your money, and the best VST for metal drums in general, this is your pick.

I found this last, and let me tell you, for the value, this is the best VST for a drummer you can get.

you get your choice of THREE huge adpak presets for the perfect kit.

you get your choice of MIDI Paks that correspond to whatever genre you want.

and of course, it comes with the best VST drum engine: XLN addictive drums.

I bought this as well actually/instead: The BEST CUSTOMER SUPPORT EVER.

ASK FOR HENRIK, he is the ABSOLUTE BEST because he helped me.

Midi:

Heavy Rock.

Diablic.

Metal.

adpak.

metal.

united heavy.

black velvet.

BEST METAL SET EVER: and the price is just unbeatable, the sound, the value, and best customer service I have ever experienced.

This is UNSOLICITED too, I got nothing for this, XLN does not give me anything for free for this; im just compelled to let guitarists (who are snobby musicians but ignorant about drums) that this is better than SD3 for metal.

Didn't realize this was separate and found it by accident. read my review about Addictive drums 2 and you'll see what I have to say specifically but this review to simply put is out of the big 10.

1)SD3.

2)BFD3.

3)EZD2.

4)SSD4/5.5.

5)XLN.

6)Getgooddrums.

7)Zelda mdrummer.

8) air strike 2.

9 rayzoonjamstix.

10 Cubase/logic's drummer.

XLN is the best over all for a metal guitarist who wants something to install and have it completely up and running and making a fully ready to record drum track in minutes (if they know what they're doing) = please just check my main review.

AND its the only AU to run in Logic Pro without any issues whatsoever - m1 native too, so no rosetta 2!!.

Dollar for dollar, this is the best drum set VST you can buy. Not only are their sales incredible, but they offer discounts for teachers as well. The one I bought was the Rock and Metal edition because that is the style I play, and it came with also a Fairfax set, which is for all around pop and any music etc....so its complete but geared for metal.

And man is it! The Adpaks and Midipaks for Metal and Rock are excellent, you can build a song in seconds, drag and drop MIDI thats ready and segmented into parts (which is like SD3 but the interface and gui is superior).

The presets, kits, and grooves, all just come together perfectly in a balanced way - even though its the most extreme metal and rock VST, it actually is quite easy to handle unlike SD3 or BFD3....which require some tweaking, and mixing your own sets and kits....too much tweaking and settings for a non-drummer. Thats' the difference -

XLN is the happy medium between EZdrummer2 and SSD4 or 5.5 which are very useful but overly basic - bare bones VSTs and the top tier SD3 and BFD3, which are DAW's in and of themselves for drums. That's not to say they are better, they are just much more tweakable.

Addictive is compact but because its processed with 8 channels, it makes things very easy as all kits and Paks correspond to the same 8 pieces, so you can tweak the tones and sounds of each instruments. The studio tweak ability is somewhat like Logic Drummers, its not a lot, but its there and its enough.

These are virtual drum sets, or drummers, and special features are what stand out to me. Now to this point XLN wins in the overall, but not only is it simple, easy to start a song, and make great sound kits with, it also is easier to adjust than the rest. You can transform the sound, style, and MIDI programming of each groove you drop into the editor, and it's really cool to be able to get the same back bone while the pieces may change in their amount, velocity, timing or whatever parameter.

For the price, you can't get a better a deal, and it does fall between EZD2/SD5.5 and SD2/BFD3 - at $150 (on sale its under $100 though), especially Black Friday and summer time...so fi you are a metal guitarist or metal musician, or hard rock producer, and you wanted ONE best all- in one package deal - it would be this.

Because this isn't a "virtual drummer" VST, but instead an extremely intricate MIDI drum generator and drum VST, I decided to give it a 3/5 - it falls somewhere between Air Strike 2 and Rayzoon Jamstix 4 - both of which I prefer. This should rather be called a "virtual drum [machine/MIDI] programmer" drum VST, or a "drum VST and MIDI drum generator" but it isn't a "live A.I." with a brain like Jamstix, which is the only virtual drum/mer VST. If they called it what it was, I would give it a 4 or 5/5. However, it isn't remotely close to what a virtual drummer is so it lost 2 stars for not being forward. In fact, as much as I think this is better than Strike 2 by Air, I'd rather recommend Strike 2 because it is more of a virtual drummer VST than this is....however, both are inferior by leaps and bounds to Rayzoon.

Rayzoon Jamstix 4 is the indisputably best "virtual" drummer VST there is. Initially I would have taken a few weeks to a month to really get an idea of what to think of a VST, but it only took me 24 hours with Jamstix 4 to know that I found something much more special than any other Drum VST there is....

When you hear the word drum VST, SD2 and EZdrummer often are the first names to come to mind. If you know how to program midi, the traditional options are great. However, not everyone can do that, and some multi instrumentalist artists only need a drummer as they can play all the others instruments themselves. This has been my problem as a classically trained pianist, flamenco guitarist, and metal guitarist, I have tried all of the old "drag and drop" MIDI groove VSTs.

Someone finally mentioned Jamstix 4 to me last week, and upon watching the video, I was in a state of shock because what I had been seeking for endlessly on forums, social media and everywhere else not only existed, it was in its fourth incarnation. mDrummer by Melda and Strike 2 by Air effects (Avid), and while they are great VSTs themselves that try to imitate the A.I. of Jamstix, they do not come close to what kind of automation is possible with Jamstix 4.

While it is a stand alone program, you cannot expect such a perfect piece of software to encompass ALL things at the basic level, and so it is great to use as a module for something like Superior Drummer if you get the basic version. In other words, you can write and arrange everything (live as well/on the fly) and you can play it back as well through the VST itself, but if you can send it to a drum program with your preferred drum "instrument" sound files, then you have that option as well - which is incredibly useful and open minded of the creator.

Melda's mDrummer is great for composing a MIDI track, but it is not a virtual drummer, and its live mode and general GUI is not easy to use. On the other hand is the overly simple Air Strike 2, which is a great BASIC tool for writing drum parts for guitarists or musicians who don't know how to program or write MIDI drums well. It offers a variety of styles and choices, and sounds, but not only are you "stuck" with the library of drum sounds they offer, but you cant route/send it to your favorite VST, forcing you to use the VST first, send out the midi, and then place the MIDI file in the arrangement of your other drum VST. Rayzoon was very smart for allowing MIDI bussing to VST's that a customer may have paid $300 for because the sounds are great...but what was missing was the "brain" of Jamstix.

As I said, since the digidesign eleven rack came out, Ive been searching for the perfect VST, but no one ever told me to look at Rayzoon. It's hidden secret of studio musicians, and now I know why I haven't heard of it since I've started to look for DAWs about 15 years ago: if people KNEW that studio musicians could "write' drums" that come out this perfectly with just about 5 clicks, producer fees/costs would go down quite a bit.

Im an advanced musician/instrumentalist, and for years I've struggled to write drums with VST's included MIDI grooves, downloading metal expansion packs, searching far and wide for the "perfect virtual drummer," and no one ever told me about Jamstix when I asked about 50 times over the course of 10 years on 10 different musician forums, "is there a VST that can automate composition?" - the answer is a resounding YES. It can do every style of music that you have the desire to record. Rayzoon's Jamstix 4 is the best drum VST ever made, and I am sure the $300 edition that has more sounds and sound files would make this the only drum VST you would ever need.

With that said, if you happen to be a metal guitarist looking for a metal drum VST, this is the only real choice if you want the best. With the metal pak add-on, this virtual drummer has a sound library worthy of competition with any metal drum VST, like the metal foundry. In fact, the drum VST is so good, that routing isn't necessary to another drummer, even if the metal foundry was at one point the gold standard for home recording metal musicians.

This is the only VST I've ever tried that goes so far beyond my expectations, that I had to inform the company that they are genius - literally. Get Jamstix 4.