You know I’m always looking for the best tools, that get out of the way and let you work.

One of my gripes with the current choice of drum sampling software is their inability to understand how simply we want to layer sounds.

Many folks just want to drag a sound to a pad, then another, and another, and have instant access to each layer to tweak and create new composite sounds.

Unfortunately, many of the products out just don’t get that. Most make you go deep into the keymapping setup to layer sounds on the keys, or they don’t allow layering at all, or it’s so complicated you just say forget it and just play each sound on it’s own, layering “in sequence”!

Enter Poise…from an independent developer one small clue…someone who, like me, must have been fed up with the current crop, bloat, and “just don’t get it” operation of the majority of software drum samplers out now.

What we need is something  that’s simple, cost effective, lean, clean…and to the point.

So what is Poise?

In my mind, poise is the drum sampler we’ve all been looking for.

Poise is what I would make if I could write software….

Poise is a simple, 16 pad drum sampler that lets you quickly add layers, manipulate the layers, and come up with new sounds.

Poise is NOT a sequencer.  You can NOT sample into it.

from the site:

Direct, straightforward, no frills and no bloat! Poise aims to make working with drum samples quick and painless, allowing you to focus on making music.

sounds good to me, so good I had to keep it under wraps until I could actually SHOW you what it did.  It’s not new, it’s been around, but I just found out about it and I know many of you will love it, because I get the same questions from folks looking for an easy drum sampler that let’s you layer your drums quickly and tweak each layer.

Why I think Poise “gets it”

Why do I think it’s the best? Let me list the reasons.

• It’s easy to layer sounds, just drag them onto the pad, and a layer number will appear in the window
• layers can be played in round robin, layered, or velocity switching mode
• You can have up to 16 outpus, enough to send each pad to it’s own track in your daw if you want
• It’s easy to setup to work with your midi controller
• You can have note on or oneshot mode for your samples
• It has mono mode, so you can get down like on your hardware, making pads cut each other
• You also have “cut groups” so you can set pads to cut each other off
• You can link pads… so you can quickly layer multiple sounds just by linking the pads together
• You can save your own kits quickly
• You can tweak aeach layer on a pad separately or together
• you can use wav, aiff, or mpc snd format sounds
• It’s lean and cpu efficient
• It’s 49 bucks

What about the interface, is it easy to use?

Very easy, very clean, very straight forward, and very intuitive.

It has everything you need to layer and play with your samples, and nothing you don’t.

No sequencer screen that you won’t use getting in the way.

No complex menus of keygroups and mapping to mess with.

16 pads, each with 8 layers, knobs to tweak each layer/sound…and not much else.

right-clicking on a pad let’s you access things like note on/oneshot mode, or mono mode, pad linking, etc.

It’s really simple, and everything you would try to do naturally, it just does it…this is the way a simple drum sampler should be…not a bunch of bells, whistles, and balloons.

So you really like it huh?

Uhhh….yeah.

This plugin is 5 subs all the way around in my honest opinion…I could hardly contain myself when I found out about it.

Try it and tell me it’s not what you’ve been looking for. You can layer, edit start and end points of samples, send each pad to it’s own output in your daw for simple tracking….tweak each layer, save your kits….really what else do you need in a drum sampler?

I honestly, so far, can’t think of anything I would change about it. It does what it needs to do…allow quick playing and manipulation of samples.

check it out at One Small Clue, download the demo, and see for yourself.

let me know what you think of course, leave a comment below.

It’s time for another Native Experience and today we are looking at Battery 3 the flagship drum sampler they sent over for review.

For me, it’s important to find similar or better functionality in software, compared to what I am used to with my mpc.

That’s how I work, so, I’m always looking at things from a hardware prespective.

Let’s get into it!

Inside Native Instruments Battery  3

First off, battery 3 is a crazy advanced yet easy to use drum sampler.

One that many people swear by for drums, percussion and other short bits of audio.

You can layer, add fx, modulation, humanize, and all that goodness, and I must say I am loving it!

Don’t I look excited in the picture? hahahaha.

Easy to use

One of the main reasons for the popularity of the akai mpc and other hardware drum samplers is the ease of use, and battery 3 doesn’t lose a step there.

I got into it and was doing what I needed without cracking the manual, and I have no experience with it at all.  That says a lot for guys like me coming from hardware to software that just want to get into it!

It even has a “retrigger” mode that allows you to do mpc style note repeat even if your midi controller doesn’t have a note repeat function…

say whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! Gimme dat!

Supports all my akai mpc files!

A huge plus for me is the fact that it can load up all my kits from my mpc.  Not just the .pgm format, but the .akp…

The difference is that the akai mpc 4000 is the only one with a full rack sampler engine, so I have actual keygroups and instruments in it, not just drum kits and phrases, battery loads these up with no problems at all.

The fx baby!

Adding fx to your drums to tweak and creat is one of the things producers love to do most, problem is, we don’t always want to become engineers to do it!

Inside battery 3, adding fx or manipulating your sounds is very easy and it’s all right there in the interface.

Oh yeah, the interface…

The interface itself is very easy to get used to. It uses a familar grid that many hardware drum machine users will find easy to get around in, however you’re not limeted to a 4×4 grid, you can get as complex as you wish.

Add groups, make one group cutoff another, change colors, whatever you want to do is right there, and it’s sexy baby!

It makes it really easy to build up kits, add layers, whatever you would normally do.

The sounds man the sounds!

Even if you’re not like me, with tons of kits and sounds already to load up, battery 3 comes with some top notch drum kits ready to go.

Everything from acoustic to electric to straight up smack ya momma in da face then run outside naked crazy type sounds lol.

I think it’s something like 12gb of drums, so i’m sure you’ll find something in there!

Anyway, you saw the video, you know what I think about it, I love it!

Can it replace my mpc as a drum sampler?

Yes…I feel comfortable moving over to software with this drum sampler by my side.

Can it replace my mpc as a sequencer?

Heck naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw!!! That’s because it’s not a sequencer…we’ll wait for the review of Native Instruments Maschine to see what that can do!

Go get it, or at least try the demo man!

go over to native instruments and try the demo

or you can get Native Instruments BATTERY 3 Drum Sampling Software from musicians friend, or American Musical Supply I think they got it for 99 bux

If you use it, let me know what  you think, if you don’t and have questions ask away!

peace