I'm curious about drum machine plugins. Why are they useful?
I can understand how a physical drum machine would be useful for a live performer. It would automate production of a static percussion sequence/set of static percussion sequences, so a live performer wouldn't have to rely on a pre-made loop(s) or play the drums him/herself.
Why would a person with a DAW use a virtual drum machine, though?
I've put together a few ideas below, only one of which seems like a definitive advantage of drum machines over MIDI, so I'm curious to hear others' feedback. I found out about XO by XLN Audio awhile back, so some of my ideas are based on that.
I can understand how a physical drum machine would be useful for a live performer. It would automate production of a static percussion sequence/set of static percussion sequences, so a live performer wouldn't have to rely on a pre-made loop(s) or play the drums him/herself.
Why would a person with a DAW use a virtual drum machine, though?
I've put together a few ideas below, only one of which seems like a definitive advantage of drum machines over MIDI, so I'm curious to hear others' feedback. I found out about XO by XLN Audio awhile back, so some of my ideas are based on that.
- A drum machine would provide a single place to input/adjust a percussion pattern that repeats.
- But on the flip side, I imagine most DAWs have something like Studio One's shadow copy feature, where you can make a drum sequence and then copy it, and altering any one copy alters all of them.
- At the same time, a drum machine would be more cumbersome in terms of adjusting if you wanted to temporarily depart from the drum sequence you created--i.e., for the space of a single bar, stop using one of your percussion instruments, or change what your instruments are doing, before resuming the original pattern later.
- On the flip side again (orz), XO, at least, seems able to be controlled by MIDI in the DAW directly. If that's the case, that negates that problem...but also seems to negate the original semi-advantage of drum machines....
- Similar to the above, drum machines also seem to be limited in the number of patterns they can store. Direct MIDI sequencing doesn't have this limitation.
- XO, at least, lets you swap out individual drum elements for other ones. So, if I have a percussion pattern of cymbals, kicks, and a toms, I can switch to a different kick (for example) while keeping the pattern itself/other percussion instruments intact. If all drum machines work this way, that would be quite convenient. It's doable with MIDI drum kits, but if you switch between kits, there's no guarantee that the keyboard key from the first kit will be the same as its counterpart in the second kit, so it's not as convenient.
- Using a drum machine would keep all your drums compacted/hidden within the drum machine, so the layout in your DAW stays cleaner.
- On the flip side, I think applying effects (other than the ones the machine comes with)/mixing those individual percussion instruments might be rendered impossible? If that's true...that would be a big detraction, I'd think.... It's hard to believe that could be the case....
- Drum machines probably often have features that can make the beat swing/etc.
- On the flip side, you can do that in MIDI, too. Certainly there are humanization functions, at least. If you want to make the beat swing, you might have to do that manually, so the drum machine might be more convenient in that regard.