XLN Audio Addictive Drums Review

Author: admin | Filed under: Drum Software Reviews, Drum tip Manuals and Guides

Addictive Drums…Making a $1,000 electric drum kit sound like a $6,000 drum kit.

Have you ever dreamed of playing a high end drum set, but if you’re like most other people, don’t have the money for that high end sound? Looking to start a hobby in home recording with your electronic drums? Are you a professional recording engineer and only use the best, industry-standard software out there? Addictive Drums from Xln Audio has you covered. This high end, but affordable drum software is truly ear candy for drummers…

With their Addictive Drums line up, Xln Audio has created one of the most beautiful software programs that brings high quality drum kit sounds to the masses. All you need is a host program like Sonar, Cubase, Logic, Pro Tools, etc, load the easy-to-install (even for this newbie) Addictive Drums program into your host, map your electronic drums to the plugin and away you go…

The drum set sound possibilities are endless with the easy-to-use interface. All drums are fully customizable allowing you to get the sound you want…however, Addictive Drum’s standard, preprogrammed sets are masterful. Need more sounds? Get an add-on sound pack and expand your drum set sound library:

Addictive Drummer Retro Ad Pack –Ever wanted your set to sound like John Bonham’s drum set?

Addictive Drummer Modern Jazz Brushes Ad Pack –Beautiful sweeping brush sounds.

Addictive Drummer Modern Jazz Sticks Ad Pack –Prodrumreview’s personal favorite. The details are in the intense dynamics.

Addictive Drummer Funk Ad Pack –Crisp modern funk and retro funk sound sets.

Addictive Drummer Reel Machines Ad Pack –Get your electro groove on.

Take a look at Addictive Drums in action:

Rating:
My first reaction after setting up the software and mapping it to my Alesis DM10 Studio kit was that of a giddy school girl…I couldn’t believe my ears at the sound that was coming out of my headphones. I had just transformed a $1,000 kit into a high end, studio-recording-quality drum kit. This software plugin is amazing…period. Don’t get me wrong, the sound sets in the brain of the DM10 module are very nice, but if you want to take it to the next level, and believe me, you will, this software is a must.

Newbie meets electronic drum software
I have to admit, after contacting XLN Audio and telling them I wanted to do a review of the software, I thought to myself, “I don’t know a dang thing about setting up software like this.” You see, I’m a total newbie to the electronic drum scene and just bought my first electric kit after 23 years of playing acoustic drums. I knew I wanted to try this software out though and was prepared to take on a steep learning curve.

First off, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy the software was to set up in my host software. I never even had to contact Tore (great guy, by the way) at XLN audio customer support after our initial conversations and downloading the software…I would indeed say the hardest part of setting everything up was not with the Addictive Drums software plugin, but making my old Sony laptop work with the host program that Addictive Drums runs in. After a bit of Googling, I was able to figure out the solutions for my host problems and I actually feel much more educated about some of this stuff and how it works now. I’ve found a great new hobby!

Is it acoustic or electric?
That is the question…The sounds are incredible, the dynamics…incredible.

From the slightest tap on the snare to a raging blow on the crash cymbal, you can tell Xln Audio has carefully recorded the sounds to correspond with different dynamic levels. For example, in the Jazz pack sticks add on, your snare changes pitch just slightly as your hits get louder until you hit a rimshot, which gives off a beautiful ringy tone so realistic, that I swear if you didn’t see the electric kit in front of you, you would think you’re playing a beautiful acoustic jazz kit. These sounds are as close to perfection as it gets. The people at Xln Audio are masters at this stuff…

Do yourself a favor and try the software out. Check out XLN Audio’s free Addictive Drums demo version so you can try it out. You’re going to need a half decent computer (like I said, Mine’s a three year old Sony Vaio, not top of the line, or new, by any means), host software like Cubase, Sonar, Ableton, etc, to load the Addictive Drums plugin into and a usb cable to hook your drums up to the computer. There are tons of tutorials and videos on Youtube, the XNL Audio forum and the great customer service from XLN Audio as well to help get you started.

Requirements:
PC:
Windows XP / Vista / 7
2 GHz Pentium 4
1.5 GB RAM
500 MB free harddrive space

Mac:
OS X 10.4 / 10.5 / 10.6
G5 or IntelMac
1.5 GB RAM
500 MB free harddrive space

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 5th, 2010 at 7:39 pm and is filed under Drum Software Reviews, Drum tip Manuals and Guides. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.