Members franknputer Posted May 9, 2007 Members Share Posted May 9, 2007 Hey gang, Thought I'd drop a note: I stumbled across a group buy for Rayzoon's Jamstix. It only lasts for about 4 more days, and they're at $97 for the current version, all their expansion packs, and a free upgrade to v.2 when it comes out. I've heard people talk about it for some time now, and I looked at the videos for this program on the website. It looks pretty cool, especially for someone like me who likes more realistic drums that what I can program by hand. Any of y'all use the program? What do you think of it, good or bad? I'm thinking of jumping on board myself. Seems like a good buy, and if some more folks get on board it'll get even cheaper... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members franknputer Posted May 10, 2007 Author Members Share Posted May 10, 2007 Well, after messing with the demo for awhile yesterday I jumped in. Pretty cool plugin - fairly easy to get decent-sounding drums programmed very quickly, & the Free Jam thing is interesting - with conservative settings, it really livens things up nicely. The group buy is up to 123 people @ $97. 2 more drops it down to $90... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members birdg735 Posted May 10, 2007 Members Share Posted May 10, 2007 I jumped in over the weekend -- I was waiting for v2 due sometime in the summer primarily because it will directly support odd time sigs. However, with the group buy including a free upgrade when released, and a potential price of $69, no reason to hold off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members franknputer Posted May 11, 2007 Author Members Share Posted May 11, 2007 I jumped in over the weekend -- I was waiting for v2 due sometime in the summer primarily because it will directly support odd time sigs. However, with the group buy including a free upgrade when released, and a potential price of $69, no reason to hold off. Agreed - even now, at $90, it's a helluva deal! (Still, I'd like to see some more folks get on board in the next 3 days! ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members franknputer Posted May 11, 2007 Author Members Share Posted May 11, 2007 Wow - up to 145 people this morning! 6 more & we drop to $83! w00t! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ultravibe Posted May 11, 2007 Members Share Posted May 11, 2007 So this is a program that plays the drums to your MIDI tracks? Have I got that right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members franknputer Posted May 11, 2007 Author Members Share Posted May 11, 2007 As I understand it, it's a drum sample player that pulls from sets of rhythms (MIDI loops I guess) but also has an artificial intelligence component that allows it to vary different things along the way - adding hits/fills, changing attack, etc. You can control the likelihood of how often it varies the main beat, as well as how "flamboyant" the variations are. There's also a programmer where you can load several loops at once & program them per measure, like this: Say you have 3 loops, call them 8-hat, 16-hat, & tom-tom; you can open the programmer, which is a simple grid, and play 8-hat 5 times; set loop #1 as "intro", then set loop #5 to play a fill (different fills start on different beats of the bar), then play 16-hat 4 times, filling on loop #2 & #4, back to 8-hat for 4 times again, then maybe play tom-tom 8 times for the bridge... Get it? It's very quick to set the loops to follow your arrangement, and then introduce variances where you want them. Also, it's really weird ability is to read either incoming MIDI or audio signal & "jam" with it, following the music sent to it. This seems cool if you have dynamic changes - if the middle of the song gets quiet, then Jamstix starts hitting softer, even changing to a side-stick snare if you want; conversely, if things start kicking up then Jamstix can start playing more aggresively too. I've only fiddled with the demo a bit, & watched the tutorial videos - but it seems like a really cool way to get some life into drum tracks, without having to micro-program every aspect. I've been using loops exclusively lately, to get a more drummer-like feel - but it's really hard to get fills & variances in there too. This seems to take care of that problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members franknputer Posted May 11, 2007 Author Members Share Posted May 11, 2007 Couple of things I should add: It's a Windows-only VSTi (Sorry, Mac guys - it's written in Delphi, so they can't compile it for Mac, although they might change it in the future), and it can send MIDI out to other VSTi's - so if you have something like BFD, EZDrummer, etc. you can use the Jamstix brain to "play" your other drums as you like. There's a long thread about Jamstix & the group buy over at the KVR forums - the developer is there, along with some advanced users, who are better at explaining this stuff than I am. **They just hit 152 buyers, so it's now $83! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members franknputer Posted May 12, 2007 Author Members Share Posted May 12, 2007 Latest word: the 176 user mark has been passed - we're now at $76! Less than 2 dozen more people need to sign up, and we hit the magic number! May I say again...w00t! Group buys rawk! :phil: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members franknputer Posted May 12, 2007 Author Members Share Posted May 12, 2007 Cool! They broke 200, for a final price of $69! (Psst - they're still taking orders...jump in by tomorrow, or let it pass you by...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members birdg735 Posted May 14, 2007 Members Share Posted May 14, 2007 The group buy has been extended through Friday (5/18) and has reached the 300 + level -- so some extra time if anyone thought they had missed it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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