AudioRealism Drum Machine: ANOTHER couple of weeks

From May 28th to June to July to August and now another few weeks.

I KNOW they won't disappoint, they must be making some drastically important changes to it. Okay, i'll wait patiently

I've been waiting for this one too. I love how they take the good points of the instrument they're basing their software on, but improve the horrible original interface. (like Bassline does)

There is another company that makes 808, 909, and 303 clones called D16. Their software sounds incredibly good, and they add a lot of cool features to the emulations, but they leave in a similar interface to the originals, which I'm not completely fond of.

I tested both d16's TRs yesterday and this was the exact thing that made me quickly dismiss them. We have all these inches of real estate and people still work with the constraints of 20 years ago. They sounded good though. But I knew i was going to get tired of the interface.

To be fair, you can turn off the internal sequencer, and use a piano roll, (which is how I do most of my music anyway. However, what I like about Bassline is its ability to use its internal sequencer, (in a way that makes sense,) and stretch a nice long note out over the amount of measure I want that pattern to play. It's simple, elegant, and fun. I find I've been a bit more creative with my pattern making with it because it has an internal sequencer. This definitely isn't the case for the D16 synths. I like using them in the piano roll as a good source of analogish drums, but it would be cool if they had a standard, easily accessible 16 note sequencer for each drum sound. Anyway, I haven't decided whether or not to purchase them for myself yet. I'll wait to see the AudioRealism Drum Machine first.

As a burgeoning vsti dev, I can tell you firsthand that things always take longer than you think, even when you think they'll take longer than you think.

Why do software try so hard to look like a picture of real hardware, with switches, pots and all? Simple marketing? Lack of self-confidence?

It can go either way. I think in the case of the X0X machines, they want to be as "authentic" as possible, so that the people who are into these machines will feel at home, picture authenticity in their minds (when making a purchasing decision perhaps,) etc.

I've also seen UIs go the opposite way, and try to be too computer-esque, which can also make the synth feel less like an instrument.

There are a few things that get the look, feel, and functionality right in my opinion. Native Massive, Zeta+, and Bassline come to mind.

This one makes me feel right at home.

I tried the D16 machines, and a couple of the individual drum sounds never sounded quite right on the 909 replica.

I think Bassline sounds great, so with hoping that Audiorealism pull it off, it will be nice to have a decent sounding 808/909 drum machine simulation again (since I don't bother with Rebirth anymore - and while Microtonic and DKS Pro are great in their own right, they are not 808/909 clones).

Tried the D16's, all of em, and my friend was so impressed he purchased all 3.

Now i get to play around with em, as long as i pick up the bill for drum machine when it comes out