XLN Audio's Addictive Drums has a strong reputation in the drum sampler market, offering a good balance between ease-of-use and tweakability and - most importantly - enabling you to create realistic-sounding drum parts without too much bother.
Now, version 2 is upon us, offering "more world-class instruments, more amazing sound shaping features, more tools for rhythm creation and transformation, and total freedom to pick only the kits and add-ons that are right for you".
It seems that XLN Audio's business model has changed slightly; you now get the core Addictive Drums 2 engine with every add-on kit pack that's available, and you can also purchase Artist, Producer and XXL Studio bundles that enable you to choose the sample, MIDI and kitpiece content that's most suitable.
Improvements in Addictive Drums 2 are listed below - at first glance, this seems like a pretty major update - and you can find out more on the XLN Audio website. A demo is available for download, while the cheapest Artist Bundle costs €179.95. Each AD2 ADPAK costs €89.95.
Addictive Drums 2 feature higlights
Sound-shaping improvements
- Our new Transient Shaper gives more or less 'snap' to individual kitpieces or your overall drum mix.
- The new Tone Designer makes a drum sound more or less dampened, letting you add or remove ringing with ease.
- Two Delerb processors combine Delay and Reverb effects that are ideal for drums. A unique 'Swirl' thickening feature and advanced EQ give sound designers lots of exciting new options.
- Six additional Kitpiece Slots let you build kits with up to 18 individual drums.
- New FlexiSlots let you load additional Kicks, Snares, HiHats, and more.
- Kitpiece Linking lets you easily link drums for a fatter sound.
- Specialty "Trigger" Kitpieces (sine waves, white noise, one shot drum samples, etc.) open up a world of new sound design options. You can link them to acoustic drums to give more "oomph" or even use them on their own to create new analog and digital drum machine sounds!
- New Response section lets you tweak performances to fit them into a mix.
- Two MultiFX inserts on every channel for even more sound design options.
- New 4 band EQ with additional Low and High cut controls.
New beat creation tools
- New Beat Transformer lets you tweak any existing rhythm to make it fit into a track and to make it uniquely yours. No more cookie-cutter beats!
- New Grid Search system lets you quickly find the beat you hear in your head!
- Improved Beats Browser lets you easily browse beats to find your inspiration.
- The Record MIDI feature saves time by letting you record MIDI directly from your host software into Addictive Drums 2.
Workflow enhancements
- You can now Drag'n'Drop Audio directly from the Addictive Drums 2 engine. Play a drum—or even a whole rhythm if you like—and simply drag it as an audio file straight into your music software's timeline or desktop.
- New "Sound Ideal" search system lets you sort all your presets from 'clean' to 'distorted' to help you narrow down and find the right sounds quickly.
- Snapshots makes A/B comparisons super easy. Take snapshots of all your settings and instantly recall any four snapshots instantly.
- New CloudSync system means your presets are always up to date and with you no matter where you choose to work.
- Standalone version of AD2 is your perfect jamming companion. Fire it up quickly and start playing along without dealing with your music software. The new Tempo control makes it easy to adapt beats to your needs.
- Many improved Copy/Paste features.
- New great sounding presets and ExploreMaps for all your existing kits lets you get your drum track sounding great in no time.
- All Presets now include a MIDI preview to let you hear the preset played as the sound designer imagined. Use it to find inspiration or write all new music.
- Users can now preview all ADpaks and MIDIpaks (even ones they don't own) from directly from Addictive Drums 2.
