Toontrack Superior Drummer 2.0 – Estimated price: $179 (on sale) – Superior Drummer is Toontrack’s more advanced version of EZdrummer, and it works with EZdrummer 2 expansion libraries. Addictive drums can be used as a plugin as as a standalone program. It has three custom drum kits, and features a Transient Shaper and Tone Designer and some included effects to fine-tune your sound.

It comes with an extensive virtual drum library with 55GB of sounds.Īddictive Drums 2 – Estimated price: $149 – If you’re looking for an extensive library of included beats, XLN Audio’s Addictive Drums 2 comes with over 5000 MIDI grooves ready to go. BFD3 works as a plugin and as standalone software. It has a fully-editable groove engine to make creating custom grooves quick and easy. It comes with 7 drum kits, with dedicated rock, metal, jazz, and brush kits. There are tons of expansion packs for additional drum kits covering a wide range of genres.įXpansion BFD3 – Estimated price: $349 – Another top choice is BFD3. It works as a plugin and standalone program. The base version comes with 5 drum kits, two sound libraries, some MIDI grooves, and a mixer with effects. It’s very simple to use and yet it offers a number of advanced features.

Toontrack EZdrummer 2 – Estimated price: $149 – EZdrummer is one of the most popular drum production software programs. There are some MIDI mapping presets available to use it with other drum programs as well. MT Power Drum Kit 2 is available in VST and AU formats in 32 and 64 bit versions. MT Power Drum Kit 2 – A former paid plugin, MT Power Drum Kit 2 has a number of included features, such as a built-in mixer and a bunch of high-quality MIDI grooves. DrumMic’a works with the free version of Kontakt 5 Player. It just requires setting up a free account to register the softwrae. Sennheiser DrumMic’a – A surprisingly high-quality free drum kit plugin with variable mics, a mixer, and a number of included MIDI loops. Some have more expansion packs than others, some offer larger MIDI libraries (ready-to-use drum loops), and others have more advanced editing and mixing tools. There are several good choices when it comes to drum software. You can use MIDI keyboards and drum pads to trigger drum sounds, and connect e-drum kits like the Alesis DM10 to play virtual drums in real time with an electronic drum set. You can create custom kits and sounds with endless variations. It’s amazing how realistic virtual drum software has become over the years.ĭrum software is also surprisingly versatile. Unless you plan on mastering the technique of recording an acoustic drum kit and finding a drummer to play for you all the time, having a good drum software plugin is one of the most important aspects of music creation.

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