There can be little question that stand-alone sound modules are quickly becoming a thing of the past, although the writing has been on the wall for a number of years now. E-MU systems for instance has stopped producing hardware modules and now only offers their most popular sound sets in software form.
Software sound sources, or VSTi's have however been slow to catch on in electronic drumming circles, and for very good reasons:
- Cost -
Unlike simple synths, realistic drum sounds require a ton of processing power, gobs of ram and dedicated external hard drives. You can easily wind up dropping a few grand on what is effectively just a drum brain. By contrast you can pick up a top-of-the-line brain from Roland, Yamaha or Alesis for a fraction of that.
- Complexity -
As drummers we already have a lot to worry about on stage. Dealing with a finicky laptop and software up there doesn't exactly equal fun. Plus you'll now wind up walking around before and after the gig with a laptop strapped to your back (you're not going to really leave that expensive machine on an unguarded stage between sets, are you?).
- Road Ruggedness -
Most dedicated sound modules are built like tanks. They power up instantly and have next to zero lag time between changing patches. None of this can be said for software solutions.
Despite all these impediments, VSTi's are slowing gaining ground in the edrumming community, due to their hyper realism and flexibility. Crossover products such as the
Alesis DM-10 are starting to emerge which allow limited uploading of VST instruments.
Zendrummers seem to be quicker to pick up the VSTi torch, mostly owing to the facts that we already have a lot less to lug around and setup and therefore have more wiggle room for allowing excess complexity to sneak in. Plus we don't require external MIDI interfaces or even dedicated drum modules and can get by solely with using a laptop solution.
Enter the
Muse Receptor. These machines quickly have become favorites among Zendrummers for their ability to run full VSTi suites and for their convenient rack mount form factor. These machines are not without problems however. I've read numerous reports of hardware problems and apparently Muse customer support can be spotty. These are basically Linux machines crammed into a full rack space and weren't spec'ed aggressively enough considering their price tags. For instance, while the Receptor was able to handle running the popular
BFD VSTi, it was not able to cope with the newer BFD2 version. To run that, you'd have to shell out another $3k for a Receptor
2. Ouch.
Smaller, cheaper, more reliable products have been popping up from time to time, but all have proven to be vaporware. However one such product that was previously assumed to never make it to market apparently has, the SM Pro Audio
V-Machine. While the initial offering here isn't quite ready for the stage, it's very exciting to finally see a proper successor to the Receptor coming of age. Still on their "coming soon" list is a rack mount version of the V-Machine, with proper balanced XLR connections. If this product also turns out to not be vaporware, then this could usher in a new age in electronic percussion. No doubt Roland, Alesis and Yamaha will continue to sell standalone drum modules, but they are going to have to play some serious catch-up to grab a piece of the VSTi market.
It's truly an exciting time to be an edrummer.
About
