Every Engine, Pad and sample Layer boasts its own mixing controls and effects inserts, while the 64-track sequencer features parameter automation in the form of FXpansion’s superb TransMod system, as well as adjustable lane lengths, micro-timing offset and the ability to string patterns together into Scenes, which in turn are laid out as songs. Geist 2’s enormous hierarchical architecture allows for the simultaneous operation of up to eight ‘Engines’, each one an independent instance of the entire instrument, with 64 Pads each hosting up to eight samples for velocity layering or random/round-robin triggering, and a built-in loop slicer mapping slices across Pads, REX file style. It’s also endlessly expandable beyond the impressive core sound library (and your own samples, of course) via NI’s ever-growing range of genre-based Expansions.įXpansion’s MPC-inspired workstation boasts enough sampling, sequencing and processing power to facilitate the production of complete tracks in isolation, should you want to use it for that – but its primary purpose is the creation of beats and grooves.

Refining the workflow and functionality established by the preceding iterations, Battery 4 is a deceptively deep, beautifully stratified virtual drum and percussion system that’s an absolute pleasure to work with. Individual Cells can output to any of four group busses or 32 direct outs for collective processing, and send to global reverb and delay effects and a variety of MIDI processors enable tweaking of velocity response, automatic triggering of drum rudiments and other articulations, humanising and more. Each one of up to 128 colourable ‘Cells’ (pads) houses one or more velocity-layered samples, and affords access to a plethora of editing and processing parameters, including timestretching, saturation and vintage sampler emulation, compression, transient shaping, EQ and filtering, tuning, panning and modulation. The original ‘serious’ sample-based software drum instrument and still very much one of the best, Battery 4 is our only list entrant that doesn’t include any form of onboard sequencing – it’s all about racking up, processing and mixing samples for MIDI triggering standalone or in-DAW.

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