With the release of Battery 2 Native Instruments had a lot to live up to. Drum synths like FXpansion's BFD and LinPlug RMIV went far beyond the original drum synths or sample playback programmers.
Good: * lots of new capabilities for editing the actual sample * 3.5 gb library of extended drum sounds including a fantastic sine wave kit and orchestral percussion as well as the standard all around useful drum kits. * you can program kits or even specific drums; say all your snares in the 72 cell interface. the cells can be reduced to a row of 12. * easy drum open, previously used and import/export handling * cell, map, mod, filter, compression and loop windows in a tabbed area of the interface * more import options like Rex and Intakt files loading as individual drums
Bad * still no drum programmer! * sometimes hard to find where you are in the interface
The thing that makes Battery 2.0 vastly better than it's prior version is the depth of editing one can use. If the list of features weren't enough the cell area has improved as well. Mouse over a kit and you get the basic information on each drum including assigned key. Right click and there are many utility and workflow capabilities.
The sound is better as well which is good because everything is exceptional from Battery's competitors.
What it comes down to is how you work. BFD has a 3 part system, drum selection, studio modeling and grooves. It also has 2 expansions, the 22gb BFD XFL which adds to the real sounding drums in a huge way, and the 12gb 8 bit kit, the latter a great combination of African and Latin percussion mixed with truly inspired TR808 and 909 samples, some played through studio speakers and the room miked. The 8gb of original sounds are also wonderful and deeply designed with four to six different articulations and many humanizing controls which can be abused to make wild sounds.
RMIV has a similar GUI to Battery but features more drum sounds of high quality but less layering. That is made up by the generous library of beats available along with a great output section with a very respectable distortion that sounds warm to mean.
However Battery has stuck to their guns and developed the apex of drum tweaking. You can use a sound as a pitched instrument or drum kit. Sampled sounds are still 128 levels, do you hear each one? No, but your audio software can prove it. If you want to tweak, think differently or want to be the master of your drum's domain Battery 2 is for you. It is a wonderful tool for making songs using looped segments or just triggering song parts and with the addition of more cells, the ability to play a song or kit that essentially gives you a song in a system.
Samples are 24 bit and able to use all kinds of bit configurations and imported formats. This will end up being a big area of contention in 2005 I suspect.
The review before is similar but still mostly is true of the Battery concept. The time spent on the competition was spent out of respect, as they have their own unique features, but Battery has made a comeback. The once neglected drum kit is now a bit ahead in it's sample editing functions with a good set of features and quality sounds. It will appeal to it's old audience and should pick up a few new drum mavens.
The only serious omission is a drum programmer. I can't think of a drum kit more deserving! Ah well, at least N.I. has a contender again.
- - - -
update 2.21.03
An excellent drum sampler but much more, battery can do a number of smartly developed sample based effects including looping, sample manipulation, pretty much everything you'd want from a drum synth, better yet Battery can be far more. You can set up pitched sounds over as many intervals as you want, you can use huge samples, you can layer and modulate at will, and you are doing so at the sample level.
The interface is good if not a little like a spreadsheet but it's very functional and simple to learn. There's enough here to appeal to users at the novice to pro level. As time moves on Battery has some serious contenders to deal with, particularly Fxspansion's DR-008. The thing serious drum designers will love about Battery are it's huge number of layers per cell. The included samples and kits are impressive as are the new sample libraries.
Pros: good interface, smart selection of editing and effect tools, low system resources Cons: a bit large but with 54 cells, aging quickly and seemingly neglected
I've created orchestral sequences, rendered to .wav and mixed classical music fragments in Battery, pretty cool for a sampling drum machine. :) You can easily develop entire songs in Battery.
Depending on your sampling needs this may be all you need. Not to be too harsh but user requests have been requested yet a year has passed and no improvements have been made. Smaller companies are able to dedicate their resources so even though Battery is still a fine drum sampler some users may feel abandoned.Read Review
