May be Jamstix is an option too. I prefer it to all of those MIDI file drummers especially now that I can use it with the Melda Drum Empire 2020 library.
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Thanks for the recommendation Tom! I read thru the documentation - very interesting project. The author is a big fan of Cantabile too!
I’ve installed beatz, but it doesn’t come with MIDI drum loops. Can you recommend a good source for midi drum loop files?
Cheers - David
I’ve downloaded a trial version of EZDrummer 2, but haven’t had a chance to try it yet. Thanks for the recommendation!
I haven’t heard of UJam before. I will check it out. Cheers!
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Drum loop files: google is your friend.
Author of topiary Beatz is indeed fan of Cantabile - I’m the author 
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I’ve used Jamstix for Hammond organ trio practice. I don’t know how much time and learning effort are needed for the other drum apps/VST’s recommended, Jamstix is actually a very sophisticated drum “brain” that the developer has been working on a long time.
When I first started using it the drumming was much busier than I anticipated and sometimes somewhat wild. Once I learned to tame it down I’ve been getting good results.
If you ever decide on Jamstix go to the forum and post a video link to what you’re trying to achieve with it and the developer, Ray, and several other active forum members will help you.
What’s good about Jamstix is the drumming isn’t static, the Jamstix “player” will do things slightly differently (if you don’t lock the part down) each play through but not randomly, it’s things an actual drummer would do. In fact you assign drummer styles through choosing the player, Gavin, for example and that “player” will tend to play in the style that drummer is know for.
Here’s an older thread post I wrote about Jamstix: Using Jamstix 4 with Cantabile3
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XO from XLN audio is excellent if you like samples. It’s on sale right now too. Amazing software.
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UJAM and BFD are my drum tools
I was either the first or second ever post on Ralph’s user forum. The product has come a long way since then. Was using it with Toontrack’s DFHS sounds in the early days…
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XO is “Xcellent”. If you have lots of sample hits especially but hate digging through them.
I think Corky is available between the hours of 9 pm and 1 am for the right price 
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Those are my normal hours…for sure.
I bought a few Jamstix add-ons to improve the built in drum sounds and get more player styles. At first I was mapping it to Superior Drummer but once I had the Bonzo Pak I just stick with that - the kick, snare, toms and hi-at are good enough for rock.
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Hi Tom,
I finally had some time to play around with Topiary Beatz - very nice! Sorry I didn’t realize you were the author!
I did use Google to help me find drum loops, but organizing them is proving to be a challenge. I think I might need to load some of the loops into a DAW and parse them for Intro, Verse, Chorus etc. Is that typical?
I have a question about saving various styles in Cantabile. Is it typical to save them as Songs or as PlugIn Snapshots? I should state that, at this point I am running Topiary and MT Power Drums on a separate machine/instance of Cantabile. Basically I have a ‘dedicated’ machine for drums. It’s not ideal, but I found I was having issues with latency when I tried to run all my keyboard VSTs and the drums on the same machine.
Thanks for any advice - and thanks for Topiary!
- David
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I use the Bonzo Pack kit dry on my recordings and mix/add reverb/etc. I use drummers/styles from many different packs. I really like the product in general.
I also used Bonzo Pak a lot and Superior/Addictive Drummers before but I didn’t follow up with upgrades of the latter two so Bonzo Pak gave nice results too.
Now I’m trying out MELDAs Drum Empire 2020 sounds (ca. 60 GB) that I got for free since I bought MDrummer years ago.
In Jamstix for me it still takes too long to get the fills right though I know what I’m doing in principle.
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I also use the dry version of the Bonzo kit.
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- I have found midi libraries that separate chorus/verse/bridge/intro/end drum loops - Can’t remember where I found them but if you PM me I’ll look in my archives.
- I save these things as songs instead of plugin snapshots. I have a playlist of dozens of “songs”: and several of those have their own Topiary instances. I have plenty of memory and the footprint op a Topiary plugin is minimal, really. Snapshots should work equally well though but I’ve never tried it.
You could take a look at GrooveMonkee’s offerings: they have tons of MIDI files that are arranged into full songs and structured by song section. They’re not free, but reasonably priced, IMO.
Toontrack also have a tons of really good MIDI libraries - a number of these are also structured by song section. Great to use with EZDrummer and DFH Superior, but also very usable as stand-alone MIDI files.
Cheers,
Torsten
Thanks for posting this! I was not aware of them, but they have product mappings to Superior and Slate 5 so relevant for me. I’ve purchased some of the Toontrack stuff and while its good, its a bit frustrating because the basic groove is often in one library and the fills in another… Makes them a bit more $ in the short run but alienates some folks like me.
BTW, the Slate 5 freebie is worth the download IMO if you don’t have Slate already. Even includes a few midi grooves with verse, chorus, pre-chorus, fill, end, etc…