[donquichotte]

I have tried Hydrogen some time ago when I tried to build a linux audio workstation with Jack and Ardour.

As much as it pains me to say this, don't expect it to be even remotely as good as commercial software drum machines like EZDrummer, Superior Drummer or Studio Drummer in terms of sample quality or usability.

Generally, I found it prohibitively complicated to set up a well-working low-latency audio workstation, even though I had one of the few soundcards that had drivers for Linux (Edirol FA-101).

EDIT: That was like 5 years ago, maybe the audio landscape has changed until then. 2017, year of the Linux Audio Workstation!

2nd EDIT: Today I use Reaper on Windows. Reaper is amazing and the only reason I have Windows installed on my private computers. It is to audio editing and recording what Sublime Text is to text editing: slick, fast, inexpensive, easy to install, easy to use.

[baldfat]

EZDrummer, and the other examples are a different beast. Those are sample based drum plugins. They are made to sound like real acoustic drums. They are great and wonderful.

This is a pastern based drum machine for non-acoustic sounding drums (Usually). So you are comparing two different tools.

[squarefoot]

EZDrummer actually is a pattern+sample based drum machine like Hydrogen, while Studio Drummer uses pre-recorded audio patterns which could be wonderful to listen to but are very limiting in my opinion, even if played by world class drummers.

> This is a pastern based drum machine for non-acoustic sounding drums (Usually).

The only difference is the set of samples used. Hydrogens sample section, like soft-ROMplers such as NI Battery, has a multi layering method of arranging samples for each instruments according to the played velocity. Actually it offers even more layers than Battery so with the right set of samples it could even sound more realistic.

The only problem is the lack of free real sounding acoustic drum samples as most people don't want to use them in favor of distorted sounds with ton of effects. This is so wrong; a decent sound engineer can get the "industrial" sound out of a jazz acoustic set, but no mixing console god in the world can do the other way around. Never ever ever ever sample drums with effects, always record the samples dry and add effects afterwards when needed.

[zevv]

For me a huge change the past years was the coming of Bitwig Studio audio workstation to Linux. Commercial software, but rock solid and high quality.

[sowbug]

Slightly off-topic, but does Bitwig have a restrictive licensing scheme that makes reinstallation cumbersome? I love FL Studio because it doesn't have a limit on number of installations. As a geek, I change my main machine often, and it's so convenient to install FL Studio if I get an itch to bang something out, and not to worry about how many activations I've used up.

Ableton is a turn-off for this reason. They're actually pretty cool about adding activations if you let them know you're moving machines, but it offends me to ask permission to use something I've already paid for.

If Bitwig (1) works well on Linux, (2) works well as a DAW, and (3) doesn't dick around with activation rules, then I'd be delighted both to support them and to switch my (current) hobby workstation from Windows to Linux.

[shermanyo]

There are restrictions, but they're quite flexible. I have a main PC and a couple laptops I switch between, and have no issues.

You can activate 2 systems permanently, which is managed simply from the web UI. (revoke activations) Other systems can be activated temporarily with your email/id + pass on startup.

FWIW, the small team has been fantastic and responsive since the beginning. (I've been on the betas and helped develop some of the early controller scripts. check the community pages to see what we've done)

I got a NFR license for helping out early on, and ran into the activation limit initially. (testing on all platforms, etc...) I emailed them a few times to deactivate my current systems initially, then they added the option to their account management page.

If its a deal breaker, I suggest emailing them and seeing what they say. It wouldn't surprise me if they upped the limit or did something to help you out. They're an awesome group who really want to work with the community and users.

Not affiliated besides what I mentioned above, just a happy user. Best of luck, if you have any questions PM me or reply here if you think relevant to others :)

[sowbug]

Thanks for the comprehensive reply. The self-service activation manager sounds like a step up from Ableton. Still not as great as FL Studio's free-wheelin' attitude, but better.

[flavor8]

Do you have to jump through Jack shenanigans to get it working? Or does it just work, nicely?

[baldfat]

I don't care what OS your on. When you start talking about latency it is all a nightmare. If latency isn't an issue then Pulse Audio works totally fine.

I actually like Jack when it is concerning latency and think it is a good system. BUT it is a pain.

I used 2 separate sound cards. One is a Pro level I/O breakout box that Jack controls and the on board sound card is controlled by PulseAudio.

[tjr225]

I have no issues with latency on MacOS with absolutely zero configuration. It's one of the reasons I won't switch from MacOS to linux.

[squeaky-clean]

Likewise, none of my audio devices have required special drivers for Mac, and I can easily get 3ms latency by just plugging it in and making sure buffer size it at a minimum. I produced on Windows forever and didn't believe there would have been a noticeable difference switching to OSX.

[gens]

I find bout of your claims hard to believe as OSX has a sound architecture similar to PulseAudio.

Are the 3ms measured or is it just what OSX tells you ?

A buffer of 3ms at 48kHz holds 144 samples. That means shoveling 144 fresh samples (per channel, ofc) ~333 times a second and sending them to the sound card immediately. That may be possible if your sound card supports resampling (and minor magic) and only without a sound server (OSX uses one). Either that or you have an impressive cpu. Feel free to correct me at any point.

edit: PS This is only the program->sound_card part. Programs themselves add a ton of latency and sound cards add to it as well. In reality even 10ms is beyond perfect conditions.

[baldfat]

I have never in my life seen a Mac out perform a Window machine when it comes to latency and professional audio recording. When it comes to $100-$200 parts it comes to drivers and sometimes Mac wins and sometimes Windows wins. I have a bias that goes beyond Pro-Tools but Pro-Tools was a thing because Apple hardware was not capable of producing Professional level recording without spending thousands of dollars in their proprietary hardware.

Since Windows XP Windows and Audio Latency has not been an issue and both platforms require a lot of end user work to get lower and lower latency. The issue is really only significant for recording audio and not as much when doing live audio. Any modern platforms latency light years ahead of 2000 audio production.

The idea that Mac is better for audio or video because of the OS is marketing and not based on real life professional use of the platforms.

[baldfat]

I then question your need for low latency? OS X and MacOS requires just as much work to get to the lowest latency and your handicapped if your have an Apple laptop. Your latency will be about the same as PusleAudio on Linux if you use default OS X MacOS settings. In most real world settings Windows will get a lower latency mostly due to better hardware on a Professional setup compared to the less then top end audio of Apple. Apple machine require a lot of engineering in the software to achieve low latency.

Here is the focusrite help page dealing with latency and what you must turn off for recording. https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207546515-Op...

[squeaky-clean]

Those links are either out of date or completely incorrect. None of this has ever been necessary for me on a Mac.

Focusrite doesn't even offer Mac drivers for most of their products, as the support is built in, for example[0], so I don't know why it's advising you to update your drivers.

[0] https://us.focusrite.com/downloads?product=Scarlett+2i4

[thecrumb]

On Linux Mint - install, configure your inputs, select your soundcard/device, done. It will work fine with Alsa.

It will also support JACK but for quickly getting up and running it's about the simplest DAW I've setup on Linux configuration wise.

Not open source but I give them lots of kudos for supporting Linux from the start.

[dmix]

I haven't used Hydrogen yet but it seems to be much more than just a drum synth/simulator, such as the ones you referenced as comparison (Studio Drummer, EZDrummer, etc).

Drum machines can mix and compose a variety to samples and synth sounds, these samples can be drum kit sounds but it's not necessary. So you likely only sampled a limited portion of the functionality.

You could also always purchase high quality drum samples and use it with this OSS programs if the built in library sucks. From experience, you could accomplish quite a bit with relatively simple drum machines.

The synth products on the other hand were the thing that was complex and needs to be high quality. Which is likely what you were looking for a drum simulation.

[n00b101]

> I found it prohibitively complicated to set up a well-working low-latency audio workstation, even though I had one of the few soundcards that had drivers for Linux (Edirol FA-101).

I don't know anything about your area, but it sounds like a pre-built Linux image with realtime kernel and maybe some custom driver setup would be useful here. I use LinuxCNC [1] and they provide a super-convenient Linux image that take only a few minutes to get setup and controlling real CNC machines / robots.

[1] http://linuxcnc.org/

[ghostly_s]

There are a number of these targeted at Linux audio production: http://linux-sound.org/distro.html

[AstralStorm]

In fact, any modern PREEMPT enabled Linux can do realtime audio if you enable threadirqs=1 option, as I found out.

[Pxtl]

After hearing some oldschool electronica my 9-year old asked me about drum machines. Is there a good kid-friendly one you can recommend for win or android?

[redacted]

Check out the Teenage Engineering Pocket Operators [0], so much fun to play with. I enjoy messing around with chiptunes on my PO-20 Arcade far more than I ever did in software.

The PO-12 [1] and PO-32 [2] (if you can find one) are the two drum machines in that line up.

[0] https://teenage.engineering/products/po

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzEvGGINE20 (this guy has videos for most of the PO series)

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMk8x9fsUQE

[djaychela]

This is a browser-based drum machine with two TB-303-like units:

http://errozero.co.uk/acid-machine/

Complete with HN discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13004621

[shermanyo]

Adding to the suggestions here, there's another benefit to playing with hardware.

If they start plugging in basic effects pedals, they'll learn about signal flow and signal chains that are relevant to all styles.

There's no fundamental difference between a microphone, a guitar or a drum machine plugging in to a delay pedal. Learning the basics of EQ (bass, mid, low) gets them on the path to studio mastering if they're interested in that side later. If they decide they don't like the creative side, they have the basics to learn live sound tech or sound engineering.

Good luck and have fun :)

[squeaky-clean]

How about one in the browser? There are a lot out there, this is just the first one that came up in Google.

http://www.html5drummachine.com/

[tofflos]

Try Figure (originally by Propellerhead). It's not strictly a drum machine but it's fun to explore both from a musical and an user-interface aspect. Available for iOS and Windows.

[thom_nic]

I played with this one a bit and enjoyed it, as a novice: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mikrosonic... I also got G-Stomper during an Amazon sale although I haven't really played with it at all.

If you search the app store for "808" you'll find a lot of apps. The benefit is the original "real" 808 was relatively simple to use.

[bane]

Caustic is great, a full DAW, cheap iOS, Android, windows (free), macos(free).

[gtani]

cheap hardware (you'll probably want velocity sensitive pads) Teenage Eng Rhythm, Korg KR mini and Volca Beats, the Alesis sr 16/18, Akai makes seemingly dozens of beat makers/sequencer/samplers, others from Arturia, boss, the Roland tr09 recreation, etc.

Also DAW builtins: Ableton live DM's, garage band/Logic Pro drummers, I'm pretty sure FL studio, cubase, bitwig, reaper all have something similar

[diminish]

>> ..only reason I have Windows installed on my private computer

When you say Reaper, you lose me. I have used it for a long time and it's really the most basic of all the DAW alternatives.

[cdawzrd]

Having used both REAPER and Pro Tools professionally, my opinion is that REAPER is not basic at all -- it has every feature I have needed in a DAW, it's easy to use (for me, at least) and performs better than Pro Tools, at a far lower cost. It is one of my favorite pieces of commercial software.

[diminish]

Cost is low but 3rd party ecosystem including plugins is weak. It s like notepad++ of programming editors or winamp of music players. Effective, cheap, non innovative Yet OK.

[sean_appleby]

I've only used Ableton, FL and Reason, so there could be something I'm missing, but doesn't Reaper support vsts? How could the ecosystem for plugins possibly be weak?

[eon1]

VST/3/AU/DX, and it supports scripting your own in JS as well. Unless they're upset about not having LADSPA or Nyquist, I can't imagine what else they'd be referring to that isn't proprietary AVID garbage.

[pierrec]

REAPER's feature set is huge, it's also one of the most customizable DAWs I've used. I know this kind of thing is pretty subjective, but even then, there is no way I could possibly call it "basic" compared to the most popular DAWs out there.

[diminish]

It's effective, cheap but non innovative and a me too product. I bet it won't exist in 10 years in DAW business. It's feature set is a "me too" set of everything which exists with minimal innovative features on top.

please don't misunderstand. I have no horse in this race. I like Reaper as much as I liked WinZip , winamp or Notepad++. But I wouldn't say it's enough to keep Windows installed on a private computer.

[squeaky-clean]

> I bet it won't exist in 10 years in DAW business.

It's already 11 years old... [0]

> It's feature set is a "me too" set of everything which exists with minimal innovative features on top.

I don't even feel like getting into this, but it looks like the troll is winning: Parameter Modulation, unlimited nesting/grouping/takes. Dynamically create and split audio channels on one track. Mixing of MIDI and Audio in one track. Video editing support. Surround Sound and (more multichannel) mixing. Scriptable with LUA. Includes it's own DSP scripting language (Jesusonic) with hundreds of included (and source available) tools made with it. Great support for odd or rapidly changing time signatures. Rock solid latency compensation (looking at you, Ableton). Ability to undo even after saving (looking at you again, Ableton). Completely theme-able.

Reaper isn't a perfect DAW, none of them are. But it's up there with the rest and has some features others can only dream of.

> But I wouldn't say it's enough to keep Windows installed on a private computer.

Reaper is officially supported on OSX and unofficially supported on Linux. Many VSTs run fine under Wine.

[0] http://www.reaper.fm/download-old.php?ver=0x&skip=100

[diminish]

I m referring to GP comment saying he keeps Windows just for Reaper and you validate my point. And I m talking about the next 10 years obviously. Reaper is a clean, neat, easy to use DAW with many features for beginner and intermediate user. It s a very well written piece of software with a fair price.

Are you really using it for professional work or have seen anyone use it? And what are some features other DAWs can dream of; the ones you counted above?

[iamdave]

>Are you really using it for professional work or have seen anyone use it?

Checking in. My side-gig and paid hobby is live production, and Reaper has more than earned it's place in my toolbelt. I've recorded shows produced for sxsw showcases (not to mention two years touring as a FOH guy, and producing for a major political event on the east coast-guess what? I used Reaper for all of them) and made master mixes that ended up on CD's sold by national, headlining bands with Reaper.

I think you are horrendously mischaracterizing and underestimating the tool-and from reading your other comments to people providing you with substantial and verifiable feedback as to the capabilities of the software, extensibility, platform support, feature sets compared to more expensive DAWs, it appears you're doing so deliberately.

[squeaky-clean]

> I have used it for a long time and it's really the most basic of all the DAW alternatives.

You clearly haven't. The only possible way there's a shred of truth to this sentence is if you're referring to the included sample-sets/virtual instruments compared to other DAWs, which Reaper doesn't include many of.

[diminish]

you are wrong. I have.

[NTripleOne]

Well that clears that up then doesn't it.

[RileyKyeden]

It comes with hundreds of effects, supports scripting, and has a huge library of user add-ons: http://stash.reaper.fm/

You must have a different definition of basic. I've never felt limited by Reaper.

[diminish]

Maybe You have never asked anything beyond basic DAW features. It lacks a live ecosystem and community too.

[rhizome]

What do you mean by "live ecosystem?"

Also, have you seen https://www.reddit.com/r/Reaper/